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?

Well, I don’t think I look 77, but maybe you do @HorseRaddisha because you say it makes us look 20 years older.

@PuppyMonkey you look beautiful ❤️

Gorgeous colour @PuppyMonkey

PuppyMonkey you look lovely, your hair colour makes you eye really pop.

This is quite horrible though . You are congratulating yourself for not telling your friend your real feelings but are making nasty comments about her behind her back .

You look gorgeous and certainly not @Shadowonasun 'messy, unkempt, old and tired'. Your hair is so shiny, and the cut suits you. You look younger than AMcD - if that matters!

Yes - @DillDanding you might hate her hair, but I'm sure if she knew about your discussions, she would hate your personality and values

You look great @PuppyMonkey

Lol, my work colleagues genuinely did think that, they eventually confessed that they were worried about asking how old I actually was after I said my eldest DD was 30, they assumed I'd had her when I was under 16 and then felt they couldn't say anything.
If I didn't make an effort with clothes, makeup and doing something with my hair though, I would look washed out and "old" (have discovered darker brows make a massive difference). But I still maintain so much of it is down to attitude

For me, the point is to get people to treat me how I want them to treat me.

I spent my youth trying to look older because it's tiresome being treated as if I'm a child when I'm an adult, people talking down to me, being dismissive of my opinions, not taking me seriously and having them be surprised when I speak with wisdom because they think I'm too young to have any at all. The way I presented myself had a huge impact on how I was perceived and how others treated me. As part of this I dyed my blond hair brown and was instantly taken more seriously by many than I had been before.

I then had a few negative life experiences close together in my 30s and virtually overnight the stress was showing on my face and I looked older than I was. By then my hair was back to its natural colour and with the addition of the first signs of grey. I switched to trying to look younger, including dying my greying hair back to its natural colour, because people were treating me as if I didn't matter, wasn't important, had no right to exist in the world and didn't deserve respect.

Now I'm in my 40s and having let my hair return to natural to see what I had, I didn't like the white side stripes by my face and darker back of my head, so it's brown again because that's the colour I felt like being. I've had compliments about how natural it looks, how it's warmed up my complexion and I can see with my own eyes it suits me and makes me look more polished and younger than the messy looking side stripes and two tone white/blond (it skipped going grey and went straight to white) hair I naturally have.

Nobody complimented my hair when I let the dye grow out and the white do its thing. I don't care about the root regrowth now, it's no worse than when I had blond roots coming through in my teens and early twenties. The roots are showing a little from 2 weeks post dye, I style my hair different to minimise the impact of that as the weeks go by and re-dye the roots every 3 months. Even with roots showing the overall effect is still that of someone with brown hair and it has a different impact on the appearance of clothes, makeup and skin tone than half blond half white hair.

It would be nice if people treated others with respect and kindness regardless of how they looked but that's not the world we live in. Dying my hair is part of accepting this world and working with it, not fighting against it. To all of you leaving your hair natural and demanding to be treated fairly regardless, I applaud you. It just isn't a fight I want to be part of personally right now.

I completely agree.

Once you're over 50 you're viewed as a dinosaur anywhere whether you're grey or not. Like it or not, grey is ageing.

I'm lucky in that, coming 61, I still have no grey! However, I will continue to colour it as I have done since I was 19! I don't do it for anyone but me either, because I like it. Haven't talked to husband but seeing as he's balding and greying, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

@PuppyMonkey you look fab and your hair colour is amazing.

It's an interesting thread. I am a very dark brunette and used to use L'Oréal Casting on the grey bits. Had to stop as I developed an allergic reaction and over the past 6 years have just let the greys come in; they are mainly around the front. I call them my silver highlights. From a distance I still look brunette.

I'm 52 and think I look my age; maybe a bit younger but nothing like a decade. In my friendship groups, not one single friend is going grey. A few are natural but have hardly any grey hair; the rest dye their hair. None have ever complimented me on my 'natural' hair but I have had nice compliments from other people including strangers. My DH has accepted it but he was disappointed when I told him I was ditching the colour. He did however say recently that it suited me.
And my hairdresser tried to convince me using the argument "your kids won't want you picking them up from school". FFS. That kind of comment just hardens my resolve and makes me happy to be on the "greying" journey!!!!

I also think going grey naturally is complimentary to changing skintone. I have extremely dark eyebrows so I reckon I would look ridiculous if I went light brown or blond for example.

I decided to let my greys grow thru due to retiring and the ever escalating cost of blond highlights every three months. My hair is dark blond with a smattering of grey which purple shampoos highlight beautifully. I’ve now grown out about 6 inches so I’m pleased I persevered. However the bottom of my hair is more golden from the highlighting days and the top looks ashy. I’ve tried toners and they do blend it to a certain degree but not perfectly. I’ve a posh event coming up so would like it blending better, any recommendations for products ?

@jasminocereusbritannicus
If you've never coloured your hair then your grey will come in gradually and naturally .

The difficulty is that if you have previously coloured your hair and decide you want to let it go natural , you have the period where you have grey/natural roots and then a line with your coloured hair - which depending on the length of your hair, could take a couple of years to grow out.

Mine is coloured at the moment - ash blondish brown. Natural is mousy with a lot of (mainly?) grey now . I think when I decide to let it go natural, I will start by having highlights rather than full colour so the transition period looks less harsh .

Mine is coloured at the moment - ash blondish brown. Natural is mousy with a lot of (mainly?) grey now . I think when I decide to let it go natural, I will start by having highlights rather than full colour so the transition period looks less harsh

I am not sure what I will do as I have mid brown dyed shiny hair with only a few percent grey at the moment. Blond doesn’t suit me at all so I don’t think highlights would work for me.

My aunt is 70 with a very short Bob and has kept her brown colour but now has it dyed slightly lighter than she used to have, I may go for something like that.

My DM was lucky she went from having red hair to shiny blond hair, she’s never coloured it. She’s over 70 now with lovely soft blond hair.

My DF didn’t get any grey until he was around 66.

My friend used to have dark brown hair and now has loads of blond highlights and her hair looks fabulous, sort of bright blond and grey in a trendy way.

It’s very rare for anyone to look a decade younger than they are. But if you do kudos. Nearly everyone looks five years either side as age is hard to pinpoint.

the other thing I’d consider is it is deeply important to you look younger and believe people think that.

most Of us get told we look younger than we are. It doesn’t mean it’s true, it’s simply a compliment.

A dinosaur? Really? Not 'anywhere', not in my workplace, nor in the sector I work in.

@Gatewayerror501

I've experienced both the 'trying to look older' and the 'trying to look younger' too.

In my late 20s/early 30s I dressed in really frumpy clothes (looking back) trying to look older so I would be treated seriously at work . Then in my early-mid 40s I was concerned that I didn't embarrass my young DS by having his school friends think I was his grandma (older mum).

Thankfully now I don't really care . There was certainly a lot of ageism in the restructure at my work which led to me taking retirement (something I was considering anyway) but I'm very happy now - just trying to stay healthy !

I loved that programme - some of those people needed a boost to their lives so much but yeah, the ultimate outcome was inevitable every time. As an aside, I was very sorry to hear about the death of Dr Uchenna Okoye. She had such a lovely manner with her patients.

OP I'd imagine this is the worse part so keep going and you will get there. I'd imagine at the early stages it just feel really messy as the roots are very obvious. In another couple of months it will look so much better. I've had grey since my twenties and im in my late forties now and I'm sick to death of colouring. It's every five or six weeks max and even at that there is a few bad weeks with very obvious roots., I tried blonde for ages (and all sorts of shades) but it doesn't suit me at all. I've a naturally pink skin tone and the only colours that suit my skin are auburn or browns. Just wondering if anyone had a similar complexion did you find that the grey was a colour that automatically suited your skin tone

@PuppyMonkey ❤️ amazing hair colour!

Really, you'd do that? I tend to judge them against people I know the age of, or myself i.e. do I think they are younger or older than me, if they are middle aged.

Also I would only pass comment if they mentioned their age and I was surprised.

So you think you look 55, because you don't dye your hair?

Yes because if someone feels the need to ask the question then age is clearly very important to them. If a small lie makes them feel good then I don't see an issue with that.