Fashion Blogs

It’s great to go grey, and don’t let the scientists tell you otherwise

Medical science is having one of its frivolous moments. A gene causing grey hair has been discovered, and the promise is that we will soon be able to take a pill to keep grey at bay. I daresay we will swallow it. A pill would have to be pretty expensive to rival the cost of salon colouring every six weeks. Not to mention the tubs and tubs of conditioner that have to be larded on bleached hair just to stop it from snapping off in a lemming-like mass suicide. But I’ll be sad to see grey go. Because without grey, you never get to white.

I have always loved white hair. When I was little, Mrs Young across the way had a cloud of it, a fluffy halo round her ancient, apple-cheeked face. (Yes, that was her real name.) I realise now that Mrs Young was probably about 50 when I first cast her as Queen of the Storybook Grans. But it was her old-lady clothes, her apron, her indeterminate bosoms-round-the-midriff shape, her widowed pottering and her shampoo-and-set that aged Mrs Young. That fabulous hair was wasted on her.

The writer Jenny Diski; the artist Carol Gorner. Both have sported great white hair, from a relatively young age, cut in sharp, chic styles. A full head of melanin-stripped hair looks fantastic. Strands and streaks of it – the dreaded salt and pepper – not always quite so much. As with so much else in life, it’s the transition that is hard to handle.

The thing is, once you start colouring, you’re stuck. A few years back, walking in the park on a cold winter’s morning, I saw a woman with frost on her head – just like all the things that didn’t move had frost on them. The sight was astounding. As she got close, I realised she was merely growing out her grey roots. It’s an unattractive process, and it takes time.

I lost my beautifully coloured blond hair when I had chemotherapy, so I was able to start again. I’m grey, with white at the front, and some black streaks behind to give it oomph. Roots are not a problem, nor is condition, and I love it. But would I have taken a pill, at the start, if I could have? Absolutely.

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