I’ve thought a lot about publicising this post as I didn’t want to offend anyone.
But as I feel pretty offended myself I thought I could try and write this in the nicest way possible.
I started to go grey when I was 13. I’m not saying I woke up and I was grey but girls at school found a grey hair and pointed it out. But it runs in the family, my cousin started going grey at the same time and she has just informed me that we get this salt and pepper trait from our lovely grandad who also turned into a silver fox at a very young age.
But this didn’t bother me really. I’d love to say that I could afford to go to the hairdressers every two weeks (yes two weeks) to keep up with the grey-bashing but unfortunately, I just do not have the funds and I do not want to put my hair through any more stress.. see here for said hair stress.
So for around four weeks out of six, I walk around with my greys showing spraying them with root spray when I can be bothered, or leaving them gleaming when I couldn’t.
And then one day early last week, while I was at work, there was a comment. I’ve got thick skin so I just let it slide but my god it irritated me days later. I had a few meetings that day so I had made an effort. Before I left the house Martyn made a comment about me looking like an “international businesswoman” and I was feeling pretty fierce. I even took a photo…
Then when I was walking to my second meeting of the day I bumped into a man who I know through work and he said: “WOW! I didn’t recognise you, Look at you all dressed in black… *Leans into my hair*… Well, not all in black…”
Now I know if I had said at the time to this man that his comment had upset me or angered me I’m sure he would have apologised, but in my state of shock, I apologised to him for my grey hair.
What the hell! I wish I could re-programme my brain so that when someone points out a flaw in me I automatically know that it is more telling of them, then it is of me.
About ten seconds after he said it, and I apologised, he walked away and I shouted “Yeah you better keep walking…” with a playful fist in the air like some strange Popeye character.
But this happens all the time.
Can we all just make a pact to realise that going grey is no more controllable than the colour skin you have and it is not something that HAS to be hidden? If you want to flaunt your grey hair you should be able to without being made fun of for it.
And that’s when I found a Grombre on Instagram. An account set up to embrace the premature roots. I am here for that!
These women are grey-ombre and proud and I am so happy that they are.
I probably will still dye my hair because I like mixing colours and I get bored with the same colour after a while but it’s nice to know that women are embracing their grey hairs and that I can too.
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