Last month, I came to the realization that I had no idea what I looked like. No, I am not talking about my nose or eyes or height. . .the mystery of my mien (def: person’s look or manner) went a little higher. The root of the matter, frankly, was my hair. I knew the length, the texture, the style, but the original color had disappeared years ago. My current color was the outcome of an advanced hair designer at an uptown salon, and though it was close to 30-year old Diana’s haircolor—safe and predictable—it was definitely not the NOW color.
So, when I went to see Jacob a few weeks ago, I dropped the bomb.
“I’ve decided to let my hair go gray!”
Jacob is very cool, very professional. His eyebrows stayed fairly close to his head, though I could tell he was shaken by this announcement. Having vigorously perused the internet for “going-gray,” I had some ideas of how others had accomplished this feat, and had ruled out a few.
“No pixie cut, no cold turkey, no hats. . . And I want about three inches cut off, so there’s not quite as much to grow out!”
After a bit of discussion, his expert opinion was to do an ash blonde partial highlight. This would provide a bit of camouflage for those gray roots.
I have to say that I was definitely skeptical. I have never been a blonde—though it had once been the secret desire of a certain freckle-faced junior-high brunette living in Miami. My comfort zone tends towards dark brown, so heading the opposite direction required a sort of J’en sais quoi attitude, a throwing caution to the wind approach. If I was going to go gray, I figured I might as well dive in the pool.
As Jacob expertly turned me into a radio receiver (have you ever felt that way, with all of those foils hanging on your head?), he told me about one other client who had once tried to go gray. I asked him how that had gone, and, with an amused glance, he said, “Well, after one month, she came back and told me she had changed her mind. She has been dying her hair ever since.”
Not encouraging.
However, once my hair was dried and cut and blown and styled, I was cautiously optimistic. Not too obvious, not too blonde, not too much of a change. Yet, the subtle weavings of silvery ash blonde and gray brought a new range of colors to my palette.
Now that the die has been cast, so to speak, I am looking forward to the journey. And I’m sharing it with you as a personal incentive for staying-this-course, and, perhaps, helping someone out there to reenvision herself.
#MeGray?
Diana