Giving Up the Fight: Unruly Hair Edition

There are so many things I could write about these days. The unpacking, the "We really dragged these things across the country?" disbelief, the home updates that could have been eco-friendly but were not. The struggle to resist the temptation to run out and buy a zillion new things to deck out the house.

Those posts may come. But for now, let's tackle the ridiculous First World Problem of hating one's hair.

One of the unpleasant side effects of rocking gray hair is that gray hair is coarse and wiry. It is not shiny, it does not sparkle or gleam like the Pantene commercials, no matter what you slather into it. It squiggles in all directions from your scalp like a mess of lazy corkscrews. I have the added bonus of having hair that cannot collectively make up its mind about whether it is straight or a wavy mess.

I have been beating my hair into straight submission with an arsenal that includes a hair dryer, round brush, straightening iron, and all-natural hair balms. All that heat just antagonizes the angry mob, and I end up with crispy split ends and haircuts that never lay quite right. Ever.

So yesterday I decided to lay down my arsenal and surrender. I went to a new salon here in our neighborhood for the first time and told the stylist that I wanted a cut that would work FOR, rather than against my indecisive hair. Give me a Wavy Straight Asymmetrical Bob and Wispy Long Front Strands. With Bangs.

I got this:

I hate selfies. I really do

Friends, I think I will fight no more forever.

Moral of the story: Choose your battles. Or let your body do its thing. Or experience the joy of meeting a new stylist and seeing the look on her face when you encourage her to "Keep cutting! It will grow back. I'm not worried about it." and "Randomer is better! I don't care about even!" OK, maybe there is no moral.

The Big 3-5: Another year older and a New Year of GGG

Happy Birthday to Me! And Happy Anniversary to the Green, Gray and Grace blog!

Year 2 of the Green Gray and Grace initiative wraps up today, and Year 3 begins. This year has been full of transitions and do-overs and inches and inches of movement towards a greener and more graceful life. The Gray always pretty much takes care of itself. The Green and the Grace and I are duking it out every day, year after year. It's a long but oh so good battle.

I've been feeling a bit sheepish that I don't have so much to "show" for this year. It has been tough to find as much time to write and to try projects and to cook as I would like, and I haven't earned any Gold Stars for discipline and self control. But even if everything didn't exactly go as planned, I have definitely learned a lot. Learned a lot, still a lot of room to grow.

Since last February, I:

• Tried to grow a container garden. Getting started. Getting excited. Crushed by Reality.
• Started to embrace the fact that my quality of life is significantly better when I keep a grain-free diet. 
• Attempted to massively overhaul my eating habits to focus on simplicity and abundance. And failed miserably. 
• Adopted some *slightly* crunchy, but satisfyingly simple Green personal care habits. 
• Wrote the "Why I do not eat meat" post that had been making me unreasonably anxious. 
• Thought I would hate but learned to LOVE keeping a Sabbath on (most) Sundays. 
• Wrote this post about grieving that turned out to be the most viewed and most shared thing I've ever written. 

And I got a fun new bob haircut to show off my gray:

I'm ashamed of how many camera phone self portraits I took to get ONE that I didn't totally hate.

Ok, so what's next?

I'm not entirely sure. I'm hopeful that I'll have more time to do the things that I love this year than I had last year, so hopefully more cooking, crafting, making, writing. And HOPEFULLY I'll actually take a photography class so that my blog photos can actually resemble something artful rather than embarrassing snapshots in our poorly-lit kitchen.

God and I will keep wrestling with the ways in which my desires to live more simply and graciously and abundantly only get as far as my head. 

My hair will just keep getting more awesome. 

Green, Gray, and Grace: One Year Later

Happy Birthday to Me!

Co-Conspirator Les, Blog Editor-in-Chief AugDog, and me in the closest we could get to a family self-portrait.

One year ago today, I started this new blog with a grand scheme and big goals. The gray hair got the most attention, but that turned out to be the easiest goal to keep (Um, just didn't dye my hair. Pretty easy). A year later, I can honestly say that I'm surprised by the changes that came easily, and the changes that are still grinding away in fits and starts. I thought it would be really traumatic to Embrace the Gray, but it was fun, and I kind of love my hair most days. I thought I would get really into cooking and expand my culinary repertoire and make a bunch of things from scratch. And, naively, I thought the spiritual stuff would sort of magically align as I set goals and mini-goals and plugged away at "being a better person". Laugh with me now: Hahahahahahahahhhahhhaaahha!

Let's check in with what I set out to do last February:

My Goal: By Feb. of 2012, I want:

- To produce fewer bags of trash AND fewer bags of recycling

Reality: I've definitely cut back on a lot of single-use and disposal stuff, but the dent hasn't been huge. Wastefulness was one vice that I really thought would be easier to overhaul once I declared my intent.

- Cook more, buy fewer packaged foods (put more FOOD in my food)

Reality: Yeah, this one was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Even now that I know that I need to be even more careful about what I put into my body, making the time and space to cook has been a huge challenge.

- To be slimmer and fitter - back under 10 min miles for a 10K

Reality: Turns out, I am no slimmer or fitter than I was in Feb. 2011, and I have probably not run more than about one mile since I wrote that goal. But weirdly, despite my deleterious sluggishness all year, I feel better about my body than I ever have. Hmm.

- Give my gray hair a chance to really rock (let myself be myself)

Reality: I'm rockin the gray, and I love it a lot more than I ever thought I could.

- Re-energize my spiritual life by focusing on gratitude, abundance, and loving my neighbor

Reality: So, um, yeah. I think I have seen some spiritual changes over this year, but not how or where I expected. I thought about Gratitude and Abundance a lot more, but if they only come to mind when you're holding yet another pair of shoes in your hands at Target while you try to talk yourself out of them, I wonder how much spiritual maturity is shining through and how much is just a reality check from your wallet. I certainly put this goal into some sort of passive hope rather than an active pursuit.

- Scrutinize my purchases for their impact on my health, the planet, and my spirit

Reality: I'm pretty satisfied with my progress on this one. I've definitely made some bone-head impulse buys this year, but I've learned a lot about what things are actually made of, and where those ingredients/components/materials come from. It is far easier to put something back on the shelf when you can conjure up a fairly accurate picture of everything that went into it, from the thing itself to the packaging to the shipping to my cart. Still room for improvement (and impulse control), but a marked difference from this time last year.

So... What?

I'm glad - really glad - I took this year to intentionally regroup. I haven't blogged 3 times per week, and I couldn't keep up with the time required to research and write about all the things I really wanted to post. I didn't make it through even half of the projects I hoped to attempt this year, and I can honestly say that I haven't had any seismic shifts in lifestyle or habits. But little things. Ah, those million little things. They add up. They change you. Slowly, maybe, like a steady drip. Some of the biggest changes I have noticed are things that it would be really difficult to blog about. Not difficult to share, but difficult to articulate. Making peace with my body is a Big. Fracking. Deal., and it arrived quietly and uneventfully by way of a thousand drips of acceptance. I guess the hard edges of my body image have softened right along with my thighs. I don't mean to say that I don't care about being in good shape. I do care, and Les and I are setting some goals to get back into running. But whether or not I end up in smaller sized pants by my next birthday is about the farthest thing from my mind. Maybe all of those little gratitudes and gray hairs have taken up the space where my skinny-envy used to live.

And there's a strange kind of freedom and even joy that comes along with scrapping some convention and running face-first into Doing It Your Own Way. Things like the Sock Bottle and the oil method come to mind. When you don't have spendy face wash, body wash, or Pro-V and Silk Protein shampoo to replenish every couple of weeks, you can avoid Target all together. We get most of our personal care products from Whole Foods now, so no special trip for toiletries. And far fewer products in general, just by making a handful of tweaks.

Remember my shower at the beginning of the experiment?

Check it now:

Shampoo, Dr. Bronner's hair softener, soap, and razor.

And my makeup cabinet, Feb. 2011

Make up cabinet now:

Yay for fewer products and less clutter.

Of course, the other Big Reveal is the hair. I got it cut a couple of days ago as the last leg of this yearlong journey. Now my gray goes all the way to the ends of my hair - I had the dry split end part cut off (a good 2 inches), and now I finally do not have any bizarre brown ends at the bottom of my silver slabs. Ta Da! Full-out Gray from root to tip:

The State employee at the North Carolina DMV categorized my hair color as "Sandy", which was very diplomatic of her. I told her that I had just finished up a year of growing out my gray, and she said that it had turned out "a lovely salt-and-pepper. But mostly salt!".

I admit that from straight-on, it doesn't look that impressive. But the top of my head and the sides from my part are pretty remarkably gray...

And even more remarkable, I sort of love it.

I've grown out my gray, I've tried to pare down my products, I've learned a lot about the stuff I consume, but I feel like I'm just getting started! We're in a new place, I have some new Food Rules, and a much MUCH bigger kitchen. And a yard! And a deck just screaming for some vertical gardening. And a heart that is growing sort of weary of trying so hard to "be better".

Maybe 33 was just a ramping up year. Just the ground work for much bigger changes to come. Les and I have been reading a lot of challenging, terrific stuff about faith lately, and I'm excited to make prayer and service and the Bible a priority for 34. You know, the whole Grace part of the experiment that got a bit sidetracked. And I've got a whole new set of dietary considerations to embrace and some space for a garden for the first time EVER in my adult life. So I don't think 34 will be boring. If y'all want to come along for the ride, I'd be happy to have you.

Cheers, and thanks for reading and enjoying the ride with me.

January Gray Hair Update, very late

Hooray hooray, we're just a week away from internet at home! That means much more timely updates and regular blog postings. January is almost over, and I'm just now finally getting a good pic of me and the gray update. Les took this picture of me outside the NC Museum of Art (a surprisingly AWESOME free museum with a whole room full of Rodins. Swoon.) last week.

As you can see, I've got a lovely stripe and cascade of hombre-hued gray goin' on. I like it. BTW, did you see that Kelly Osbourne has dyed her hair gray? On purpose? I had read a few months ago that some big-time fashion blogger in her 20s has started dying her hair platinum silver, and that celebrities and wanna-bes across the US have followed her lead. Whatever. I can't even get on board with a trend like that, because mine is 100% natural. Maybe by next year you'll be able to buy "Chrome" or "Aluminum" colored hair dye at Target! Be on the lookout!

And just in case you don't read the AugBlog (written by G3 Editor-in-Chief Auggie), here's a repeat of the snap I took of the Editor and myself in the car last week. So you can get an idea of how the gray is weaving its way into my bangs and stuff.

The grain-free diet is going pretty well so far. If by "well" I mean that I am hungry all the stinkin' time but feel so so soooooo much better. I tried to "untest" both wheat and rice last week, and the results were not pretty. Literally. My face broke out and the GI issues returned immediately. Looks like I'm going to be a paleo-vegetarian. Hm. Maybe I could write a cookbook?

The new apartment will be much more amenable to cooking, and I am super psyched to try some new recipes. Follow along as I try to get all the nutrients I need on a crazy-restricted diet! Whoo-hoo!

Gray Hair Update and December Christmas Shopping Mission

I know, I know, I really need to get Les to take a proper photo of me and my gray hair. I'm remarkably bad at self portraits, especially with the built-in laptop camera. BUT, I really wanted to update the blog, and we don't have internet at our little house yet, and we're currently ganking internet from a lovely, bustling little Starbucks in downtown Raleigh so I decided to just go for it. I don't foresee myself having a lot of blog time at work in the near future.

But there it is; full-out gray. That light color streak you see is really a shock of white-gray hair. And it is not alone. I'm 10 months into the gray experiment and I think it is safe to say I no longer have gray roots. I have gray hair. Not really even salt-and-pepper in a traditional sense. I have wide slabs of gray that lay thick across my head and hide nestled under my part. Those slabs, plus about 1,000 individual gray rogues sprinkled throughout the rest of my head. And I kind of like it. I don't love the way the gray hair is coarse and wiry, but I like the look of it overall. I just wish I didn't feel like it makes me look like I'm creeping up 64 rather than 34.

Anyway. It is what it is, and I generally like what it is.

Shifting gears here, I also wanted to go on record with my Christmas gift plan. This year, with a few very select exceptions, I will challenge myself to buy only Christmas gifts that meet one of the following 3 criteria:

1. Handmade/crafted AND I HAVE MET or CORRESPONDED with the maker - i.e. - Etsy is OK, but random department store "hand crafted" does not
2. Produced within 100 miles of either Chicago or Raleigh and I BOUGHT IT in one of those two locations (bonus, there are some really awesome things made around here, and around Chicago)
3. Somehow directly supports or promotes an organization that I trust and whose social practices I would endorse

I've already found some lovely gems that meet these rules, so I'm encouraged. And I don't have kids (or a hubby) pining after any particular gifts, so I've lucked out in that regard. I confess that last month I did buy Les a couple of things from a Big Store, but they were from a store that stores pretty well on the Good Guide, so I felt OK about it at the time. From now on, I'll be a stickler. Even if it means hours of agony over what to get my in-laws...

I'll let you know what treasures I find!

November Gray Update and Month of THANKS

Hey Y'all!

It's November, I have a new haircut, big changes are ahead, and I'm feeling super-duper THANKFUL. Good timing, huh? This month, I'm going to focus on Grace and GIVE THANKS for the abundance, beauty, and love all around me. From now until December 1, I'm going to blog as many posts of THANKS as I can manage.

Since I'm a few days behind this month, I'll get things rolling with a triple scoop of gratitude.

I'm thankful for safe travels this week, and for being surprised with reconnections to dear old friends.

I'm thankful for my husband, Les, who has been seriously stunning me with his awesomeness over the past couple of weeks. I am thankful for his support, encouragement, steady faith, and the twinkle of mischief that can laugh me out of the foulest mood. And have I ever told you that he insists on doing ALL the dishes in our apartment? Partly because he prefers his ultra-clean standards to my "Looks totally not-gross!" pronouncements, but still. Geez. Praise God.

My cute dish-doing hubs.

I'm thankful for the not-too-cold fall days that immediately preceded this disgusting cold drizzle, and for a late afternoon date at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

This snap also captures my new haircut (which I do not love) and the more and more obvious stripes of gray threading through my hair.

 But to get a good look at what the center part is up to, have a gander:

Again with the unflattering pictures. I know. But I really wanted a quick look at the hair under that strategic far flung part of mine. Silver. For reals.

So the rest of this month I'll be thanking and thinking more about living from an posture of abundance, gratitude, and grace. I hope you'll think about these things too! It's so much better than dwelling on the steely gray clouds.

October Gray Update and The Scariest Challenge Yet

So here is a camera phone shot of my October gray hair:

Not the most flattering photo of me, and yes, I am sitting at my desk taking random snaps with my camera phone, but I've been wearing my hair like this A LOT lately (messy bun, teeny-bopper elastic head band), and I think you can really see the silvery stripes quite nicely. Anyway, I'm diggin the stripes. I like the messy bun so far. But I'm eager to have an actual hair style rather than just a thick mass of hair, so I'm excited that I finally made a hair cut appointment for Oct. 22. Yay.

But really, the gray is the least of my worries these days. Because today marks my official first day as a 5-day-a-week Vegan.

Yep. 5 days on, with 2 days of wiggle room.

I'm going "mostly vegan" for the month of October. The idea has been stirring around in my head for a while now, and it actually part of a larger effort to overhaul my sugar-fat-cheese-crap laden diet and see if I have more energy and sleep better than I currently do. And force me to get deliberate about my protein management. And it was one of those things where all of a sudden it seems like reinforcement for your inkling idea just keeps flying at you from the universe. The farm that sold us our Happy Eggs at the farmers market told us this weekend that they are no longer "doing eggs". And while generally my cheese consumption is over the top ridiculous, we are actually out of all our usual cheese products at the moment, so I'm just not going to buy any more. For a month.

And I'm reading "The Emperor of All Maladies"  about cancer. And last month I finished "In Defense of Food" which, while not promoting veg or vegan eating, still smacked me in the head with all kinds of plant-based encouragement. But what really pushed me over the edge was when I sat down at the laptop last night to distract myself from some other life stresses and Netflix suggested "Forks Over Knives" for me to watch. So I did. And right there, I decided that the vegan experiment was a go. It's not that all the facts and figures in the movie are unquestionably accurate (there are plenty of online critiques you can read about how the material was presented, and the facts on which they base their claims). It was just the last nudge I needed to look at my fridge, my waistline, my cupboards full of processed food, and my values about creation care and animal welfare and decide to try something different.

It's almost time for lunch, and I know just where I'm going to go. Wow Bao is an Asian food place with several delish vegan options. And I'm going to take some vegan cookbooks with me to lunch and make a shopping list.

So, wish me luck! I'm pretty excited, actually. I'm pretty bored with all of my current food ruts, so bring on the Veg!

6 Months In!

So today marks 6 months since the start of the G3 experiment. I'm going to choose to be GRACIOUS with myself and with my expectations for twice-weekly blogging and the total life transformation I hoped for back in Feb.

Some things DO feel different. I feel much more aware of my consumption, trash, chemicals, food, products and spending habits. And I feel a little less inclined to indulge my shopping impulses. I think twice before buying something in disposable packaging (but still buy more than my ideal). Awareness is a good step.

Some things look different too.
Like my head:

August seriously flew by. I didn't even have a chance to "work" on anything this month, or even think about an idea to pursue or a problem to tackle. I've got some ideas for September, though, so I'm hopeful I can pick up some momentum for the next 6 months of this grand scheme.

July Gray Hair Update and... Mission Impossible

Well blogfriends, it's July. Hard to believe, considering I have felt "summer hot" exactly one day so far since May. Oh, and Chicago got golf ball-sized hail barfed all over its north side it last night (thanks to our official sponsor of summer - Freaky Weather). But even if I have to squint at my calendar and rub my eyes in disbelief, my roots know that another month has passed....

Lots of you who know about the G3 Experiment come up to me and say things like "But I don't really see that much gray!", which is true, weirdly - you don't notice it so much from straight on...

Me in my office cube!

You would, however, see a growing epicenter of kinky, chemically unscathed white if you were tall enough to view my head from above...

My gray hair + florescent overhead lighting. Unnaturally extra white, but realistic for where I spend most of my day.

So, progress. There were only a few days in June where I wanted to sneak incognito to Target and buy a bottle of dye. Those days are fewer and fewer every month.

That was the hair update. Now, on to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
Les and I decided (actually, I decided for us, since I am the CFO of our household) that July 1 was going to mark the start of our new Fiscal Year. We need a fresh start. A realistic picture of our sitch-ee-a-shun, now that we are officially a one-income family again.

We'd both sort of lived it up last year for the first time in our adult lives. Having 2 incomes felt like a big gasp of breathing room after years and years of tight grad school/crap job/student loan hell budgets. Starbucks? Don't mind if I do! Buy my lunch every day this week? Why not!  Don't you think Auggie could use $42 worth of treats this month? Why yes, yes I do! Whoo-hoo!! We're grown ups now! We can buy things! Word to the wise: Good Grown Ups are responsible, and they have impulse control.

Fast Forward to the end of June, and I'm getting twitchy that my latte days are far far behind me now.

With bank statements in hand, I turned to the nifty free budget planning tool over at Google Docs and plugged in my income and all our fixed expenses. Feeling pretty good about those numbers, I started playing with the other stuff. The groceries. The Eating Out. The Random *EXTRA 30% OFF* JCrew purchases. You know. The stuff you have to really wrangle to the ground if you're going to stick to a budget.

My first set of "dream budget" figures ended up with us being $141 in the hole every month. Boooo. After some jockeying and trimming, I came up with a budget that would leave us with about $30 extra every month. Which I promise you we will need, since are BOTH Spendy McSpendertons at our house. The learning curve could be tearful.

The New Budget for FY 2011-2012 does include some discretionary money for both of us, so I can get my latte fix every once in a while, and not have to pass up the perfect clearance-rack skirt if it is really awesome. But the reality is that I have way WAY too much stuff as it is.

Which brings us to the MISSION.
To not buy anything that I do not actually need for my daily life for the entire month of July.

You heard me.

NOTHING.

No magazines, shoes, organic paraben-free mascara, funky earrings, or $2200 oil paintings of cows. (Yes, I am pining for a cow painting I saw at a cafe on Wednesday. I even asked Les if I could buy it when I sell my car).

Think I can do it? If so, cheer me on. July is looking like a looooong month from my chair. I'm hoping July can really kick-start a commitment to living simply. Or at least help me be grateful for all the great stuff I already have.

June Gray Progress Report

Happy June!

My hair is a hot mess these days - split ends, wavy, mostly air-dried and crazy looking. But I keep getting compliments on it, so I'm going to try to relax and go with it.

I'm thinking about cutting some long bangs, just to give it some shape. The texture is changing, both from the gray and from the natural shampoos and stuff I have been using (still haven't gone "no 'poo"). I like the texture, but it is definitely NOT Pantene Luxe. It is only shiny when I go for a day or so without washing it. Oil-slick style. It is moderately soft (softest on aforementioned unwashed days). And it doesn't swing beautifully in the breeze or cause you to want to reach out and touch it. I used to have hair like that. In high school. No, really, I did. Soft, mahogany hair that I would roll up into hot rollers so I could have these huge bouncy coils of shiny hair. I loved my high school hair. Sigh.

Les told me out of the blue last night that he really likes my "multicolored" hair, and that he thinks the natural wavy, unkempt look is pretty. That means a lot to me, since I was afraid he would decide that I am starting to slide down the hill into the abyss of unattractiveness.

True Confession: Despite the fact that I really want to get some bangs or something, I actually really do LOVE my hair so far. Most days. I get self conscious about it, and I still feel slightly compelled to tell everyone that I am doing this experiment so they do not look askance at me, but most days I really like the wavy craziness of it. And the silvery streaks.

Never would have expected that.

"Going Gray" book review

In an attempt to gather some other perspecitves on gray hair and the trials and tribulations of ditching the dye, I just finished this quick read:

Going Gray, but Anne Kreamer touts that we will get a picture of what the author "learned about beauty, sex, motherhood, authenticity, and everything else that really matters". I was hopeful. This sounded like a great boost to my slumping gray morale. 

I found the book to be a bit thin, and to have very little to do with any of the promised insights scrawled across the cover, but it was overall a quick and enjoyable read. She did uncover some pretty interesting findings in her research, but I cringe a bit at the fact that Ms. Kreamer resorts to deception and misleading set-ups to attain these nuggets of useful intel.

For example, she is happily married, but sets up several different Match.com profiles with photoshopped pics of her sporting either brown or gray hair to guage men's reaction. She also goes to bars to try to flirt. She meets with image consultants under made-up pretenses. No harm done, I guess, but how does a quest for authenticity engage so much sleight of hand? I do appreciate that she directly acknowledges this ridiculousness in the book, but still. It rubbed me the wrong way.

Anne Kreamer decided to let her hair go gray as she approached her 50th birthday. It wasn't a decision for her health or the planet, but one of vanity, actually. She saw a picture of herself with her dyed-brown hair and realized that she wasn't fooling anyone. Her hair didn't look natural, and it didn't even look...well, good. But she was hair-dye dependent like SO many of us, and didn't think she could really go gray, so before and during her graying process, she did some research. She wanted to get an idea of how this seemingly small decision would impact her personal and professional life, and hear the stories of others who have made the choice to rock the white and gray.
She's almost two decades older than I am now when she starts her transformation, and I can feel that in almost every page of her writing. I really think that if I were going gray at even 40, I would be much calmer about it. We all want to look and feel young, and gray hair is a scarily obvious marker of age. Believe me. I am feeling this already.

So gray = old, but so what? Are gray haired women in their 30s and 40s and above doomed to choose between their emotional, social, and sexual well-being and dye dependance?

Well, Kreamer discovered that gray hair does not appear to be the man-repellent she (and I) believed it to be. Her bogus Match.com profiles in different states at different times of the year reveal that her gray-haired profile got more "winks" and invitations than her brown-haired profile. Every time. In every state. She also startled herself (and I suspect at least some of her readers) to learn that gray hair is a bigger hurtle for women on the job market than the meat market. Women with gray hair are perceived as out of touch, less capable, and less energetic. Of course, silver haired men are still viewed as professional, experienced, and trustworthy, although more and more men are coloring their hair these days to gain or keep a professional edge.

Her book explored the history of hair dye in the US, including the marketing, trends, and Hollywood influences, and that part was pretty entertaining. She also noted that an estimated one in five men in America are now coloring their hair, so it's not just the blonde bombshells and the gray-hiding women folk who are getting hooked on the bottle.

I enjoyed her exploration of women's reasons for and commitment to coloring their hair. Many MANY of the women she interviewed swore that they would never under any circumstances stop dyeing their hair. I can relate. I used to be one of those women. I remember telling friends that one of the many reasons I was reluctant to have children is because I could not bear to forgo hair dye for 9 whole months. I would rather just have dogs. 

But in the end, she concludes that she looks and feels better with a shiny mane of gray and white than she did with the unnatural and severe-looking dark dyed hair. (I totally agree - I have seen her before and after pictures and there is no contest). And lucky for her, she is married to the man of her dreams and freelances for a living, so no mate-hunting or fickle, double-standard job interviews are on her horizon. Oh, and she's 50-something, so the gray is well suited for her authentic self.

Hair color may not seem to you to be a topic of deep thoughts or philosophical musing, but it may be if you are ever staring down the crown of a prematurely old-looking reflection in the mirror. Age, beauty, death, being real with yourself, accepting yourself AND others, judgemental tendencies... I could go on and on. Then add on layers of health preservation and creation care, and it makes for quite a loaded topic for the 50% (at least) of American women whose natural hair color has not seen the light of day in years. So I appreciate that there are books like this out there. It was just hard for me to relate to this particular book and the author's approach. Maybe I've stumbled upon an untapped book market - graying gracefully for the under-40 set!

Heirlooms - Part 2

What I learned from my mom about Gray...

My mom didn't start coloring her hair until she was in her 50s. And even then, it was kind of an afterthought. When the Chemo took her hair, it grew back into an awesomely chic fuzzy gray crop. It was my favorite hair style my mom ever had. It suited her perfectly, and was it's own kind of bravery and hope. 

I know, I posted this pic yesterday. But I love it, and it's my blog :)

When she was younger, she kept glossy dark brown hair stylin' with minimal-maintenance cuts. It always had a glint of shine in all the photos I have of her from her early 20s and 30s.

She didn't fret about her hair much, even when it was falling out. She just wrapped her head in a scarf and didn't bother much with a wig or anything (except for my brother's wedding, and she looked great).

Mom's beauty routine was spartan: Wash face with Noxema cream, dab on some liquid foundation, powder blush, maybe a little eye shadow and lipstick. Mascara once in a while. No fancy eye creams or wrinkle reducers. And you know what, my mom had zero wrinkles. When I asked her her secret once, when I discovered fine lines around my mouth in college, she replied "Well, I hated my oily skin when I was younger, but now I know it was just keeping the wrinkles away! I don't use too much stuff on my face, and I always wear sunscreen and a floppy hat."

Good advice.

I remember one day, after she had started her chemo, that she had come to visit me in Chicago. I was standing in the kitchen of my apartment with her and my then-roommate. I looked at my mom, then I looked at my roommate and exclaimed "Look at my mom's perfect face! She's 56 and I have more wrinkles than she does!" My roommate wisely asked; "Mrs. Wiles, how much time do you spent worrying about how many wrinkles you have on your face?" Mom replied "Absolutely zippo", and my roommate turned back to me and chided "Why don't you try that method for a while, and see if it helps".

Aging gracefully is beautiful and challenging when you encounter it. I'm still trying to move in that direction. Because you can't start accepting and loving yourself soon enough. Wrinkles, gray hair and all. You never know how much time you have, or how old you will get. If my mom taught me anything about graying along, it would be that worrying about it is flat out a waste of precious, beautiful time.

Silver Dusted - May Gray Hair Progress Report

As you can see, the roots are more like chunks at this point. The gray is really beginning to be a noticeable color in my hair.  I kind of like it. 

I kind of like it, and I also kind of want to chuck this experiment and go back to edgy chic chocolaty brown hair like this:

This was only 3 years ago!

Maybe a new hair cut would help. I like being able to pull it up, but the "wavy mop of salt and pepper" is only deepening my fear that I am slowly transforming into a hemp-necklace-wearing, sandal-footed hippie with hairy armpits and a closet full of long skirts. (This is a valid fear. I do drink my coffee out of a glass jar now.)

I still want to look put together and confident. I think I can be confident and rock the silver at 33, but it does feel like I need to cultivate "a look" so that I avoid sliding haplessly into a disheveled mess.

Fear is a big driver of consumption, you know? I've found my inner fear-monger trying to convince me that I'm going to have to dress very well and have perfect makeup if I'm determined to keep on with this experiment. Fear tells me that gray = old, and I'm not old enough to be old yet. Fear tells me to run immediately to Sephora and J Crew and suit up with a convincingly cool, confident, "Yes I have gray hair but I am ROCKING it" new look. Fear is making a pretty sly case. I won't pretend that I have not been chomping at the bit to get some new summer stuff.

But I've decided that my first plan of attack to keep the Buy Stuff whispers at bay will be to.... GET RID of STUFF! Yes. This is my new plan.

My wardrobe must be like an art collection or a prize-winning essay.  Ruthlessly edited, focused, honest, and unique. Which means that anything that does not flatter, fit, or fill me with joy must go. Only a small collection of running/yoga and sloth clothes allowed. That way, anything I pull out of the closet to wear will be a winner. It will work. I will rock it. Same goes for makeup. Into the heap with all my random, ill-suited shades and trendy products (when they are gone, of course, unless they are super toxic, and then I will just pitch them). I've done enough research now on safe and green cosmetics that I should be able to pare down my mess to a safe, healthy, beautiful batch of essentials and not bother with the other junk.

It hadn't really occurred to me that clothes and makeup would have much to do with my hair, but the grayer it gets and the kookier I start to look, the more I remember that my hair color is changing. Just like if I bleached myself blond or dove into cherry red. And that does change your whole look, not just your hair.

So if I'm not enlightened enough to give up caring about my looks all together, at least I'll try to face my Fear Buying demons head on, and with a handful of self-awareness and a wallet full of self control.

At least until the next J Crew bonus sale.

Graying Along

So it has been almost 2 months without any dye, and here's how the center part is coming along.  It is kind of like watching plants grow. I watch my roots spread in the mirror as though I were tracking the progress of a sprout I started from seed. 

I saw a dear friend this weekend who I hadn't seen in person in a very long time. She's been reading the blog, and told me that she was surprised that the gray was not more noticeable. Then I finger-combed my hair into a center part and tipped my head down for her. Then she saw something more like the picture above. She commended me for taking the plunge, and said she thought it looked great.

Thanks, Rachel dear. I've actually gotten a couple of compliments on the silvery streaks so far. Les wishes I could just halt the process right now and keep my subtle, somewhat hidden stripes along with the rest of my brown hair. I told him that the blogosphere would have none of that.

I saw a young woman with a short salt-and-pepper pixie cut this morning, and I wanted to give her a high-5. She is definitely the youngest person I have seen so far to rock the "I'm under 30 and I'm going gray" look. Honestly, she looked more like 22. If I could pull off the 80s spike, I would give it a try.

Hair color is a big part of our identity, though. When Rachel and I were out this weekend with our other friend Jill, we managed to convince her that she is, in fact, a redhead. Which was news to Jill.  Sort of like Les insisting that he has brown hair.  I'll give him "dark blond", but he does not look like a brunette to me. I guess hair color is in the eye of the beholder too!

I don't think my brown is dark enough to constitute "salt and pepper", so can I just go with "mink" or "silver dusted"?  What do you think?

Silver-Haired Boys Have it Easy

I was walking to the train from my office this afternoon and a handsome 30-something guy crossed my path. I'm very happily married now, so I can honestly say that the only reason this guy got more than a glance is that he had glorious salt-and-pepper hair (mostly salt), and I was wracked with jealousy. He didn't look old - he looked hip! He looked fashionable and confident. And I wanted to punch him right in his face.

It is hard for me to imagine rocking the salt and pepper. I like my dark hair. I like that my highlights remind me of caramel syrup drizzled on a hot-fudge sundae. But it has been about a month now since I got the highlight foils, and the demi-permanent dye used on the rest of my head is beginning to fade out. Here's a look at my scary center-part, and a reminder of why I part my hair dramatically to the side that has the lowest concentration of gray so far:


See, I wasn't kidding.

The only guy I sort of know personally who is young, hip, and has an infuriatingly cool mix of black and white hair actually IS a rockstar. Like, plays in a very cool band. Lucky punk. The chances are quite high that I will NOT look like a rockstar when my hair grows in gray.
Can you think of one woman celebrity under the age of 50, other than Storm from X-men, with silver hair? Men have Anderson Cooper and a wealth of good-looking bald guys to support their decision to go with the natural gray flow of their prematurely aged hair. Women have a comic book character, and a handful of other older, wiser movie stars who can also afford fabulous hair cuts and even more fabulous clothes to keep them looking young and vibrant. It's going to be a bit trickier for me.

Les and I peered at my spreading gray last night and I made him promise me that he would still love me if I let my hair grow out all the way gray AND that he would tell me immediately if the gray really bothered him/turned him off. We pinky-swore, so as least I'll have his honest feedback as I continue into the great unknown.

Last night I had that sinking feeling like I could not do this. That it was not worth it, even as an experiment, to look like an old lady. But then I remembered that I have told a bunch of people now that I am growing out my gray, and I can always dye it back. That is my new mantra. I can always dye it back. I will convince myself to think of it as an adventure, and experiment, and a public service. And then suck it up and remember that the whole reason I decided to gray in the first place is to let my body de-tox and to save the planet some of my chemicals. Maybe I can make it cool. Maybe I can "bring it" and not care what other people think. Maybe. I'll keep you posted.

Going Gray - Phase 1

I've told about 20 people now that I intend to grow out my gray hair this year and see how it looks. Almost every single one of them has said something like; "I've never noticed that you have gray hair!". No offense to my polite dear friends and co-workers, but I must say...Um, duh. You don't notice all the gray hair because I have a substance abuse problem with hair dye. I color my hair at LEAST every six weeks, but more like every month if you count root touch ups and the box dyes that my Hair Guy diplomatically pretends not to notice when I go in for my professional treatment.

When I told Edward, my Hair Guy, about my plans to go gray he warmly issued me a statistic that about 95% of his clients who attempt to grow out their gray give up somewhere in the process, or immediately return to coloring after about one week of gray. He added that he personally does not believe that hair dye poses any health risks, and that he has dozens of clients who have colored their hair religiously for years and have not seen any ill effects. I thanked him for his input, and then told him that I'd like to try anyway, and asked him about my options.

There are 3:

1. Cold Turkey - stop coloring my hair immediately and let the gray grow out.
2. Pixie Cut - cut my hair off down to about two inches or so of roots.
3. Use hi and lo-lights as a visual distraction from my growing roots until I am ready to cut off the dyed ends.

I went with option number three.  Here's a grainy camera phone shot of me with the foils:

The idea is to lighten the areas around the gray streaks.

Foiling is less risky, presumably, because the dye isn't really touching your scalp, just your strands. Plus, it can mix up the light color of the gray against my dark hair. Kind of like creating a diversion.

Eventually, I'm going to have to cut off the offending dark ends if I want to avoid a zebra-striped head. Since my bangs seem to be relatively gray-free, Edward and I are thinking something like this:

But since the darling Michelle Williams has the lithe pixie frame and features to pull off that look with gamine ease, I'm going to have to do some work on slimming down so that I don't end up with a cut that is too tiny for my body. That's OK, though, because I'm on my way to a healthy body too.

Right after I figure out what to do with the 4 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies that appeared on my desk this morning.