Notes on Styling | 60 | There's no easy way to go grey.

I am embracing the grey.

I decided this a long time ago much to my mother’s horror. She is and always will be a bottle blond and this is how she saw me. I saw me. Until I didn’t. I was in my late 20’s. I took two painstaking years to grow it out completely and it changed so much about how I saw myself and my style. These of course are things I felt. I know for others, blond is in their soul. It’s who they are and it works so well for them. Suits them. Is them. It feels right.

I never felt that way as a blond. I struggled with the tone. Always feeling the harshness of those inevitable yellow tints you have to put up with shortly after a fresh colour. You see, I have cool skin tones. Those yellow tones always felt they went against my pale and pink skin. It was the freshly washed bright ash tones is what did it for me and it never lasted.

I remember pulling my hair back as it was growing out and really for the first time taking in my natural hairline (I hadn’t really seen it since I started colouring my hair at about 18), really looking at it closely against my face. I was working in styling by this time. Though I didn’t know anything for sure, I knew I felt an ease with that strange colour and hair line that my blond hadn’t given me for a long time.

I was also attuned now to helping others see the truth of their colour lines.

And I’ve never regretted it. It’s helped me develop a much more natural style, albeit it takes time. But after 10 or so years of my natural colour, the greys have been arriving and I have been mulling it over.

I know that there is no easy way to go grey. But also no decision on hair colour feels so fixed that it can’t be changed. The truth when I saw that first grey - I freaked out a little bit. We were just coming out of Covid and I wasn’t ready. I tried to convince myself my hairdresser would get it and I could have an ‘ash’ brown if I covered the greys and so I did it. But alas, I have learnt the colour lesson all over again. The warm tones are all I felt, so here I am, growing them out. Again.

Now, I know looking at my pics, these light warm tones at the end of my hair look nice. I can see the niceness too. They warm up your complexion my mother would say. It seems every Irish mammy wants to rid us of our paleness. But with the experience of, well experience, I now know better what overall feels right for me. I know what actually looks good with my skin tone and I know what feels best to me and so I have been getting regular chops to get rid of the colour, each time seeing a little more of an unveiling into life in the grey lane.

Sometimes, I negotiate trying to chat about it on Instagram and just give up. Women have such fixed views on greys - and I’m terrible at having the patience or time on there to go deeper on the subject. So many view the decision to embrace grey as a sort of giving up on life almost, a keeling over of your style, without looking at the individuality of the decision for each person.

I guess all my time in styling has thought me a lot about colour and I just don’t see grey in this way. I see that it can go this way if you go grey and don’t have a clear picture of your style, but you can also take it and make it your own.

You need to have a bigger vision for your style and work on it over time with your journey to grey a part of that building.

Does it have to mean feeling older in the process I’ve wondered a lot?

And the truth is, probably some days - yes.

But I felt this way (and see it with so many women) with colour too. Fighting with the wrong colour tone can really drag you down, and make you feel and look tired.

This picture for me shows the conflict that you can feel when the warmth of a colour goes against your skintone and features. You may not know what your feeling but hair colour can have a big impact.

I have also met some amazingly stylish women with grey hair - who got there.

For me, they have a couple of things in common.

✰ They have a surety about their look and aesthetic which means they wear their grey with true authenticity as part of their overall style. They have brought both hair & style together.

✰ They are confident in who they are and what they love and don’t apologise for that.

✰ They invest time and effort into that style to feel the way they want to feel in their clothes.

Should you consider grey?

It is true that certain skin tones suit grey hair more. Cool skin tones marry up much better than warm skin tones. A blue/ grey eye colour direction over browns, hazel or green is what I look for in helping someone decide.

Cooled toned eye colours.

An example of how a lady with a cool skin tone looks in both a cool toned pink and a warm yellow. But more so, how grey compliments a cool skin tone more if we are just looking technically at the debate. But, please read on…..:-)

But then I have met women with a warm eye & skin tone who have rocked grey.

Grace Ghanem has warm skin tone and deep warm eye and rocks it. She owns her effortless but bold style so inspiringly.

It comes down to AEA - ATTITUDE, EFFORT, APPROACH. The vision you have for your look and how much you feel connected to it. To achieve a good transition, this is such a huge part of the story.

AEA really comes dow to these things. Believing in yourself that you can make it work for you. Working on it. Trying, shifting, altering and enjoying and owning your process and the time it takes.

It’s also why in styling generally someone who is really petite can rock oversized clothes once it’s in their heart and soul and they own that look - it just works.

For me, embracing grey means I am not fighting the hair colour/ skin tone fight, which never felt good to me. For others, it’s not something that bothers them and I get this too. I have cool skin tone and cool eye colour. I know grey works with my skin and eyes. I know I have struggled for 20 years with hair colour. Too warm a tone and I feel washed out and tired. It drains the life out of me - no matter what my mom says (sorry mom). But more so, it’s working on that complete style picture I believe we all (can) have. Our style is a picture with many Elements marrying up together of which our hair is one.

I’ve also come around to the thinking that even our hair decisions should be measured by the things that feel most important to you when you think about your look.

My style words are NATURAL, ELEVATED, EFFORTLESS. If I truly lean into these it’s obvious to me now why grey feels like a good decision. It’s the most Natural decision of all. Elevated for me is not about my hair. It’s about other things. But the two that make me truly commit and feel the decision is right for me are Natural & Effortless. I think being true about your words, helps to work as your benchmark for decisions like this.

That’s not to say any decision is so fixed that you cannot change it, but you can explore and lean into it and see where it takes you.

I also think it’s useful to be clear on the effort both take. Going grey takes vision and commitment to a long term feeling about your style. Colouring also takes it’s own commitment. Neither from my experience is any less ‘easy’ a decision, it’s more a weighing up of which end day-to-day result will light you up more.

And I do believe in my heart grey has more chance of feeling successful if and when you feel a real connection to your style aesthetic.

It’s good to note.

Changing your hair colour can entirely change the colours you might be drawn too and that suit you now. I know with more grey the cool tones I love to wear will likely soften. I can already see this with my salt and pepper greys. I have picked up an icy blue to try, which I would have never done before.

Just a little colour experiment on the shop floor in Arket. It’s too big but tried just for the colour.

I also think it’s helpful to find a muse. Someone who has elements of the look you are working towards. Not to copy but to keep you on track, to focus the mind. For me that’s both Grace Ghanem and Vogue Editor UK Sarah Harris.

I should point out I’m 42 now. I have been my ‘natural’ mousey brown fully since I was about 32. It was only on a recent trip home to Ireland, on having one of the many little mini ‘fashion shows’ my mum and I have (me lying on her bed and her trying on her latest find), that the words just fell out of her mouth - ‘your natural hair is much better on you.’ She said it like she had known it for years but couldn’t quite bring herself before now to utter the words, so engrained is the idea of blond in her psyche. I smiled and let it slide.

That’s the thing with these decisions. No one else has to get it, just you and when you begin to own it, others see it too.

I would love to know your own thoughts or journey with grey in the comments if you would like to share? Have you embraced it? Never would? Had any interesting comments? I would love to know.

Speak soon.

P.S. If I must……;-)