November 03rd, 2025

I think it's time for another hair update. It's been awhile.

In case you wondered, yes this photo is of me from behind.  And for those of you egging on the silvers and greys and whites, as you can see, tremendous progress is being made!  Sadly, most of the pretty is under the first layer of dull old brown hair.  Isn't that the oddest thing?   If my hair is center parted, there are just these little sparkly bits here and there, some definite white and silver in a couple of oddball streaks but mostly just a very boring mouse brown.  But if I part my hair on the side, all of this glorious tinsel shows up!   Wild!

It's gotten quite long too.  It's far too miserable all summer long to wear my hair down so I honestly  didn't realize how long it had gotten. Then I struck up a conversation with a neighbor one day when we were bringing in our garbage cans and she mentioned how long my hair was. At the time my hair was still a little damp and I had not yet wrestled it into submission for the day. It was just uncombed, a little wet and hanging out for anyone to see.  I guess I don't ever really think about it much, but after that comment,  I  made it a point, once I was back in the house, to grab a mirror and look behind me (a little tricky).  This is what I saw:

Not a terrific photo and never my best side for photographs but hey it is what it is.  Anyway, you can see, untidy brown hair with a few grey streaks and a lot longer.  Just a few inches yet to what passes for my waist.  That nice neat straight line across the bottom is thanks to Tim who very bravely and kindly agreed to trim my hair for me when I handed him my pair of Good Scissors (which I generally hide) , indicated my hair and asked him to please just cut a straight line.  He did!  He cut about 4 inches off that day. Beautiful straight line too :)  Kudos!!

I have to admit that when I first saw this photo, my initial thoughts were seahag and wicked witch, not  pretty images.  Oh dear.

Throughout the hot and humid months I wear my hair up. You've seen the hiking photos with me in either two pig tails or two braids of course. But on the daily it's either a pony tail of some sort or a variety of buns or a single braid.  The length of the braid depends on how cooperative my hands are that day:

And apparently, I now see, that sometimes my ponytail is crooked.  LOLOL

 Of course, now that they weather is cooler, I've started wearing my hair down more often or at least half down (half up), sometimes with a hair bands or clips keeping it under control.    That's when I started really feeling the impact of long hair.  Frankly, occasionally,  it gets in the way.

If I lean forward to, say, pick something up off the floor, I'm instantly flying blind because my vision is obscured by a curtain of hair.  If I'm outside and the wind is blowing, I'm completely confounded by the octopus of hair flinging about.  And when I'm sleeping, it often half strangles me.

Still l kind of like that cape of hair, tickling my elbows as I go about my day.  This was not my first long hair rodeo after all. When I was in college I wore my hair long and, for a change, since my hair is so naturally straight, I was right in style.  An accident I assure you, I've never been au current intentionally.  It was easy to care for, inexpensive too as I did not have to pay for a salon visit and honestly, like now, I just didn't think about it.

I think the end of high school and into college was the first time I had long hair. I loved it but I had it cut rather short when I had my first baby just for practicality and kept it no longer than shoulder length ish until all three of my boys were no longer babies. Then I slowly grew it long again. Until I was looking for work and felt that I needed a more professional look. Chop! From waist length to pixie with no remorse.  The hairdresser cried.  Once I felt more secure in my job, slowly my hair grew very long once more.  Then we moved to Colorado and I was ready for a big change.  Another chop!  And this time a funky chop that had me styling my hair with some sort of waxy product to keep the funkiness properly funked.  Eventually  - and that time it was so many crazy lengths that it took forever - I eventually grew it out to about chin length and kept it there for years.  Until I had this most recent desire for long hair again a few years back.  Well it was partly a desire for long hair and partly a desire for no constant hair salon expenses. Bonus points:  I always liked wearing my hair long.

But that was then, and this is now, and when I reallllly looked at my hair I hmmmmmed a bit.  It felt odd.  Not as smooth and silky as I recalled from the olden days. In investigating that oddity and concern that I had, somehow, damaged my hair with all the hairbands, scrunchies and clips, I learned that silver, grey and white hair are completely different that 'regular' hair.  The texture is different, the care of it is different!  

It turns out that grey is just unpigmented hair and the so called colour of it is an optical illusion from the mix of pigmented (in my case brown) and unpigmented hair together. Interesting.  When the brown is completely gone it should be silver and ultimately white which always looks shinier.  Grey hair doesn't reflect light so it looks dull (bah!)  Unpigmented hair is more fragile, more apt to dry out and requires special care.  I alternate now between my normal shampoo for the proper care of my normal brown hair and purple shampoo which is the correct choice for my grey/silver/white hairs.

Well, hmmm.  I am looking forward, even more eagerly now to the day there is no more brown and my hair has all the same texture and shine.  I currently look more and more daily like a calico cat with hair of many colours, only one of them shiny and soft.

At any rate,  that the deal with my  long hair, partly grey, partly white, partly silver, partly brown that I'm finally able to wear down and realize how nice and long it is and learning how to take proper care of the mixed up crazy hair colours I'm sporting.  Long hair just in time for the cooler - and sometimes even cold - weather, helping me to stay warm.  Perfect!

And then this past Saturday came along and out of nowhere I had this wild hair, speaking of hair, and well, long story short, this is me today:

 It was a whim, I admit but sometimes I just need a change and this is certainly a change.  I am having to re-learn how to "do" shorter hair once again.  I'm mostly happy with it and honestly if I decide I don't like it after all, I'll just grow it out again.  Maybe this shorter cut will encourage those silvers and whites to pop out and the browns to go away.

Hope everyone had a GREAT weekend!