The elephant no-one wishes to speak of isn’t just in my room, he follows me wherever I go, I may need to give him a name. Feel free to name him in the comments…
You see it’s my hair, my growing out, my going natural, my grey hair. In fact it is not even my grey hair which encourages my friendly elephant, it is the combination of the left over red dyed hair which joins the grey on my head.
I began growing out my dyed hair in a bid to ‘go natural’ in the head department back in April when I wrote about it here. There are no pressing reasons I want to stop dying my hair apart from the inconvenience and the growing ineffectiveness of said dye. I get grey peeking through within a week and I feel like I may as well embrace the grey rather than fight it with dubious chemicals every few weeks.
There have not really been any wavering moments of regret yet because I think I am still intrigued to see what it will look like. Yes I do worry that I will look very very very old, but surely a lick of lippie and a coating of foundation will solve that? We shall see…
Talking of seeing, want to see how the hair is progressing? I want to stop dying altogether so I decided I didn’t want to get lowlights to try and blend in the grey/white/glow as it grows out. I have about 3cm of natural and I am not willing to get it cut down to 3cm, so persevere I must.
Now, see the sun glinting off my head? That is not just sunshine using me as a reflector, that is pure whiteness. Just in that area, so this, my friends is going to be interesting. I have to say that the texture of my newly natural hair is not awful (so far), it is not twanging out all over the place or feeling wiry, so that is a good thing.
People who know I am growing it out are interested as to how it will look, and are in turns horrified at the whiteness and encouraged by my ‘young’ style (ha). I am hoping the summer will be forgiving as I really can’t wear lots of make up without it gently sliding off my face in the heat and humidity of the St Louis weather. By the winter (if I haven’t desperately grabbed a box of hair dye), I will be lining up at the make up counter begging for help!
These last two pictures almost hide the grey although you can see some peeky white in the second one.
I can’t believe no-one has dropped hair colourist cards at my feet or taken me to one side to have a friendly ‘chat’ about my interesting roots. My elephant has not been addressed yet, poor thing is feeling neglected, but I don’t mind him following me around until I get the courage to get it cut a little shorter, so that it looks less like I just need to dye my damn hair!
The adventure continues….
Clare Davis Etheridge 
Going grey with a sense of humour, you go girl, lovely post. I still look like I have brown hair but if you get up close you can see it is interspersed with lots of grey so I consider myself lucky at 50.
For some reason your comments is not recognising my blog address as a valid URL so here it is http://www.oneearlybird.blogspot.com.au
You lucky girl Michelle! I have been grey since my twenties, just covered up! Thanks for putting in your URL.
I think growing it out is the only thing I dread about getting greys because my hair grows incredibly slowly.
My MIL who is quite young has been fully grey for a long time and looks fabulous and youthful. The only trick she has is running toner through it so it doesn’t yellow.
I think it’s great that you’re not subjecting yourself to constant dying to hide it, that can’t be healthy!
Exactly, using that much dye cannot be good for a head! I will need to get some fancy shampoo to give blue tones not yellow. A whole new world!
So brave! I need to own up and let mine show too 😉
We will see how brave I am in a few months!!
I have that elephant’s sister! Mine is slowly creeping all over my head. At first my hairdresser said “Oh it’s not too bad” Now when I walk in she says “What do you want to do to cover that up!” I started going grey when I had my first kid – 15 years ago!! My method of dealing with the elephant is to slowly get some controlled ash into it!
We could start a zoo! At least you are blonde and can blend it in. I just don’t look too often!!
Hi Clare. Great post. I think your hair will look great. You go girl, embrace that elephant.
The elephant is my official pet! I will keep updating for our amusement!
Let’s not call them grey … let’s just call them sparkly.
From one (very) sparkly person to another 🙂
I embraced the sparkle 18 months ago. My 10yr old can’t believe it – “you are the only Mum at school that doesn’t dye their hair!!” – insert 10 year old’s wide eyed look of horror here!
Enjoy
Excellent! I love that you are the non hair dye Mum. Sparkly, I like that.
What a great post Clare. I finally got fed up with the whole hair highlighting process almost 2 years ago. My hair is a few inches below the shoulder and all of it is finally my natural color. Like you, I went around with 2 tone hair for so long I forgot I had it. I had not seen the color for many decades and I was shocked at how dark it was. Anyway, I hoped it would be that silver white color my Grandma had but no such luck. It’s streaked with silver but still not enough to look good. Everytime I look in the mirror I think-get your hair colored you idiot because I know it would look so much better. But waiting this long for it to grow out completely taught me a lesson. I’m too far into the process now to go back! Silver sisters must hold together on this-love your post.
Barbara, I thought your hair had blonde in it in your profile pic! It looks lovely worn long. It has to be so much healthier without all of those chemicals on a very regular basis. x
Doing so well! I’m moving away from red/violet to a more natural brown that blends a bit better with my sparkly silver. Too much contrast was driving me batty. I’m thinking of a skunk silver stripe a la natural at the front, and then just blondy brown at the back. So many decisions….
Hi Pips, I think the contrast was the problem with me too, red seemed like a good idea at the time I am sure! It will be interesting to see what is going on with my very white bit, I might get a skunky stripe or just old lady grey!
I have a few friends who are going the same way but they’ve just gone blonde. You don’t notice and grey roots. I’m sort of looking forward to that day myself.
Blonde is a good choice, I have such dark hair though I would keep the bleach industry in business!!!
Pingback: Growing into Grey. |
Pingback: Grey hair, naturally. |