While blowing out my hair this morning, I found a lone grey hair.
While I initially sat back and thought “WHY ME?”, I quickly took a moment to reflect on why I was freaking out at all.
In a world where quick beauty fixes are a woman’s best friend and in which the poisonous tentacles of Big Beauty have corrupted the minds and self-images of young women, grey hair is seen as an enemy. It’s a snake in the grass and once it starts showing up, it never goes away, and this is bad. At least it is if you’re a woman who’s ever sat next to an older woman in a hair salon or picked up a copy of a trashy beauty magazine.
Here’s something to chew on and a thought I had during my grey-tastrophe: Grey hair is not such a bad thing, in fact, it’s beautiful and symbolic.
I’ve always found grey hair to be very fashionable.
Celebrities who have embraced their greys, like Sarah Jessica Parker and Katie Holmes, are still beauty and fashion icons. Grey is a really unique hair color, whether it is dyed or natural, and coincidentally looks amazing with power colors, like red, black, green and blue, making it extra chic to have in the corporate world. It looks powerful, classy and wise, not old or tired.
I have also observed grey hair to be a symbol of growth and the future. Grey hair is legitimate physical proof of growth and development.
Biologically speaking, when people grow older, they lose melanocytes, which make melanin. Melanin produces the pigment in our skin and hair, so when we lose melanocytes, our hair turns silver or white from lack of color.
Sure, you can see grey hair as just a sign of an aging body, but you can instead choose to see it as a sign of personal progress. Grey hair symbolizes life lived. It says, “I’ve done some living, and I’m wiser and better off because of it.”
Many cultures believe that hair holds great power and is sacred. This only furthers my point. If the point blank belief is already that hair is powerful and holds memories, grey hair is physical proof of wisdom and accomplishment.
The panicky feeling was very short-lived, as I quickly realized the hair was actually an almost whitish blonde color, no doubt a result of my summer escapades outside.
But, I know that as someone who overcommits herself, does not sleep nearly as much as she should and is chronically anxious and stressed, grey hair will definitely be gracing my scalp very soon.
With the above points in mind though, I won’t rush to the hair care aisle at Walmart, I will wear my greys like a badge of honor, like a womanly crown.