A young adult talking about her future gray hair...

[Ivy_]

Disclaimer: I'm 21 and don't have gray hair, this is a reflexion of mine thinking about the future.

I recently joined the LHC, and before of doing so, I used to think that I could only grow my hair while in my 20's until mid 30's. This kinda unmotivated and made me impatience because I thought I had no much time to grow it as long as I wished (I'm 21 and on June 8th I'll turn 22).

But I've reading a lot of your comments on several forums about how many of you would like a long gray mane, and honestly, this kind of thinking is really encouraging.
Society, and more specifically the patriarchy, stigmatize women's hair with a train of thought that could go like this "If you're young you should let it grow to enhance your beauty because when you get older you won't have the chance". And when the hair is starting to turn grey they'll expect you to dyed it and shame yourself if you don't.

Reading about how some of you encourage your grey hair is amazing and really up lifting. I used to hate my hair a lot because of its texture and volume, so I used to cut it to hide it. But this community made me reconcile with my hair, and now I know I have the support of all of you in this journey. :o

[Spitfire]

Great post!
I feel the same way as a mid-late 20 something. It's so inspiring and positive to embrace the natural transition to the "silvers of wisdom" and if I go silver (I don't know if I can go truly silver), no matter the age, I'm definitely willing to embrace it.
Culture and society is too closed minded, they think you have a set amount of time to be beautiful when in reality that's simply false: your beauty may change as you get older, but it certainly doesn't have to fade. Grow On, silvers! I admire you and hope to join the ranks one day! :D

[Lucy McLucyFace]

I'm also in my 20's and arrived at the same conclusion. I'm even looking forward to having greys and laughing at people who complain.
Where I'm from there's a huge pressure from older women to dye your hair once it starts to grey, it's seen as something as essencial as basic hygiene and lucky me, I've always been a person of minor acts of rebelliousness :p

[Jools69]

Indeed, a great post. I wish more women would embrace their greys and grow their hair long, rather than feel they need to conform by cutting and dyeing their hair.

I recently watch a BBC tv programme about hair, where they had mothers and daughters swap hairstyles. The mothers whom usually sported shorter styles were given wigs with long hair and complained how awful the long hair looked on them (I thought they looked great!). The daughters were given short hair wigs and complained being boyish and frumpy. Interestingly, they asked members of the public how old did they thought both the mothers and daughters looked. The mothers in their 40s and 50s looked up to 7 years younger and the daughters in their 20s looked up to 5 years older.

[lapushka]

Your post itself is encouraging to read. :D

Welcome to the LHC, BTW! :)

[Cg]

Always good to know this forum has encouraged folks to embrace their own hair. All well-tended hair is beautiful, yours too.

Grey is a long way off for most of you, but I hope you continue to love your own unique characteristics throughout your lives. Also -- despite Madison Avenue, there is nothing shameful, tragic, or traumatic about looking and being the age you are.

[0xalis]

Growing old is a privilege denied to many.
I too look forward to silver and/or white hairs!
I will feel blessed to live that long. Nobody likes to think about it, but dieing before 50 is tragically common.
I have always found silver and white hair to be gorgeous. The elderly are just as beautiful as youth, it's just different!

[cathair]

I'm enjoying my grey hair more than I thought I would. There is an awkward stage where because of the contrast in colours, it looks like it would be rough to touch even if it isn't. I found that the hardest part, but I think it's passed now. If you can get past that you're golden.. er.. I mean silver :)

[s314]

I agree it is very inspiring to see so much love for grey hair. I have someone in my family who was considering growing out her grey hair, and another person in the family who said "no, don't do it, you'll look so old, it's a sign that you're letting yourself go" and that's just so sad to here. I pointed out men can do it without judgement and told her to go for it, and the response was "well that's different". And this was a woman saying this which was all the more irritating.

[cjk]

As someone who is temples went Gray before age 20, I understand exactly what you're saying. If I told you the number of people who advised me to dye them, your jaw would drop.

And In fairness I did keep the sides shaved for quite some time.

it's always funny where we find inspiration. For me it was a random comment, each gray hair is another step toward wizard status. Suddenly I was progressing rather than falling apart.

Kind of changed my attitude towards it.

It sounds like you had a similar moment. That's wonderful! It's great when each of us can accept ourselves, as we are.

[auburntressed]

I do like white and silver hair. As a dark-haired redhead, I don’t know which one I will end up with at first. But part of what excites me about it is that I will have that lighter color palette which which to experiment. Since my hair has been so dark all my life, I’ve always had to choose between leaving my hair as is or bleaching. I’ve chosen to never bleach.

I will finally be able to color my hair purple or teal or make a rainbow with deposit-only dyes. And I think that will be fun.

I did dye my hair purple one summer, and it was fun. But it took nearly a year for it to wash out, and it sucked all my red tones out of my hair until the new stuff grew back.

Anyways, I’m sure at some point I will be content to just revel in my grays and whites. But I also want to FINALLY have a canvas for creativity that has been denied me my whole life.

[TatsuOni]

I'd love to someday have long grey hair! I think that it's very beautiful and that people need to mind their own buisness more :p

But talking about grey hair, have you seen PrettyShepherd (https://www.instagram.com/prettyshepherd/)? :) She's also on youtube and have amazing hair! :)

[luluj]

But talking about grey hair, have you seen PrettyShepherd (https://www.instagram.com/prettyshepherd/)? :) She's also on youtube and have amazing hair! :)

Oh my word, she has such beautiful hair! :crush:

[luluj]

Disclaimer: I'm 21 and don't have gray hair, this is a reflexion of mine thinking about the future.

I recently joined the LHC, and before of doing so, I used to think that I could only grow my hair while in my 20's until mid 30's. This kinda unmotivated and made me impatience because I thought I had no much time to grow it as long as I wished (I'm 21 and on June 8th I'll turn 22).

But I've reading a lot of your comments on several forums about how many of you would like a long gray mane, and honestly, this kind of thinking is really encouraging.
Society, and more specifically the patriarchy, stigmatize women's hair with a train of thought that could go like this "If you're young you should let it grow to enhance your beauty because when you get older you won't have the chance". And when the hair is starting to turn grey they'll expect you to dyed it and shame yourself if you don't.

Reading about how some of you encourage your grey hair is amazing and really up lifting. I used to hate my hair a lot because of its texture and volume, so I used to cut it to hide it. But this community made me reconcile with my hair, and now I know I have the support of all of you in this journey. :o

Awesome post, Ivy_. How lovely that this community has inspired you. This seems to happen quite often. :blossom:

[Feral_]

I’m glad this forum has inspired you. It has me too, seeing so many members with different long hair. I’ve never really done much with my hair, mainly because I had long layers which would poke irritatingly out from any attempt at a bun or plait. However as I’ve grown them out I have been plaiting it, either a single one or pigtails. Interestingly plaits show my grey hair more, near the scalp and behind my ears, as the greys are newer and seem to be underneath. Anyway several people have commented how my plaits suit me and look nice. One woman asked me if I did my pigtail plaits myself - I felt like saying yes because it was my handmaiden’s day off! ;)

[Zesty]

I'm approaching 28 and think about this sometimes. I have a few shortish grays growing in and sometimes they've shown up in hair photos (not that anyone but I would probably notice). But I also like long gray hair and don't see myself talking on the maintenance of dyeing anyway. I've pretty much embraced my natural look (long natural hair, no makeup, etc) plus the "growing old is a privilege denied to many" thing.

[hayheadsbird]

At 40 I'm loving watching the grey coming through and seeing how it's changing my colour and texture. I'll only get to do this once, I don't want to miss it by covering it in colour. Hoping I get some amazing silver streaks, and it is starting to come through more at my temples so you never know!

[Kat]

I hate to break this to you, but for many people, grays start showing up WELL before their mid 30s... my mom thought I was a late bloomer because I only started seeing them at 29 (she was your age when she found her first), and I knew a girl in college who already had gray hairs sprinkled liberally through her dark brown (and they were as long as the rest of her shoulder-blade-length hair, so they'd been there a while even by the time I noticed them when we were in our senior year).

(I don't really mind my silvers, but, I wish mine were more like my college friend's and distributed evenly. My mom went gray at the front of her hairline first, and I'm going the same way; mine are mostly at the front of my center-part. It's not as aesthetically-nice as if they were all over, looks a bit funny. The other aesthetic thing I don't like about them is that the contrast in shade against my medium-brown-ish-whatever hair also looks strange-- no different than if I had light-blond strands, or if someone with light-blond hair had a few random black or dark-brown ones thrown in. It would be easier if it would just suddenly all go silver one day or something, but having just these few strands mixed in looks odd to me.)

[ZoeZ]

Some of us never grow that beautiful silver hair, myself, for instance, I have my whites mixed in sort of 50-50% with the still-brown hairs (although the brown is not as dark as when I was young. I'd love the contrast of some well-defined silver streaks, Kat but like my mother, who had quite darkish salt & pepper at 75 yrs, I doubt I'll ever get really light (I'm 65). However, I do find the salt & pepper suits my face - I find black or very solid-colored hair on my own aged face doesn't really suit me, it just looks softer in it's natural state.

The downside of my hair color is that it doesn't look very shiny, despite being quite soft and well-cared for. Not that I have anything against dyes, if it works for you, that's great, and I admire the women who have the bravery to play with their hair colours. I suspect the thought of maintenance (and the cost) is what keeps me from bleaching or dying as well, along with a little bit of laziness :).

[Pouncequick]

This is a really positive thing I got out of (mostly) lurking on this site for years, too. I deeply love long hair and have always thought I would have to chop mine when it goes grey. This really depressed me since women in my family go grey quite young as well. Now I have a half inch grey streak that appeared on top of my head when I was 25 and most people in my daily life think it looks cool - kind of like Rogue. It probably won't always look cool to the majority, but my mom has beautiful silver hair and my aunt has beautiful snow white hair. One day mine will look like theirs and instead of fearing it now I look forward to this upcoming time in my life.

[Ivy_]

I'd love to someday have long grey hair! I think that it's very beautiful and that people need to mind their own buisness more :p

But talking about grey hair, have you seen PrettyShepherd (https://www.instagram.com/prettyshepherd/)? :) She's also on youtube and have amazing hair! :)

I just checked her instagram and she's amazing. Totally an inspiration :heartbeat

[Kat]

Some of us never grow that beautiful silver hair, myself, for instance, I have my whites mixed in sort of 50-50% with the still-brown hairs (although the brown is not as dark as when I was young. I'd love the contrast of some well-defined silver streaks, Kat but like my mother, who had quite darkish salt & pepper at 75 yrs, I doubt I'll ever get really light (I'm 65). However, I do find the salt & pepper suits my face - I find black or very solid-colored hair on my own aged face doesn't really suit me, it just looks softer in it's natural state.

The downside of my hair color is that it doesn't look very shiny, despite being quite soft and well-cared for. Not that I have anything against dyes, if it works for you, that's great, and I admire the women who have the bravery to play with their hair colours. I suspect the thought of maintenance (and the cost) is what keeps me from bleaching or dying as well, along with a little bit of laziness :).

Yes, my mom's never went completely gray. Salt-and-pepper around her face, nearly black with little gray/silver in back.

One upside I will find as I go more gray is that the henna will show up brighter on those hairs; I lament that my natural color is a bit too dark to get that flame-red I long for from henna. (I wouldn't have the patience for bleaching, either, even if I was willing to risk the damage to my hair.)

[Longlegs]

I think slowly people are changing their attitude towards grey hair. I am seeing more and more grey as my hair grows. it's interesting to see what mother nature has in store for me