Friday, June 13, 2008

To color or not to color

All right, enough of this heavy-duty philosophizing; let’s talk about something trivial. Like coloring ones hair. Although as a matter of fact, I take that subject fairly seriously, mainly because it represents that ol’ double standard that has always driven me crazy. Women in our society feel compelled to color their hair in order to continue looking young, which is equated with being attractive, while most men (these days there are exceptions) feel no such compulsion; and indeed, would be appalled at the thought of coloring their hair. Wouldn’t be manly.

It is women who spend so much time and money hiding the reality of the physical changes taking place as they age. (This includes other things besides hair, but right now we’re talking about hair.) Because if they don’t...well, I think of poor Barbara Bush, and all the “She looks like his mother!” comments that, I believe, sprang from her head of silvery-white hair, in contrast to her husband’s youthful brown locks, with just that bit of grey at the temples that made him look “distinguished.” After all, she was an attractive woman, with a pleasant face. I’m sure, had she colored her hair, no one would have thought she looked older than her husband.

Or...can you imagine an actress being able to continue playing romantic leads – playing anything other than mothers in aprons – if she allowed her naturally grey hair to show, the way Steve Martin and Richard Gere did? An actress with grey hair can’t play anything that suggests sex. I think it’s all part of the deeply ingrained cultural taboo against sleeping with ones mother. A lady with grey hair smacks too much of Mother!

I myself have been a “bottle blond” for about twenty years now, and before that I was a bottle brunette for three or four years, when the grey began to appear in my Basic Brown hair, and I decided it was way too early for that. So for many years, every couple of months or so I have engaged in the tedious, time-consuming business of applying some smelly gunk to my hair, then walking around looking a fright for 45 minutes while it “set.”

A few months ago I reached “a certain age,” and made the decision to stop coloring my hair. See what happened. See what it looked like au naturel. I already knew the entire front was a pretty white, and thought it wouldn’t be too bad if it all looked that way, though I suspected that it wouldn’t (and it doesn’t look like it’s going to). I mainly did this because I thought, “Who am I kidding?” For many years I looked younger than my age, then I began to look approximately my age, but for the last few years, thanks to degradations in the neck/chin/jowls regions, I’ve looked exactly my age (despite my mother’s insistence to the contrary). And just how appropriate was it for a 61-year-old woman to have blond hair? One might say, it doesn’t matter how old you get to be, you have the right to make your hair whatever color you want. And of course I do, but why would I want it to be any color other than the color it naturally is? Why would I want to continue going to that trouble and expense? The reason up to now has been: in order not to look old, in order to be as attractive as possible. Which actually meant, in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. But given the aforementioned physical degradation...

So does all this mean I’ve just given up on the idea of being attractive to the opposite sex? Well, I don’t think it’s just a matter of that (and, you know, hope does spring eternal). There’s also the fact that I don’t want to seem pathetic. Look at her, trying to look young. Who does she think she’s kidding? I recall seeing a picture of Ginger Rogers some years before she died, and there she was with her fat, heavily made-up, late-middle-aged face, and all that flowing blond hair. Pathetic was definitely the word that came to mind.

I don’t want to look pathetic, so I guess I’ll settle for looking like someone’s mother. Or...maybe not.

2 comments:

Fae said...

I also stopped coloring my hair recently, after about 20 years. I'm really happy with the way it looks, a lot of silver mixed in with some brown. I've always looked a lot younger than my age, and I wanted to finally look my age.

Unknown said...

I stopped coloring my hair because I got lazy, but don't really have more than a few grays so it hasn't been an issue. However, I am sure in the coming years I will go back to coloring my hair - esp if I finally decide to cut it short - I love having a different color of hair every month or so! And if that's pathetic - well, f'em!