Amen, a topic I want to discuss! The fact that a well known magazine ran an article called “Just 20 Male Celebrities who’ve turned into Silver Foxes with Age” really upset me.
Silver Foxes, wow nice compliment, sure sounds a lot nicer than what I hear women called.
The majority of the men on the list went gray at 40 years old– Grant, Clooney, Obama, Danson , Banderas, Ruffalo, Isaac, etc.
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I love Alexandra Grant (a visual artist) who went prematurely gray in her 20’s. She colored her hair until her 30’s when she was unable to handle the toxicity in the dyes she was using and stopped. Now she is 54 and looks stunning, she has her gray hair and Keanu Reeves by her side, who loves every inch of her.
This summer I will turn 75, and if I am to be fully honest I have to say that I LOVE MY WHITE HAIR. I love it when I look in the mirror, I love it when I am alone, but the minute I have to see people I have not seen in years, I go into a dark place inside myself. Voices that are stuck in my head from years of what you hear on tv or see in magazines haunt me.
When people see you every day they get to see you change gradually. They are visually adjusting and are in sync so I am more relaxed in that situation.
I actually canceled some gatherings this year because I knew there would be people there who had not seen me in years and so the change would be drastic. No matter how you toss or turn it going from dark brown hair to total white is a room clearer for a WOMAN.
That is why I hope we can continue discussing this topic because I would love to stop being insecure about how I look. Damn at my age, I should finally be able to feel good about myself, but most of the time I don’t.
My going white was a gift from COVID. I could not leave my house or go to the hairdresser and when I finally did, almost a year later, she looked at me and said “I don’t want to color your hair, it looks so beautiful”. All the other hairdressers agreed.
So let’s keep talking about how we can change this. Lately it seems women are being thrown back in time and the progress that we made is disappearing. Let’s make sure we don’t go back to the 1950’s.
It’s so frustrating when I see men being revered for aging gracefully. Yet the women who are called out for aging well have all had to undergo the knife to get that same recognition. Can we not find beauty in women for aging naturally? Can we not find beauty in anything above the age of 25 (especially you Leonardo DeCaprio)?