August 06th, 2019

I thought I ought to do an update on the hair experiment.  Perhaps you recall that 4 months ago, back in May, I wrote about how I had made the decision to stop colouring my hair.  And that I was very curious to find out what my hair actually looks like.  What is it's real colour?  It had been so long since I had seen my real hair colour that I no longer remembered.  And then I was even more curious to find out how grey I really am.  So here we go.

As you all well know by now, this is me.

I took this photo on July 4th, so roughly a month ago.   We can call that a fairly recent picture, right?  I think it qualifies.  Please note the hair.  This seems to be my real actual hair colour.  Kind of a reddish brownish.......I have no idea what to actually call this colour, but I don't hate it.  It's fine.

The interesting part is that after all of that angst and firm decision making and committment to the hair experiment, my hair is a perfectly nice colour. Nothing in the world wrong with it.  But do you note the absence of grey?  I was frankly a little disappointed.  Once I choose a direction, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.  But my hair apparently, isn't as ready as I am.

I know, I know, it sounds crazy.  I want grey hair?  It's honestly not that I desire it, but that I know it is inevitable.  And if something is going to happen anyway, I try to wrap my brain around and around it until I completely accept it.  Once I embraced the idea, once I decided to stop colouring it, I think that I assumed (wrongly as it turns out) that under all that fake colour was a real grey/silver/white colour that I kind of got excited about.  I was ready for the next step.  But it seems that is not the case because I saw no grey. Dang.

Or so it seemed.

Just recently I realized that the grey is there.  In the morning when I'm getting ready, I'm in a rush.  I don't pay attention to anything except moving forward.  Getting stuff done.   And then I also  don't see my hair really in photographs because as it turns out,  I tend to  tilt my head up when I take selfies.  If I look straight into the mirror, the grey is definitely noticeable.  So I took a  photo at the end of the day over the weekend.  There seems to be a more obvious greying at the end of the day when my hair isn't as fluffy.  Here I am,  end of day Sunday:

Do you see the sparkly bits?  Here and there in all that reddish/brownish hair are definite sparkly pieces.  It encouraged me to look closer.  I started playing around with my hair.  I for sure saw more sparkle at the temples.  While playing with my hair, putting it up and and pulling it back, I realized that in the layers underneath, was definitely more grey stuff.  I experimentally parted my hair on the side and yup there it is.  It was just hiding:

Apologies for the blurry photo, but you get the idea.  I wonder why it's more grey on the layers that aren't exposed to the sun?  I find that curious.  That seems so contrary to me.  I should think that the hair that is constantly beaten on by the sun would be more damaged and therefore more inclined to give up and turn grey than the more protected hair underneath.  Hmm. Interesting.

It just occurred to me that this is like a shingled house.  In New England, there are a lot of very traditional wood shingled homes.  They start out a lovely golden brown colour, but over time, that beautiful warm gold weathers to a silvery grey colour.  That's kind of what I assumed was happening with my hair, I guess.  It is "weathering" to a silver/grey/white colour.  I kind of like that ;)

So that was interesting to me.  And then I thought I would take a photo of the top of my head.  I never ever see that part of me but since nearly everyone on the planet is taller than me, they all do see it.  So I was curious to see what others see.  It was revealing for sure:

There it is!  I knew it was around here somewhere.  Now I can see it.   

I have to say that I'm relieved that it's not just a skunk stripe down my center part.  That would have be hard to live with.  My grey appears to be more threaded throughout just kind of here and there as if it was slowly and sneakily taking over.  I'm good with this.

  I'm still not positive what colour it's going to be.......Grey? Silver? White?  But I predict that it won't be much longer before there is no doubt of the colour.

When I was a young student, my hair was very very long.  And I remember a boy who sat behind me in one of my classes told me that my hair was like a "waterfall of spun honey gold".  Oh my!  How poetic!

Well my hair is not a "waterfall" anymore. Nor is it "spun honey gold"  and it hasn't been in a very long time.  But what it is, is oddly absolutely fine with me.  And I am eager to continue to watch the transformation (I'm a transformer!  Wow!) 

My hairdress is very supportive but I know she thinks I'm crazy.  I still go see her to get it cut every 7 weeks just like always and she is sweet and charming and lovely as she always is.  But at the end of every appointment she reminds me that if I change my mind,  they have plenty of colour there.  Makes me smile every time.

My plan is, that once my hair has completely morphed into it's next incarnation, once it's all silver or white, that then I will do one stripe of a really fun colour.  Blue maybe or pink or purple or...well who knows.  Then we will both be happy. 

Stay tuned for further updates. Bulletins as they happen!