I’m trying to remember a time when my mom wasn’t a blonde. I look at older pictures of her and she had dark hair like me. I’m not sure when her transition to lighter hair was but she was definitely way younger than I am now. I never really noticed her grey hair roots coming in. The blonde seemed to camouflage the grey hair. It was only a few years ago, she’s 85 now, that I convinced her to stop colouring her hair and let it go grey. Now, her hair is thicker and a beautiful silver-grey. No one noticed when she made the switch. To be fair, all of her friends are her age and their eyesight isn’t the best.

Fascinated with women that have had the guts to stop colouring, I talked to a woman at work one day that had let her hair go completely grey. She is slightly older than I am. She said she did have dark hair like me too when she was younger. She keeps her hair in a pixie cut, so for her, the complete transformation did not take long at all.

So, here I am again, staring into the mirror and all I can see is the grey hair roots advancing. What is it with the one day it’s fine and the next day your bangs are too long and the grey roots look like they’ve gained an inch. Off to the stylist I go, thinking this it, let’s go blonde. I could do with a change and I think blonde is the only colour I didn’t try out when I was a teen. This will be awesome!

“Really? You want to go all blonde?” my hairdresser asks.

“Yes, I’m tired of noticing these grey hair roots just one week after colouring!” I reply confidently.

“But you have no grey at the back of your head at all. It’s all in the front.”

“That’s ridiculous! Is that normal? Why?!”

“So you can see it.”

“Same again please and I’ll re-book for six weeks”

Sigh.

Update: I am embracing change. See my post about putting down the bottle.