Wesley was brushing my hair the other day in scriptures. He said, “Mom, do you know your hair is turning gray?” Clancy immediately chimed in “Silver, not gray!” Okay, silver does sound like a much pretty color than gray, just like blonde sounds prettier than yellow, and brunette sounds pretty than brown.
Can I tell you about my personal journey when it comes to hair?
First when I was a child I was blonde and then my hair darkened as I aged. I was definitely not blonde anymore by the time I was in 6th grade. I loved my hair when it was blonde. I also loved my brown hair. It was a medium brown with a tinge of red in it.
Why is it, that people with yellow hair get a fun color to call their hair (blonde) and people with dark brown hair get a fun color to call their hair (brunette) but people with light brown or medium brown or gray don't get a fun name to call their hair?
Anyway, I say I loved my hair color. I mean to say that for the most part I did, and I tried to, but I think that in America, blonde hair is much more praised. There are sayings about blondes. Blondes have more fun right? Gentlemen prefer blondes. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall any sayings about other hair colors.
I colored my hair red when I was 15. That was fun. I used henna. It was just supposed to add highlights to my hair. It turned my whole hair bright red. I loved the attention it gave me. But I seldom colored it again (think I colored it once in college). I liked my own hair color better. Most of my life I have thought of my hair color as a gift from God and I have wanted to honor that gift.
Let me tell you about some of the people in my inner circles and their hair color experiences.
My mom was an older mom compared to my friends’ moms. She married when she was 32 and had me when she was 36. In high school I loved that my parents were older and had different values than most of my friends' parents. I completely loved that my parents weren't trendy or caught up in worldly things. I am one of those older parents now. Here's how old I've been when each of the children were born: Portia 22, Hunter 25, Colt 26, Priscilla, 29, Marshall 31, Caleb 33, Clancy 35, Wesley 40, and Zander 45. (We lost many children before they were born - 1 child between Colt & Priscilla, lost 2 children between Clancy and Wesley and lost 2 girls between Wesley and Zander, and lost another child when I was 48.0
My mom sometimes colored her hair and sometimes sported her own hair color. When she did, she seemed to just color the gray, almost always choosing a color close to her natural hair color. She did it for the most part herself at home.
Most of the women my age color their hair. I know a lot of women and I can only think of a handful that I know that don't color their hair. Sometimes it is hard to love what others in around you do not value. But I did my best and did a great job of the most part.
My husband has told me in the past that he prefers it when I color my gray, though he definitely has never pressed me on the matter. What wife doesn't want their husband to like they way they look? When I asked him if he would love me less with gray hair and he said no. I appreciate that about him!
The cost of hair coloring and highlighting doesn’t seem to the huge consideration by those who choose to color their hair or those who encourage others to color their hair. I have heard many women mention the the high cost of high end hair coloring. Although I know you can color your hair at a one color do-it-yourself basic level for about $60 a year, spending $100 every few weeks to get hair colored in a salon seems to be money well spent to many.
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I don't remember for sure when I started going gray. I'm sure a little at a time. I think I started coloring it when I was about 37. For the most part I only colored about twice a year. Just when we were going to have family functions or pictures that I wanted to look my best for. I have to admit that at first I felt bad about my graying hair. I wanted to be thought of as beautiful, what female doesn’t. And the world around me didn’t seem to view gray hair as beautiful.
I once did a headcount in church to see how many women colored her hair. In a congregation of over 200 I could spot one or two women who probably had their natural hair color. I even was part of a conversation where a person told me that they had an agreement with one of their good friends that each would tell the other if any of their gray were showing so they would know it was time to color their hair. It seemed like almost no one around me valued their true hair color, and definitely not if it included white or gray.
And so I started coloring my hair. I always felt like I looked better after I had colored my hair. And I got a lot of compliments on my newly colored hair. But I wonder now about those compliments. Don't we always say something nice to a female when we notice that they have changed their hair because we love them and want to support them? Thinking back I wonder how many of the compliments were sincere.
None of the men I know color their hair. They are still seen as vital, sexy, powerful. A man's hair color seems to have no effect on how society views him or values him in any area of life.
But in my opinion, that is not so with women. It seems that much of society is convinced (or trying to convince us) that women are valued much less by their husbands, families, community, work, and society in general if they are not as young looking as possible and as beautiful as possible. There seems to be certain trend going now trying to convince us that women who don't have a certain look are not given certain jobs in society. This is huge social pressure to keep your hair young looking and trendy looking.
But look around, all men and society are not that way, and I personally doubt that most are. I have a friend who is going gray and her husband loves her as she is and doesn't want her to color her gray. Although even her children tend to point out that her hair is getting gray and they don't make it sound like a positive thing. I really feel that most of society values us for who we are and what we can do despite the opposite message that the media tries to push at us.
All that said, although I do want to neat and combly there is just some part of my core that is tired of caring about the possibility of being judged by my looks instead of by who I am and my abilities.
I was reading an article online the other day and it asked when is a woman finally old enough that she doesn't have to look good for men and society and can just be judged by who she is and what she can do instead of her looks. The article said in our culture that time never comes. It said that every woman in every walk of life, every career, every age feels the potential of being judged to a large or lesser extent on her looks. There is definitely a lot of pressure coming from media and society to look young and to spend a lot of time and money trying to look your best.
But my core doesn't want that. My core doesn't want to put chemicals on my head that can have the potential to be cancer causing or that can cause huge allergic reactions (including death).
My core doesn't want to put money in the pockets of people who mount huge media campaigns trying to convince us women that we are never enough. Trying to convince us women (and doing a great job at convincing many men and children in the process by the way) that a more beautiful person or a younger person is worth more.
My core wants to trust that it is me that what really matters most to my husband, that it is my personality and not my looks that matter most. My core wants to trust that, given the chance, society will judge me by who I am and not what I look like.
My core wants to put the message out there that, just like men, we women are enough. That no matter what your hair color is, be it blonde, brunette, red, brown, black or gray, it is equally beautiful! You are beautiful! There is nothing wrong with looking your age and loving that.
My older daughter was saying that there are so many things that women do to try and improve our status with men and society, so many things women do that are fake, that most people don't know about and definitely most men who don't know us well don't know about. The average person doesn't know about the breast enhancements, the bras to make you look more full or more firm, the liposuction, the hair coloring, the hair extensions, the eyelash extensions, the Spanx (girdles), the list goes on and on.
Why do women do this? Men don't? Men can be loved and judged for who they are. A man’s appearance is really immaterial.
I remember the saying, "be authentic, be who you are." If a person doesn't like you for who you really are, if you need to change for them to like you, then they really aren't liking the real you anyway. If you need to do something false or fake for people to like or appreciate you they are not really liking the real you anyway. They are liking some fake concept. What good is that? That can't help you feel better about yourself, can it?
Perhaps some people don't like gray hair because they don't like to think they are getting older. What happens when you get older? You are supposed to become more mature and more responsible. Some people don't want that. I love that part of aging. I want to be more mature and responsible.
Also when you get older you also get closer to death. Some people don't like to think about death for a number reasons. Some don't like to think about death because they are living in a way that they want to change before they die and they don't want to make those changes now.
There are many things that I still want to change about myself before I die. I try to work on them. I actually like going to funerals because it is just the kick in the pants that I need to remind me that there are important things in life to do, important virtues in life to acquire, important love in life to share and that time is short for all of us and shorter than any of us think to do what we need to do and become who we want to become. I kind of like that our faces, and bodies and hair can remind us that all of us have a limited amount of time here on this earth and that that time is getting shorter each day.
While I'm sure there are many good and sound arguments for coloring your hair and looking as young and beautiful as possible, my heart tells me that the social pressure to color your hair and to look as beautiful as possible and as young as possible is just an unfair burden to put on females. I just can't be part of that machine, that conspiracy - if you want to call it that, that burden. So I will not be coloring my hair.
Will I try to be neat and comely? Yes. My usual beauty routine takes about 5 minutes, and I am good with that. I want to put my time and energy and resources into other things. I may be complete mistaken but I just can't think of personal beauty as a deep thing, or one of the most important things in life. Life is short and there are too many other things I want to do and become.
That's my journey. And if you have a completely opposite journey, and if you don't like my journey or agree with my journey that is perfectly fine. We can all be different and all be perfect in our own ways.
- Susanne (last picture is me not coloring my hair for the last couple of years)
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