I Feel Bad About My Neck

I know, I know “gray” is a four-letter word that can send most women into a tailspin.  Luckily, hair color has come a LONG way in the last 30 years–it is a lot more moisturizing and you don’t have to worry about getting that unnatural color that our grandmothers had. 

Nora Ephron addressed this in her most recent book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman where she states, “There’s a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye. In the 1950’s only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all.”  Dying your hair is the most significant way we’ve slowed the aging process.  It is certainly the most effective.

Here are my tips for keeping the grays away, while maintaining a soft, natural look:

1. Find the right stylist.  I know the thought of coloring your hair at home and saving some money can seem intoxicating but avoid that temptation with every fiber of your being.  The technological advances that I spoke of earlier mostly apply to professional grade products, not Clairol on your local Rite-Aid’s shelves. Even if you are having a friend/husband apply the color for you, there are often (read “always”) spots missed and despite everyone’s best efforts the color generally gets applied to previously colored hair.  This causes color build-up, which leaves the ends of your hair darker than the roots.  To correct this, you will have to spend several hours in the salon and quite a bit of money–going to a salon saves you money in the long run.
2. Find the right the right tone.  As we age, our natural color fades and dulls; matching a color to that dull shade creates a “colored” look.  If your hair tends to be ashe-y, add some warmth. 
3. Make sure you have dimension.  If your hair is the same color, roots to ends, all over you start to get that “I color my hair” look.  To avoid this, get highlights every so often to break up the color.  Ephron describes highlights as, “that first sip of brandy Alexander that Lee Remick drank in Days of Wine and Roses.”  They bring back the sunkissed look that we all had in Summers past.
4. Find the shine.  Putting a gloss on your hair restores the shine in your hair.  Since gray hair tends to be coarser and duller, glosses will counteract these tendencies and make your hair look 10 years younger.

We all know that our hands and neck show our true age, but moreso does your hair.  According to Nora Ephron, hair color “is the most powerful weapon older women have against the youth culture because it actually succeeds in stopping the clock.”  It doesn’t matter how old you are; it’s never too soon to start looking years younger.