February 23rd, 2022

It 's been awhile since we did a grey hair check in so I suppose it's time.  It was about a year and a half ago now that I decided to no longer colour my hair. I said at the time (and it was absolutely true too) that I no  longer had any idea what my real hair colour was.  Sad, but true.  

I'll back up a little bit.  When I was a little girl, my hair was blonde, unmistakably sunny blonde.  And it stayed some shade of blonde throughout my school years.  But my hair grew darker with each child that I gave birth to.  My stretch marks aren't bad all things considered but the radical hair colour change was the thing that really bothered me the most.  By the time my 3rd boy made his appearance my hair had gone from no questions about it blonde to a very dark brown.

In all honesty, looking back, the brown wasn't bad at all. It just wasn't what I was used to.  Every time I happened to catch a glimpse of my new reflection unexpectedly my first split second reaction was, "who is that?".  A bit of an identity crisis I guess.  But it was what it was and I just lived with it the way it was for a long time.  Then suddenly one day when the boys were a not toddlers or babies any more, I decided to buy a box of home lightener and give it a whirl.  It was one of those temporary things.  The results weren't bad, but neither were they very good.  It was just okay enough for me to continue. Which was clearly a mistake.

In very short order my hair had that orangey/brassy home colour done wrong look that had to GO and finally I took myself to my local hair salon and left such things to the professionals (as I should have from the beginning).  It took awhile for them to correct all the things I had done so very wrong for so very long but eventually we got there.  And then it was time to play.  Lighter hair was fun but how would I look with true red hair?  So we tried that.  And then darker again. Then lighter again.  These were the days before the crayola box of hair colour possibilities but I think at one point or another my hair was every possible colour of the natural hair rainbow from nearly white blonde to almost black dark.  Somewhere along the line, we kind of settled for the middle and that's where it stayed for a very long time.

And then one day, out of the blue, I got tired of it all.  Tired of the constant appointments, the time involved, the increasingly large amount of money spent, fretting about the roots and after a great deal of thought I talked to my long suffering hair dresser about pulling the plug on hair colour altogether.  It took awhile for it to all grow out and honestly I looked like a calico cat more than anything during that time.  But eventually the artificial colour was completely gone and all that was left was my real true colour.

Which was a surprise.  I assumed that it would be some shade of grey or silver or white.  But nope,  mostly it was just a kind of mousy brown.  Meh.  Still, it was healthy and shiny and my life isn't a beauty pageant (never was) so what the heck, I was disappointed to not have the pretty silvery/white locks of my dreams but oh well.  I've been disappointed before and lived to tell the tale so life goes on.

And as it went on I found more and more sparkly bits, the shiny parts, not all in one place but here and there.  Salt'n'pepper I've heard it called before and it's accurate enough.   Over time I am seeing more and more sparkle and less and less mouse.  And that makes me happy.

The photo at the top of the page I took of myself this very morning.  You can sort of see some sparkly, glittery parts.  It's even more apparent in natural light but, and you'll just have to take my word for it right now, it's mostly just that mix of dark and light still.  A nice even mix.  I suppose that's not terrible.

But the best part, my favourite part is yet to come.  I have two white streaks that I love!

How cool is that?  Over each ear is a wide, completely white, stripe. It's awesome.  Nobody ever really sees it unless I do a half up kind of style.  It is actually a look I like but my hair doesn't stay in a clip very well so I have to re clip it over and over and OVER all day long so I generally do not try anything  that fancy.  I know that it's there and that's enough.

My mother, whose hair was much much darker than mine and cut very very short, had the same white bands of hair at the temples.  Hers was on display due to her shortie style and looked almost like wings.  It looked classy and fancy and I loved it.  I am so tickled that I  inherited that from her!  Thanks Mother!

I assume (though one should never) that eventually the lights will outnumber the darks in my hair until, eventually it will all be white/silver/grey and I am looking forward to it.

I am finding that the oddest part of my new hair colour is how it impacts my wardrobe.  All of the dark colours that I tend to gravitate toward now make me look washed out.  Dang.  The brighter colours look much better.  I kind of sigh when I look in my closet to select my clothes for the day.  I need to slowly weed out the blacks and greys and navy's and introduce more spring and summer colours.   It's a process. Eventually I'll get there.

So there you have it.  The most recent grey update.  I'm getting there, slowly.  But slow progress is still progress.  I'm good with that.

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