Fade to grey

I keep trying

Post Script: Since posting this, I’ve heard from my friend, esteemed hairdresser Gregori Ruggeri, of the eponymous New York salon.

As he has been officially named the purveyor of ‘Best Blonde in New York’ in New York magazine’s famous Best Of issue, his opinion carries serious weight on this issue.

He loves my colour and we’ve decided it’s not silver, or platinum - it’s TITANIUM.

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Original post: I am currently trying for the third – or is it fourth? – time to let my hair grow out grey.

Every time before when I’ve got to this stage there’s been a morning when I’ve looked in the mirror, seen an old hag with terrible hair looking back and have speed dialled my hairdresser for a half head. ASAP.

Every time it was the greatest relief to leave the salon a blonde again.

So why am I subjecting myself to this journey again?

Lots of reasons, the first of course being that it’s cool to go grey. All my really hip friends have already gone there. So, FOMO.

Then there is the hassle and expense of getting highlights.

I love all my hair people, so if I’m going to spend a few hours with anyone trussed up like a Christmas turkey, they aren’t a bad choice, but I find the expense of time almost unbearable.

It’s hard to see if there is any colour left in it now. The natural silver streak at the front is very handy.

You can just about read, although the arms of your specs can get in the way of the skilled tail comb picking up those tiny strands and once you’re turkeyed up, it can be hard to push them through the tight little packets.

But even when I manage it, I’m too restless and edgy to concentrate, because apart from when I’m sleeping, writing or reading (in comfort), I find it practically impossible to sit still. I always have.

That’s why I don’t watch much TV. Every two minutes I think of something more important to do and pop up from my seat like a jack-in-the-box.

I can just about watch something wonderful like Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, or Meet My Agent, on my iPad, horizontal in bed, because once I’m in there, I have committed to the relaxation zone of the day.

My adored friend, legendary interiors stylist, Hilary Robertson, showing how grey is done. See end of the piece for where this image is from.

But if I’m dressed, in the sitting room, there are a spices to alphabeticise, socks to pair and books to curate, activities I find a lot more compelling than anything on TV. I’d rather do a freezer inventory.

As my best friend first said to me 45 years ago (and it still makes me laugh): “I like to see and do.” That’s me.

So, there’s that, but there is also some kind of moral compulsion to embrace my grey self. Not anything to do with judgemental muttonhood, that there’s some kind of age when you ‘shouldn’t’ colour your hair anymore. Stuff that.

I’ve always said I’d be blonde until death, but now I actually am older, I find I want to own it. Be out and proud with my hair age, as I am with my wrinkles, liver spots and scars.

But I do think it’s harder in the long term for blondes to go grey.

In the early stages it’s much more strenuous for brunettes, because if you’ve been colouring your hair back to your youthful dark shade, there is a savage regrowth line to get over.

But once brunettes get through that – and several smart pals of mine did it during lockdown – they end up with a head of hair of glamorous lightness, very flattering to older skin.

Another fabulous friend, Sue Tilley, showing just how flattering grey hair is.

Sue when she was still brunette, chatting to another brunette (ahem) at the opening of the Lucien Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2012. The gentleman is Sandy Nairne, who was than director of the gallery.

Whereas for me, forgoing the highlights means that behind the grey, I have my natural hair colour, which is a particularly unappealing shade of mouse and why I started having highlights in the first place. In my 20s.

So, it’s not the grey of going natural that freaks me out, it’s the flat dreariness behind it, which makes my hair darker, when grey, not lighter.

But I’m not giving up yet. My wonderful cutter, Andrew, is taking it a little shorter for me at the moment, which I really like and I ‘ve embraced silver earrings, for the first time in my life, as they look better with it.

The morning may still come when one look in the mirror sends me racing to speed dial John Frieda, or lovely Ken, my Hastings colourist, but for now I’m embracing it.

[That picture of Hilary is from one of my absolute favourite blogs That’s Not My Age, by the brilliant Alyson Walsh, another woman who knows how to do grey.]

Alyson Walsh of That’s Not My Age. I loved this recent post about waistcoats, which are one of my current style obsessions.