Nobody likes my greying hair!

[Sidebeforeself]

Decided to embrace my natural grey ( for many reasons!) Im entering that really tricky stage where I have a big stripe so feeling self conscious but know I have to grin and bear it. But what’s not helping is how many negative comments Im getting from friends and family. Things like Im too young to do it (54) , it’s not professional for work etc. I know DH not keen .

I realise other opinions don’t matter but when I m feeling self conscious it would be nice to get a bit of support. Did anyone else experience this?

Better to keep getting lighter.

And those that don't want to go blonde - that doesn't mean Marilyn Monroe blonde.

It means much lighter brown really

My longer hair took two years to grow out I was having balayage which helped. Then lockdown
My hair was thinning when dyed. Once that stopped it recovered. I use purple shampoo.
It's thick and glossy again now. I'd never dye again.

Well the ageism is real where I work, I promise you!

Not when your hair is a shade of dark natural mouse, no!!!

I don't see it that way? Other women have made different choices. They are doing what is right for them.

I would look shit with grey hair (though luckily I don't have any yet) - I wouldn't mind if I went a rich white shade, but knowing my luck I won't.

Why do you feel the need to passive aggressively denigrate women who have chosen to keep dyeing their hair?

Fucking hell the explicit and internalised misogyny on this thread is absolutely gross.
Grey is also a colour, and aging is what we all do (if we’re lucky). Your negative associations between grey hair and women are what need making over, not women’s hair.
PS If any of you think your dye jobs are convincing anyone you’re younger than you are, cop on please.

I throw your question back at you, only insert, "choose to dye their hair" for "pour a load of toxic chemicals on their head at regular intervals in the usually mistaken belief it will make them look a different age?"

As for your final comment, pot kettle!!

Oh come off it, we are all entitled to our opinion!! Who are you to be judge and jury?!

I don't actually give a shiney shite about convincing anyone I am younger than I am - I just know after 60 years of living on planet Earth what suits me and what doesn't.

How are you doing this? At home? Be interested to know, having never dyed my hair other than teenage hennaing.
I wouldn't mind having a go at this. I have a very grey badger streak at the front right hairline and otherwise dark hair, and I don't want to bother properly dying but some blending highlights might be fun.

“we are all entitled to our opinion” … except me, apparently 😂

The paper you have linked to is exclusively about contact sensitivity (skin allergy). No one denies that some people are allergic to dyes- that's the whole point of patch testing.

Now show us some evidence for your other claims.

Take a look at the evidence base and particularly the issue of the assumed avoidance of skin exposure Vs home and salon practice. Plenty of peer reviewed journal articles flagging the need for greater regulation.

This reminds me. I know a woman who I met 10 years ago - a neighbour in the next street from me. When I met her she looked about 45 and her husband looked about 54. (Lyn and Lee.) Lyn had dark brown hair and Lee's was salt and pepper grey. Anyway, she always had dark brown hair when I saw her and she has dark brown eyes and so the dark hair suited her.

Anyway, fast-forward to 4 years ago when I had known her 6 years and I didn't see her for about half a year as she moved 3 miles away... Suddenly Spring 2020, I saw her and her hair was 100% grey ... silver grey. It had aged her 15-17 years! I was absolutely stunned. She went from looking 45 last time I saw her to looking 62, all in the space of 6 months. Turns out her true age was 5 years older than I thought. So when I met her she was 50 and looked 45. With the grey hair she was 56 and looked 62.

So I think this is what the poster meant who said grey makes you look 20 years older. I think that is untrue. BUT if someone (aged say 44,) goes from dark brown/blonde/mousy to grey, they can go from looking 39 to looking 52-55. So whilst 20 years older is a bit of an exaggeration, suddenly going grey after many years of being blonde/brown haired/dying your hair can easily make you look 15 or more years older.

Lyn's husband who looked about 54 - was actually 46 when I first met him, so HE looked older too. Even so, men definitely carry grey hair (under the age of 60) better than women do IMO. Call me what you like. I am entitled to my opinion!

Conversely, there used to be a woman who worked at our GP surgery who looked around 52. She had hair that was 40% medium brown-ish and 60% silver grey.

Suddenly 2 years after I first met her, she dyed the grey and was all medium brown, and she looked 15 years younger. Turns out she was 39! Looked more like 39 with the grey dyed out. Early to mid 50s with it!

I agree with some posters on here, that the poster with the grey bob who popped her photo on here (at 12.53 on 29/01/24, and said she is 57,) looks OK, and the hair looks OK, but she does NOT look 37! I would say early 50s at the youngest. Why do people come out with this ALL the time when someone posts their photo on here? 'OMG babe U look amazing! You look TWENTY YEARS younger even with grey hair.' Come off it. She looks fine, but she doesn't look 20 years younger. No-one does FFS! And most definitely not with grey hair. Get real! 😆

Like all hair colours, white hair or white mixed with darker (appears grey) suits some people better than others. I have got friends who have gone grey and look awesome, and others who look 15 years older than they did - not because of the association with grey and ageing, but because it washes out their skin tone and they look half-dead.

Turning hair colour into some test of ideological purity, and judging women who dye their hair, is really very silly.

I've yet to meet anyone with dyed hair who I thought was younger than they were or anyone with grey hair who looked older than they were based on their hair colour. People's faces tell their age.

Ah, we are playing this game. What fun.

You make a wild claim
I ask you for evidence
You post something that isn't evidence for your claim
I point that out and ask for evidence
You say there is lots out there but don't actually provide any
I point this out
You say that it's not your job to find it for me

Thing is, Hun, that isn't how science, or indeed normal conversation, works. If you say something wildly untrue, and other people ask you to prove it, you have to prove it. Otherwise we can tell your pants are on fire. Which they are.

Hey Doc! How about this:

p-Phenylenediamine was shown to be an extremely potent contact allergen in
animals. p-Phenylenediamine is also an important and frequent allergen in
consumers. It is recognized that allergic reactions to it may be severe. p-
Phenylenediamine is an extreme sensitiser. Unlike other sensitising hair dye
chemicals, p-phenylenediamine has been/is used during routine diagnostic patch
testing in clinical practice, and therefore, the importance of this molecule as a
sensitiser for the consumer is very well documented. The continued use of p-
phenylenediamine in hair dyes remains a considerable concern for consumer safety.

Of course it's just the conclusions of those notorious cherry pickers, the EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety:

https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_094.pdf

😆
See post below:

https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_094.pdf

Yeah this. The woman who posted the pic of herself with the grey bob looks fine, and yep, could pass for several years younger. Some other women who have grey hair look 10 years older than their age. (And this applies to men too!)

I agree about the hair dyeing shaming too. It's fucking shit, and the irony of calling others misogynistic and then going on to slate other women for dying their hair and mocking them and laughing at them because they think it makes them look younger is the epitome of misogyny - and is a spiteful thing to say. I am looking at YOU @SwishSwishBisch

As I said earlier in the thread, this attitude that women who dye their hair are foolish pathetic idiots, (and FAKE,) and are to be laughed at and mocked - and women who let their hair go grey are superheroes, and should be applauded and celebrated - needs to stop. Because it's fucking rude and nasty. Not to mention misogynistic!

!

This is exactly what I described earlier:

It summarises research on PPD, most of which was looking at the doses at which PPD becomes toxic. The whole point of the research described was to find out what the toxic level is, by giving PPD at higher and higher doses, until they saw side effects.

Other than the risks of contact sensivity (allergy), which no one is disputing, they did not find cause for concern.

What about eyebrows though? If your natural hair colour is black and you have dark eyebrows, wouldn’t you look odd if you allowed your hair to go grey or white ?

https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_094.pdf

So do you now want to show us your evidence, @MissLucyEyelesbarrow?

The continued use of p-phenylenediamine in hair dyes remains a considerable concern for consumer safety.

Honestly? It's a report from way back in 2012, the section on hair dye is anecdotal and even that concludes "The frequency of immediate hypersensitivity reactions to PPD in hair dyes is unknown but severe reactions appear to be rare in comparison to the volume of PPD containing hair dyes used."

We could go on and on but if you're looking for robust evidence, that would come from a systematic review. No one is denying that hypersensitivity reactions can occur, in the same way they can following exposure to all kinds of agents that women are exposed to on a daily basis, either through choice or necessity. All we're saying is that the discussion should be balanced.

They are talking about skin sensitivity. No one disputes that.

You said upthread that PPD is linked to organ damage and DNA mutation.

Can we see some evidence of that please? Because the paper you have just linked to (3 times), specifically says that there is no concern about systemic (general body) toxicity and no evidence that it causes cancer.

• In view of the intermittent exposure and the fact that human exposure through hair dyeing is mainly to N,N’-diacetyl PPD (a non-mutagenic detoxified metabolite), no concern regarding systemic toxicity is raised, when PPD is used in oxidative hair colouring products at on-head concentrations of up to 2.0%.
• On the basis of the available data from carcinogenicity studies alone, no conclusion with regard to carcinogenicity of p-phenylenediamine in oxidative hair dye formulations can be drawn. However, on the basis of the toxicokinetic and mutagenicity data, it is unlikely that p-phenylenediamine in oxidative hair dye formulations would pose a carcinogenic risk for the consumer.