I have a friend deeply averse to the notion of anything remotely toxic so much as brushing up against her skin. She wears no makeup, uses no cosmetic products of any kind except moisturizer when needed, and though I’ve never asked her which cleaning products she uses at home, I’m pretty sure she swabs everything down, possibly including her teeth, with baking soda only.
And every six weeks, my friend visits a professional who snaps on a pair of plastic gloves, mixes up a strong chemical concoction personalized especially for her, and spreads it all over her scalp. Because there is one thing that this friend, who refuses to wear even mascara, will never give up: covering her gray.
She is a youthful 70-something, fit, comfortably unadorned. Her hair, when she leaves the colorist, is a nimbus of spun gold, eye-catching, and natural-looking as a baby’s. When gray sneaks into her part, as it does monthly, she’s reminded that without her steady appointments, instead of her golden nimbus, she would be wearing a Brillo cap of dull steel.
I asked her recently, as unpointedly as I could, why she dyes her hair when she’s so meticulous about freeing herself from other perceived toxins? Her response was swift and sure. “Because letting my hair go gray—more than any other indication of aging—would add years to my face,” she said. “I’m not ready for that.”
Even from here I can see hordes of you rising in anger out of your chair, eager to march in defiant support of the gray you grew in and cultivated during the pandemic and now wear as proudly (and elegantly) as a hard-earned academic hood. Congratulations to you! You did the right thing!
