I’m off to my stylist’s today and will be getting this mane evened out a bit, my regular 6-week trim and colour adjustment. . . About a year ago, having realized how often my head turned to admire a Woman of a Certain Age who rocked her curls right out, grey or coloured, I asked R. what she thought of my aiming for a bigger, curlier, even longer profile. She grabbed the idea right way, and I so appreciate her guidance and scissors and eye for colour. I made her promise she’d warn me if I got too close to that line marked Caricature. Above all, I still want my hair to look well-tended, well-groomed, and I want it to reflect overall health and vigor, its own and mine both. I’d like it to project an individual style without looking as if I’m clinging to a past long beyond the best-buy date.
So right now, she’s working on pulling some face-framing layers that had been left shorter at the front into a better line with the longer ringlets former around my shoulders. Together we’re getting to a shape I’m loving. I’ve been having such fun with Going Big, embracing the wild, while also remembering a small girl’s ringlets, ever so long ago. . . .
I’ve just finished reading Susan Cain’s thought-provoking — and reassuring, for me — Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, and there’s a connection with my surrender to my hair’s will. I’m thinking that connection through and hope to write about it here, soon.
The wonky eyes here are a result of my camera play — I’ve been goofing around a bit with aiming it from different angles — this photo is taken in the mirror and I’m holding the camera out of the frame, aiming from below. . .
Meanwhile, today’s plans include yoga in the morning, hair styling in the early afternoon, and then I’ll be on a ferry to Vancouver where I’ll spend the weekend indulging myself. It’s the first non-marking break in a month and the last work-free days until mid-December, so I’m going to shop and visit my kids, read, run, perhaps see a movie, probably do much walking bundled up against the icy weather. . . .Pater will be joining me on Sunday, and we’ll toast our busy days over a good glass of red in some favourite neighbourhood spot. . . .
By then, your weekend will have been filled as well — what are your plans?
And I’m curious — do you find these Certain years, if you’re in them yet, are making you change your hair styling approach? And is that with a sense of resignation or a sense of freedom and play? I know some of you have embraced the grey (I’m not taking that route for the moment, obviously) — how’s that working out? If you’re still colouring, do you switch it up occasionally or have you finally found the perfect shade? A few fabulous women I know have buzzed it all off in support of cancer-fighting friends — one woman, especially, just shone below her beautiful bald pate. Most of us, though, are not quite that bold. But with decades left to go, what are we doing with our thinning, greying crowning glory? Do tell, please. . . .
No colour here – when one's natural colour is nearly black, and when one's brows remain black, there is a danger of resembling Morticia Adams with any attempt at colouring. As far as cut goes, I've been experimenting a little, and haven't yet settled on the one that works,
My son sent me Quiet some time ago, with the note 'Mum, this is you'. True. I wish I'd written, but I do live it.
Have a grand time in the big city.
I never really thought about that for black hair, but I cAn see how it would be a problem. At least you probably get that great salt and pepper look…
The book is so reassuring, isn't it?
I'm gray, as you know.
I really feel like my long hair is my most striking accessory. When I put it back, which is mostly, I'm ready to be a grandmother. When I wear it loose, I'm someone's paramour. When I put it up, I'm a grande dame.
I adore your curls.
Yours is an exemplary success story for Going Grey with Style! Didn't realize it gave you three different personae, but that's even more impressive. ..
I got my hair cut to a bob recently and I can wear it curly or smooth but I really hate fussing with hair. Carol King, Margaret Atwood and Susan Sarandon would be my style heroes. I like your hair at the length it is but it is all about the layers. Curly grey hair might be a bit difficult if the curls are fine as mine but who knows what future years may bring.
I do wonder about how the texture of grey hair will change my curly locks , but one year at a time, I guess . . .Such an adventure đ
Oh, HAIR! After years of wearing it short, I started growing it out again, almost without thinking about it. And I love it! I always thought I was getting too old to have longer (chin/shoulder length) hair, but instead I'm getting braver with it. A flat iron helps tame the frizz – my hair has waves and kinks, but not curls. It takes longer to look after, but I love the feel of it on my neck.
I'm debating starting to let the grey show. But I'll be talking to my stylist about how to do that without a skunk streak.
Saturday is the craft fair I'm involved in, and Sunday will be recovery.
I read Cain's book, Quiet… about 18 months ago. I loved it for the value she placed upon introverts and shy people like myself. I used to feel like I should be more outgoing, more "out there" especially in marketing myself. Now, I'm much more comfortable just being the quiet person I am, contributing when I have something to say and staying silent when I don't. My daughters have read the book as well – we are a family of introverts – and I hope they learn these lessons sooner than I.
Bon weekend!
I must admit that I found you in person much younger and prettier and more stylish than I'd expected from your profile photo and much of that has to do with your hair length. Not that you don't look attractive in that photo, and friendly and interesting, but more so, even, with the longer hair, IMHO.
Yes, exactly, to your book comments. I seem to masquerade fairly well as an extrovert when I want or have to. Cain helped me understand why that's so wearing.
I'm in my early 40s. I have been going grey since my late teens (!) so I've been tinting it, and now dyeing it, for some time. For now, I am happy to keep dyeing because 1) my current hair is a salt and pepper bleurgh mess. I know from genetics that both my grandmothers by their sixties had the most luxuriant silver-white hair. Yes, luxuriant, right until their deaths in their late 90s. If I'm lucky, I'll inherit their fabulous manes. I'll go grey in my 60s when my hair is truly silver, not this non-descript faded muddle.
2) I am an older mother and I am aware that au naturel, as I was during my pregnancies, my uncoloured hair makes me look much older than my actual years. I don't want my girls to be teased for having 'granny' as their mummy, as has already happened with regard to comments about their dad (also early 40s and totally silver grey, my silver fox đ ). Once they are in early adulthood and I am early 60s, they won't give a hoot what anyone thinks of their mother and I can go silver with aplomb. Well, that's the plan.
Lettys
Lucky you, with luxuriant hair genetics. I suspect my scalp may be peeking out in my 80s….I totally understand why you'd want to colour for now while your daughters are young. Nice that we have such good products/options.
I let my hair go grey as you might remember and having my stylist cut it short to take off the last of the coloured locks, so for the first time in many decades I have short hair. I am loving styling it with a pomade for an edgy vibe and most days it behaves and looks much better than when I had a bob or shoulder length style. My hair is wavy so it does have an "agenda" all it's own.
Your curls look soft and silky and the colour is very complimentary with your complexion. Have fun in Vancouver.
Yours is another success story for going grey and for finding a great cut that suits the new colour with much pizzazz!
This intrigues me because my mother is currently bald. She LOVES her new "do" and never intends to go back to her former (curly bob) again. Apparently, she's going to be super-short or maybe even stay bald (but I doubt it – I think the lure of some hair will be compelling). She must, however, dye it – so my sister and I tell her. Grey hair aged her terribly. We'll see what comes of our advice.
Your mother sounds amazing, but why doesn't that surprise me, Apple, tree ,'n'all…. So great that's not a big emotional wallop as it so often is on that cancer trip.
Interestingly, my stylist, about your age, is also clear that for now, she doesn't think grey is right for me. She knows me, and my hair, really well, so I'm following her lead for now, especially since it aligns with my own instincts.
You're so sweet! I think your hair looks great as it is. It has a lot of body and a lot of personality. Sometimes grey zaps those qualities. I actually think you'd look lovely with red undertones too. Your colouring would suit it.
I admire the solidarity with a woman friend, yet for me, beautiful is in the gesture, not the look. Maybe, if I got used to it. You do need an exceptionally nicely- shaped skull for it to look good, same with men who shave their heads.
My friends who lost their hair during cancer treatment were very happy when it grew back, though several have different textures and one, like K Line's mother, kept it in a pixie. The main thing is, they are here!
The one woman in particular I'm thinking of buzzed her hair off at about 67. She's got luminous skin, carries just enough extra pounds that her face has fullness still, gorgeous eyes and overall …what? Twinkle? Charisma? She just shone the baldness out and she stayed super-short for perhaps a year, playing with colour before settling back into salt-and-pepper curls.
Generally, though, I'm with you, and I know it wouldn't be a flattering look on me. Nothing like watching a loved one undergo chemo, though, to put that concern in perspective!
Oh, I'm at my wit's end about my hair! I have had a bob for ages, and that would be fine, except that I'm shedding a lot and that makes it look stringy (I'm hoping that once I'm safely through menopause, that will change). I would like to go really short and chic, but I'm going to wait a bit – my current hairdresser is not keen, so I'd rather wait until after we move next year. As for colour, I get blonde/caramel highlights – I have a very few grey roots and love the idea of silver hair, but I'm not sure it will come out that way. You are so lucky that your hairdresser has so much to work with! :0)
Oh dear, I suspect we all recognize that note of desperation. The highlights sound pretty, though–one of the reasons I'd be loath to give up colour is the additional volume and shine it gives… Short and chic always appeals to me in theory, but quite honestly, I think it might require more attention to makeup, particularly eyes, than I'm likely to pay.
Your hair looks fantastic! And is certainly not introverted. My hair gets shorter with age and is currently a mixture of natural grey and mousey brown, with a few blonde highlights. It's getting thinner, which I'm finding a little disturbing.
Your hair always looks fabulous in the photos you show us. Mine got shorter with age, as well, but then more age came along, so it got longer. And then shorter. And then longer again. And apparently there's still more age ahead. If I'm lucky…;-)
Yes, I find thinning hair disturbing too. It crept up on me and took me by surprise. On the bonus side, from having thick, unmanageable, neither straight nor curly hair, now I find it will do what it is told, but I remain a devotee of the bottle (or rather my hairdresser's bottle). I'm not sure how I would have felt about a change of hairtype and colour at the same time. At the moment, from what I can see at the roots, I am a natural bleurgh so I'm going to call it my public duty to cover it up until I become gloriously silver
Manageable is a good thing, even if bleurgh is less so . . . I'd love, theoretically, to be more in tune with Nature, etc. and go grey, but I'm sticking with the bottle and some other good products for now…while we dream of becoming gloriously silver! Love your tongue-in-cheek optimism.
Natural bleurgh – love it!
Your hair is glorious. I'll be interested to read what you have to say about introversion, as a fellow introvert. As for hair, I mourned the loss of it a few years ago but now I don't mind. I keep it short.
Have you read Cain's book, Susan? I found it almost liberating, truly, coupled with awareness I've gained over the last few years…
I didn't read that one, but I read The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World by Marti Olsen Laney Psy.D, and it helped me feel more accepting of how I am wired and how to better take care of myself.
I'm strating a hari re-evaluation process this year also. I've been letting it grow and doing an angled bob but as it is thinning it's time to reconsider that decision. I'll keep coloring it but am going to re-examine the styles I've had for the past half dozen years.
It's tough, isn't it? We finally figure out what works for us, and then it doesn't! But at least the need to change, to re-evaluate, keeps us fresh. Small consolation but we take our silver linings where we find them, right?
Your hair looks as though it belongs to you. Introverts are full of contradictions, are they not?
I enjoyed Cain's book when it first came to our library shelves. It helped me end certain struggles. The struggle with my hair wasn't one of them…
I have thick wavy/curly hair, which used to be light blonde and has darkened over the last few years. My grey's have managed to come in looking like highlighted streaks, rather than the skunk-type stripe of roots, so color hasn't been an issue. I've worn it long (longish) for ever except for an experimental bob several years ago. I liked the length but hated the fight to maintain that sleek cap of hair every day. My new routine with kickboxing meant every other day no longer worked for shampooing. Hair dryers involved too much time and heat so, my long, heavy hair was always wet (wrapped, bunned, twisted, braided). I woke up one day and made an appointment – it was an easy decision. I cut it just about chin length, and added some layers which released long-forgotten curls. On days when I need to leave the house after my workout 5 minutes with a blow dryer and a little product have me smiling on my way out the door. It never looks the same from day to day – which I love.
It sounds like you have a wonderful weekend planned – enjoy your pause from marking.
Yes re the introverts and contradictions — it's only very recently that some of my family have come to concede that I am one!
Your adjustment to hair that suits your life is inspiring! My haircare is similar to yours except that it takes longer to dry and I head out the door with it still partially wet. It has to be wet down every morning, regardless of the length, and then I just put my product it, scrunch it and let it dry without touching it . . . when it's finally dry, I use a pick to give it some volume. I tried straightening it but that just doesn't work with my running routine. Isn't it great when our priorities align?! I suspect that smile gives the crowning touch to your hairstyle!
Wow, I'm so envious of those lively curls!! My fine, straight hair seems to be beginning to thin even more, so earlobe length is as long as I dare go. The new cut looks fantastic on you.
That was actually a pre-cut photo — my hair's always a bit subdued for a few days after the stylist, but it should be back to full-on rambunctious very soon. . ..