Should I embrace white hair at 47?

[Silverparting]

I found my first grey at 19. Have naturally dark brown hair, eyes and very pale skin. Dark brown eyebrows.

I've been dyeing my hair for 30 years. For a long time I've gone to the hairdresser for a number 6 permanent dark brown base, coupled with a blonde tsection every five weeks, cost £80. It looks great for a week, goes brassy and the greys come after two weeks.

In lockdown I've been dyeing my hair with Majirel a 7.3 in a bid to go lighter. I have to do my roots every two weeks! Even then there's a white spot at the back and I don't love the colour.

I'd say my hair is white and I am toying with the idea of growing it out, but then adding blonde highlights once it is all white, if I don't like it.

I have just started Curly Girl and was amazed to see some great results after a week. It's made me enjoy my hair again.

I'm so fed up of dyeing my hair every two weeks and not loving it.

Has anybody gone white, not just grey, in their 40s? I think if I was slate grey it might be easier.

Attached is a pic of my blorange and root growth after less than two weeks. This was pre curly girl so ignore the frizz. Have NC as still embarrassed about hair.

Balls to that

As with all things in life .

I also thought the women in the article mainly looked a little better with natural hair colour. But that's pretty subjective.

The point is, why is it that women are so often expected to do things they get nothing out of, so they look nicer? Again, I know some people love it and do it for themselves. But when women who have had enough of dying their hair or whatever, decide to stop, why are some people so utterly horrified? It's a sort of collective madness imo, honestly.

I have a similar thread on the go, I'm 5 years older than you but similarly, despite using a proper salon have ended up with browns that go orangey and blonde that goes brassy. Before lockdown I had moved to highlights which deliberately let some of the grey/ white through - thank heavens I had as it was easy to grow it out in lockdown.
More to the point, the style in your second photo after a week of curly girl looks amazing - I'm off to investigate

Some of the women in the Guardian article look significantly better with grey hair. Not younger, but better because their hair has a natural variety of tones and highlights instead of being a solid block of colour (which frankly looks unnatural on some of them) and complements their skin tones better. The curly hair in the photo you've picked out looks fabulous.

@Silverparting

I saw this transformation online of a fellow 47 year old and thought I might try something like this:

I like that look a lot. She looks a lot happier imo. Again, I know it's subjective!

I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said of a man that grey hair ages them.

Be careful if you are going natural, things like straightners can turn your hair yellow from the heat used.

During this last year I've been thinking a lot about my financial situation, which is precarious as I'm self-employed and have really inadequate pension provision.

My husband is in the same(ish) situation, though with much better pension provision thanks to not taking a career break to have children. We've been talking about expenditure etc and it struck me that - not only am I disadvantaged financially as a woman who took time out from work to have children - I'm also under this insidious social pressure to spend hundreds of pounds a year of what little money I do have on some doomed quest to appear younger than I am. As if looking my age (50) is somehow a bit embarrassing, or akin to having given up.

Men generally do not feel this pressure. They generally don't spend their (generally larger) income on desperately trying to conform to an idealised image society has created for them.

I'm not sure I love my emerging grey... but like you OP, I resent the time, effort and money required to get rid of it. All of those resources are precious and there are other things I'd rather spend them on. I haven't given up - I still love clothes (mostly eBay sourced these days) and make up and can't wait to getting back to my old exercise routine next week, but I'm done with stuff that is a time-sucking, pain-in-the-ass money vortex. I'm going to work on changing my self-perception rather than my hair colour.

So true @BeforetheFlood. A great point and a great post.

Every single woman in that guardian article looked better in the before pictures. Every single one.

I thought all bar one looked far better natural! If I were you OP I would try it. Everyone I know who has curly grey or white hair looks great. I have dead straight hair and don't dye yet (at almost fifty) which makes things easier in a way but I have lost so much hair! I would much rather have lots of good-condition white hair than thinning hair that doesn't need dyeing.

My hair is fine and badly damaged from heat and dye.

Since leaving it curly and changing my styling etc. it's completely changed how I feel about my natural wave. I held off as I was told it was old fashioned/ageing, but I love it now.

I agree about block colour. Mine never has any multi tonal dimensions and I miss that about natural colour.

I found this on the Bored Panda site and I think her hair looks great.

I feel a little samey with orangey hair and hoping that grey might funk up my hair.

All the grey photos look great and not old at all.
I don't like blocky dye colour, it's so flat and one dimensional.
However, it's so hard to be objective about your own looks. I find zoom/teams calls has really done a number on my self esteem. I HATE how I look now.
(Not sure where I'm going with this, but just to say that lockdown hasn't helped with the aging process). You look nice in all your pics so maybe focus on doing whatever you want, rather than what anyone else thinks.

I like the fact that my hair isn't samey Sliverparting.
I work in a school which is mostly women and only 2 of us has grey hair.
I also was able to go back to wearing black without looking like Id just been dug up.

I began to go grey in my late teens. By the time I was 25 it was snow white all over. It stayed thick, didn’t thin at all. I wear it in a shoulder length bob that curls at the bottom.. Lost track of the number of people who ask where I get my hair coloured SO platinum blonde .

Best of all......no roots to bother about.

The photo with the phone is my hair now, )slightly messy ) the other is when I bleached it and toned it silver. The colours in it now are so much nicer not to mention the condition.

The colour is really lovely cocolapew

I very much agree Candleabra but I think we've all been through such a weird year that it's bigger than greying hair. I hate what I see when i look in the mirror now, but I have a feeling that has as much to do with mostly not bothering with make up, trying to make my (greying) hair last for 3 days instead of washing it every other day like I did back in Normaltimes, wearing unflattering comfort clothes, and being almost a stone heavier than I was at the start of 2020. I'm really hoping that once things open up and we can rejoin the world I'll regain a bit of lost spark.

It's tempting to focus on the grey as the biggest and most instantly 'fixable' thing, but honestly, I reckon we can look - and FEEL - good in a future-facing way rather than trying to recreate younger versions of ourselves.

Thanks Itsallhere

Feeling and looking good in a future facing way rather than trying to recreate old versions of ourselves,
What a great way to put it beforetheflood

No, I was dark and hairdresser started tinting it to cover the greys. Eventually I started doing it myself but I couldn't keep up with it.

New hairdresser told me I needed to go lighter and he's been colouring it for the last few years. I am now blonde but haven't had it coloured since October so I now have about three inches of grey/white hair and it's absolutely awful. I feel so old!

Get yourself a decent hairdresser and have it done professionally. It will look so much better!

Just before lock down a trend started in our school where so many of the mums were getting their hair dyed Grey so they could just fall into being grey. It looked fab on all of them. Since lockdown I've seen two people go grey and it hugely suited them but I've also seen people look really washed out by it. My sister started to go grey and we all talked her out of it as it took the spark away from her (plus we know how happy she always is after getting her hair dyed!!) If you're happy to then go for it, especially if you're thrilled with the condition of your hair (yay!). I would agree with one of the other posters that the darker colour is beautiful though!

I'm 60 with mousy brown colour hair, had highlighted light blonde hair for 40 years, decided to grow it over lockdown and go natural, have been having less lights put in as i got older, but now I feel drab, I have no grey hair maybe a tiny few round the hair line you can hardly see them, keep reading you should go lighter as you get older, but if your hair is on the dark side do that meen all dark haired woman who haven't gone grey dye their hair light.

The dark brown looks great on you, my hairdresser consulted a technical person when my colour used to fade too quickly and she sorted it out.
My twopennyworth - I am contemplating same - at 48 if I decide to go grey it is likely it won't be 'forever' (dm has gone back and forth for 30 years). Its just a choice.

• we do exist in our culture, so however much we abhor beauty standards, we still know that our appearance will affect how we feel /whether we get the job/a myriad of micro interactions and how we feel when we look in the mirror (just like the decision whether to wear makeup up never/for the interview/night out/every day. It's a choice, complicated by social politics and by society. Luckily we are now at least free to choose.

I have my mum's baby face skin so I think I'm going to stay blonde and make the most of not looking my age.

I’m a similar age to you and I’ve pretty much decided to go with the white that’s coming through. I don’t really like the colour of dyed reddy, orange hair, it never looks quite right.

A work colleague took me aside to point out that it’s ridiculous not to dye my hair as I’ll look older. I don’t think I care! I can’t be doing with the expense or time that dying takes.

If I could have white hair overnight I would. There is no point dying it white as that would take time and money and frazzle me hair.

Another work colleague has gone from bottled black to natural grey during lockdown. She looks so cool now. Stunning. It was a bit harsh before .

Lovely hair @cocolapew