Quitting, not for sissies | Lifestyle.INQ

OCTOBER 27, 2022

When quitting dyeing hair, I have no doubt it takes more than just guts–it takes character

Now and then I get attacks of courage—bravado might be the better word. This morning, for instance, when the round came up for dyeing my hair again, I felt it might be time to quit, emboldened by quitters who had lingered in recent recollection looking positively great undyed.

Knowing the initial nightmares one has to deal with about quitting dyeing, I have no doubt it takes more than just guts—it takes character. After all, this is about naturally looking one’s age; indeed, nothing is more widely and ultimately denied.

Looking at pictures from a few months back, at my birthday lunch, I’m struck by my writer-friend Gilda as easily the outstanding specimen. Already radiantly undyed well into seniorhood, she was at the time letting her hair grow before cutting away all traces of dyeing, intending to keep only the fresh and pristine growths. Absolutely becomingly, she now wears angelic white hair!

I’m told she not only survived the stage-by-stage self-liberation from dye—her hair turned multicolored before turning all-white—but has found it the best thing she’s ever done for her hair, and herself; her hair is actually thicker than ever.

But don’t get me wrong, she has not given up on the other things that keep her feeling and looking good. For instance, she exercises and drinks her vegetables regularly, disciplines I have myself picked up from her. Her skin, not to mention the rest of her, seems to have forgotten to age along with us—well, except maybe for a bone or two, and only because at 85, something just has to give.

Then there’s Letty, the never-dyer, and I mean, never. I don’t know at what stage she decided against it; all I know is when my first gray hairs became obvious at 50, I didn’t think I even had a choice. This brave head-turner looks none the older than any of the dyers present at my lunch; in fact she looks great with her short thick salt-and-pepper virgin hair.

In all the years I’d known her, she had worn her hair long until, unceremoniously, she one day cropped it really short. But then again, Letty, a skilled and competitive golfer herself, has always been her own woman.

Practical realist

Tita Techie is another inspiration. She stopped coloring her hair at 80, at which age she became a practical realist, and started buying only sachets of everything—no more family sizes for her.

But she could sometimes be prevailed upon by her children, as, indeed, she was when they took her for a hair-growing treatment from which, once begun, there’s no turning back. But then nothing fazes her. Never and forever are just words to her now—at 90.

Emboldened by her act of lifelong commitment to the treatment, I also took the vow, and I’m not at all sorry. Although, by my own math, I’m locked in for a longer sentence.

Anyway, whenever I catch myself wondering if the deal was premature, if not reckless, for me, all I have to do is look at Tita Techie and my pictures before the treatment, and I’m reassured again. The best part is that I’ve been able to cut my hair short for the hot summer, which, with far less hair, would have made me a spectacle.

Anxious proposition

But whether I’m prepared to go one bold step further and quit dyeing remains for me an anxious proposition. Certainly it doesn’t help that I have a fairly good stock of hair dye to last the year, and more so now that lately I have received the new, improved edition of my brand, and upgraded now to a semi-permanent dye, with no ammonia, no peroxide, for “advanced gray.”

Still nothing has stopped me polling friends about quitting altogether, and I’ve been getting mixed reactions. The majority tend to become speechless or manage a shriek of horror at the prospect of seeing me all white-haired.

Perhaps I have not earned it yet. My time will no doubt come, and that’s when freedom becomes more important than looking young. Indeed, some say, at a certain age, life is all about freedom. But, again, who was it that said, “When I let my hair go gray, I felt an enormous freedom.”

At any rate, let’s face it: How much younger do I manage to look with all the dyeing I do? And if I let my hair turn gray, how much older would I look? I’d probably look my age. And maybe that’s as bad as it gets.

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