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| Go gray | 42% | 2039 votes | Total: 4901 votes | |
| Dye it | 58% | 2862 votes |
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Add to FavoritesWith only four strands of gray hair buried deep beneath 36 year-old black locks I admire from afar the many beautiful women who unapologetically display both full and burgeoning grays with confidence and pride.
In the Book of Proverbs gray hair is esteemed as a crown of glory, and it is wonderful to see a mature woman who walks in elegant assuredness as she adorns herself with her natural crown of glory. Gray hair is not an unfashionable reminder of the golden years calling your name. And it should not bring about an anxious, faulty notion that your beauty has somehow begun to fade.
Beauty goes through stages of maturity just like our physical bodies, and just as the beauty of youth is represented by blondes, brunettes, red-heads and others, this same beauty never dies but simply transforms itself into the deeper beauty that gray hair signifies. It is the wisdom gained from life's lessons that are now waiting to be received by non-grays who are basking unaware in the frivolity of youth. Gray hair is also an honorable symbol of long life that is most often gained by living a sensible and righteous life.
With this said why would you cover your gray or wear it in a negative posture that may falsely convey a lack of self-esteem or dissatisfaction with the phases of life we all enter into? Unfortunately many women who choose to camouflage their gray often end up with an off color that is unappealing or they wear it so far into their most mature years that it looks completely unhealthy and unnatural.
It is wonderful that my grandmother is approaching her ninth decade. I applaud her for bravely weathering glaucoma and a quadruple heart bypass, among other ailments, that failed to hamper her spunk and spirit. But the unflattering dye job she has maintained for the last twenty years gives no reflection of her inner strength and ability to endure. It has also done nothing to complement her face or enhance her outward appearance. Allowing the gray to come through would soften her features and make her to look more natural (which, by the way, I am too chicken to tell her). How many times have you crossed paths with a similar person in need of the same advice?
It is unfortunate that the glory of gray hair is being suffocated in this age when more and more women not only dye, but also nip, tuck, inject and implant. As for me, gray hair is a gift that I barely possess but very much look forward to attaining in its fullness. You are encouraged to wear your gray and wear it with a smile. It will make you that much more beautiful.
Learn more about this author, Josette Maurer.
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Dye it
"I'm giving her everything I've got Captain." On the original Star Trek series this is what Scotty yelled whenever Captain Kirk told him to pick up the speed on the spaceship they were flying.
This is what I'm saying-I'm throwing whatever I can at Mother Nature and approaching old age as fast as I can. Sometimes I feel like yelling, I'm giving her everything I've got! You can figure out pretty fast where I stand on this non-issue of gray or color it argument.
My first gray hairs started popping out about two years ago, when I was officially over 40. Friends of mine started getting gray hair when they were in their thirties. Some of my college friends were getting gray hair when they were in college. I first noticed some gray hair on top of my head about two years ago. I actually thought they were blond hairs growing in, which made me really happy. I thought, I'm getting older and blonder.
Then, when I got the magnifying glass out, I saw it wasn't blond, it was a gray hair, sticking up straight out of the top of my head. And then I saw another one, and another. So, I got the scissors and pulled them straight up, and cut them off. Then, I tempted fate by saying to them as I flushed them down the toilet, "I dare you to come back, now."
The last laugh's on me, because now they're growing straight out of my head, and in my temples, and sprouting from my bangs. I've pulled them out with tweezers, and it doesn't even hurt. I will be coloring my hair soon, because I'm not putting up with this insult too, in addition to the wrinkles, and freckles, and those horrible brown spots from tanning all my life.
Some women look great with gray hair when they're young and they go prematurely gray. If they get it cut, in a cute style, and keep it that way. To borrow a line from presidential candidate, Theresa Heinz Kerry when she said, "You go all the girls."
Some women wear their gray hair as a badge of honor for all the hard work; it took to get to be older, and wiser, and feel more comfortable with who they are. But for me personally, I don't feel comfortable with having shiny silver hairs sticking out of the top of my head. And for some odd reason they grow faster than all the rest.
My Mom would swear from the bathroom every time she discovered a new gray hair, or two, or three. And every time she did, I knew what she was swearing about, because she told me the first time she had gotten one. I remember her saying, "I'm not going down without a fight."
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Learn more about this author, Kate Johns.
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