How I learned to love my natural grey hair

My brother, Dave, older than me by one year, has often been my bellwether for daring behaviour, my sibling canary in the coalmine. Whatever transgression he'd commit — smoking, drinking, driving too fast — I'd monitor the punishment, or lack thereof, then copy him. The results were mixed, but that's the job of older siblings, to carve the way, especially if the path is treacherous. So when he started to naturally turn grey at the temples, becoming a silver fox by forty, I told him I'm going to let my grey hair grow in, too, following in his footsteps once again. 

He gave me a look of skepticism. 

"I mean, sure," he said, "but don't you still want to meet someone?"

It took me a second to realize what he was saying.  My brother loves me but he's pragmatic. I was nearing forty and dating again. 

"Are you saying men won't notice me if I go grey?"

He shrugged, sensing a fight he wouldn't win.

"I'm just saying you'll look older than you are. You'll limit yourself."

"Well I don't care." 

I lied. Of course I cared. Of course as a single, cis hetero woman, I had wanted men to find me attractive, and sexy, and younger-looking-than-I-really-am, for as long as possible. That wasn't the only reason I had dyed my increasingly white hair brown since I was in my twenties, but it was a big part of it. Darker hair did make me look younger, and it made me feel sexier. How am I supposed to be competing with an army of online hotties — who know their angles and airbrush their flaws — with a full head of grey hair? 

Back to the sink for me.

*

I didn't discover my first grey hair, someone else did, a man with whom I worked, upon whom I nursed a mild crush. We'd been standing around talking when his eyes suddenly widened, drifting up to my hair, which had always been one of my best features. Except for a few trendy forays that didn't quite take, I'd worn my brown hair mostly the same since grade four: long and straight with heavy bangs. 

"Hey, don't move," he whispered, making pincers out of his fingers. He came at my head slow, like a surgeon. I let him because I was 25, and also, because the man I had a crush on was this close to me. 

He seemed determined to get it, whatever it was that was stuck in my hair. A feather? Food? A bug?

Then I felt him pluck a hair from my temple. 

I yelped.

"Sorry. Here," he said, pleased with himself as he handed me a strand of white hair, my hair, that was so weirdly shaped it looked pubic. 

I don't remember what I said, less shocked at the action than the discovery. He might as well have found a horn growing out of my head. Setting aside the inappropriate nature of the 'favour' — this was the early nineties — the message was plain: white hair is distasteful. Let me get rid of that for you. 

Later I told my mother. 

"Yup. I was about your age when my white hair came in." 

She'd have been two years younger than I am now, but had boxed dyed her hair so vigilantly, the dreaded skunk line had only made a few shameful cameos in my childhood, before she'd smother it in a stinky sink, hands gloved, the whole house smelling a tiny bit like cancer. 

So that was the year I began to dye a little, too. Every few months I'd recoat my loyal brown hair in order to punish a few traitorous white strands. By thirty, I began to treat the part in my hair like the front line of a war, monitoring it in the mirror like a sniper in the weeds, looking for a silver glint, a white flash, the sign that it was time to drop my head back into that noxious sink. 

Eventually I could afford a proper stylist to do my dirty work for me. It was expensive, but I had an ally, someone equally vigilant, clever with the camouflage, who gave my white hairs a run for their money. My money, I mean. All wars, it turns out, are expensive.

Sometimes sitting in a chair for hours, tented under a polyester cape, my hair divided and conquered, teased into a chaotic tinfoil sculpture, surrounded by the smell of other women dyeing, I would think: what would happen if I stopped doing this? What would I look like? Who would I be? But then I would emerge from the blow out looking fresh, victorious, and, yeah, a little younger, a little sexier. 

Years passed, the warm brown gradually giving way to an ombré tipped with white blond strands, a complicated style that required the darkening ends be bleached while white roots get smothered in brown dye, the war now happening on two fronts, requiring more time and energy, and a lot more resources.

Then one day, be-caped and foil-laden, cross-legged in the chair, and scrolling through my phone, I stumbled across a bunch of older ladies (who were my age) posting selfies, not hiding but rather proudly, triumphantly, showing off their skunk lines, measuring the progress of growing out their grey hair. I pinched open the images, scouring the captions, following the hashtags like an anxious detective.

#grombre #silversisterhood #greyhairdontcare

It was a revelation. 

Instagram is normally a place where flaws are cropped out or smeared away, where cellulite and wrinkles are myths, things that might happen to other women, elsewhere, off-line. 

Now here was a whole army of silvering women occupying territory on my feed. I started with the entry-level @grombre, an account that collates selfies of women who've stopped dyeing their hair. That gateway (drug) led me to @gray.and.beyond, @thesilverwomen, and @silvergirlmx. After that came @silverdisobedience, @annikavonholdt, @greceghanem, @le_renard_argente, @sarahharris. (My current fave is @elisainmontreal whose bangs have me thinking of keeping mine.)

What followed was a two-year-long indoctrination, or perhaps de-programming. I'd look at the pictures of these grey-haired older ladies (who were my age) like the way an athlete visualizes crossing the finishing line. If they can do this, I can do this, can't I? It'll be fine. I'll be fine. They look great. I'll look great, too. The adage that 'to be it you have to see it' rang true and soon I wanted to join their ranks. I wanted to live without dyeing.

Sitting in the chair last summer, getting prepped for my now monthly root touch-up, I blurted out to my stylist, Jason Lee, that it was time. I was ready. 

"You sure?"

"Yes. Let's start The Process."

We'd been talking about my going grey for a while, and I was relieved when he told me I didn't have to cut all my hair off. Our relationship wasn't ending, it was changing, maturing. Thus began The Process, which involves a slowed-down version of what famed @jackmartincolorist does for his California clients, those with thousands of extra dollars and seven to 12 free hours. (He recently transformed Jane Fonda and Sharon Osbourne in one sitting. His bookings run months in advance.)

Step one: Let your roots grow out for a couple of months, camouflaging the skunk line with root spray. 

Step two: Bleach narrow strands of hair to match the whitest parts of your new growth, going blonder and blonder.

Step three: Add low lights where necessary. 

Step four: Tone the whole head the proper shade of grey, matching the ends with the roots still growing out, trimming an inch or two every eight or nine weeks.  

The Process took about six months to get to where I am now. I figure it'll take a couple of years before my long hair is all my own and not doctored to match the roots. 

No surprise that the urge to grow out my grey hair dovetailed with menopause, so I can't tell you if it's true what my brother foretold, that with grey hair I'd become invisible to men, because it was around that time that they started to become invisible to me. Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of my white-haired self in some reflection and gasp; I am undeniably older-looking. And though I'm not out of the game entirely, the rules are different when something that used to feel essential — a certain kind of attention — is just a bonus; something to relish if it happens, but not miss when it doesn't.

Today I love my grey hair, the way it looks against my olive skin and the colours I tend to wear. Mostly I love that when I look in the mirror I see someone I recognize. I see who I am, not who I once was, or who I'm trying to be. Paradoxically, liberating myself from the exhausting need to seem younger has actually made me feel much younger, with the energy to take on anything, just as the war, thankfully, is over.

Lisa Gabriele is the author of three literary novels, her latest, The Winters, is out in paperback. Her writing has appeared in Glamour, Vice, and Salon as well as various anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She lives in Toronto, where she is an award-winning television producer.