by
Chinwe
There is an abundance of pressure for us, as women, to look beautiful – and forever youthful. Commercials and reality shows bombard us with “solutions” ranging from anti-wrinkle creams to botox to plastic surgery in order to eliminate any face and neck wrinkles. To cover up the graying of our hair, “fixes” range from hair dyes to wigs to weaves. (For black women, though black may take longer to crack, graying shows little discrimination, especially if genetics has predetermined an early onset.)
Rocking your natural gray
Many women are pushing back on traditional beauty standards and unashamedly accepting the aging process. In terms of hair, it’s becoming more popular to embrace one’s natural gray strands while the need to hide under box dyes or wigs is diminishing. The association between gray and old age is breaking. Gray has become “edgy”, “hip”and “fabulous.” Gray is now “confident.” In a way, gray is the new black!
The gray hair trend: going gray on purpose
This growing acceptance of gray hair has likely birthed (or, at least contributed to) the trend of young women turning to salons to go gray …on purpose. Young women are rocking gray strands at various levels from a slight ombre and bold streaks to a full-head look. Forget about platinum blonde. Gray is here.
Fashion fail or fashion forward?
The fact that naturally gray hair is being embraced establishes a powerful statement, but is the unnaturally gray hair trend that is being pushed by young women going too far fashion-wise? Some would ask: Why go gray on purpose? Why age your look prematurely? You have your later years in life to go gray so why wear the look now? The idea might seem backwards especially in contrast to the reality that many women have spent years aiming to look younger rather than older.
On the other hand, the trend could be fashion forward and perhaps making a statement that extends beyond fashion. The trend towards gray strands – natural or not – can be seen as a bold, fashionable move almost akin to chopping off one’s hair. Going from black hair to gray tresses could be analogous to going from long hair to a super short fade. The move is edgy. It is different. It is unexpected. It speaks confidence and in that confidence comes beauty.
In either case, I will admire the gray hair trend from a distance and patiently (and gladly) wait until my few silver strands turn into the more noticeable salt and pepper look. When the time comes, I hope to proudly rock my gray. In the mean time, I’m good.
Is the gray hair trend fashion forward or a fashion fail? Would you do it?
51 Responses
in my case, i have to dye it.. it’s good to look at when there’s lots of it… but if it’s scattered, it doesn’t look so nice… i’ll have to wait for it to take over the black hair
I have been wearing my silver,gracefully for the past year and a half,and it has grown on me,I am nit planning on coloring it no time soon,JESUS,AND FAMILY GENETICS,GAVE IT TO ME,SO I WILL BE PROUD TO SHOW IT,I GET COMPLIMENTS ALL THE TIME FROM ALL FEMALE AGE GROUPS.
Yup, this has become a trend now. I’ve decided to not cover my gray hair with some dyes. I will visit my personal hair expert to get me a super hair cut that looks good on gray hair
I think that it’s a great trend! The fact is, gray doesn’t always indicate old age. My nieces and nephew was born with gray and I’ve been getting them since I was a teenager. For me they represent stress not aging. So I love that younger women are embracing it and giving it a youthful look. Gray doesn’t mean old, it means change and it is beautiful!
i didn’t even know this is a trend now. I had just decided to get grey yarn braids just before I saw this post. i love grey hair, and I always will????????
I love it! This is creative and can be translated so many ways fashion wise.I think it looks very sci-fi “Storm” from xmen with the right makeup. I think metallic purple lip color and dark eye make up would look good with this hair color, I also like the fact that ther is an anime-ish. I also think it has a high tech,techno rock starish vibe. I like it in the braids and it looks great on young women, straight or curly. At 43, I am starting to sprout some grays in patchy strands,but I’m really not too concerned.
Funny my husband just had a conversation about this a couple days ago. I am 52 with greys that are unruly/uniformed. I would like to rock my greys when I’m 60 provided they are uniformed (maybe I will have some grey added to look better. I love a good grey look. For now I will continue to color with henna though.
I have graying edges & some gray strands. People in my family go completely gray late.. their late 70s-80s & very few have that pretty bright white color; mostly they get a mousey dull color. I have naturally jet black hair….my favorite hair color…. & intend to keep it that way with henna & indigo . I wore a wig as protective style & didn’t color my hair for several months just to see what it would look like. That dull mousey gray was not flattering at all so I have no intention of jumping on the gray bandwagon.
My hair is 5-10 percent grey already. I’m loving the natural color (no money necessary). Plus I’ve had color before and its too drying.
I believe in divine intervention! I just cut my hair all off (again) so that I can wear a TWA. I was thinking of adding some color but all I see are blond and red TWAs. I was thinking what if I dye it gray or silver and then I see this article! Thanks!
I’ve always liked gray/silver hair. As a child, until my late forties, one or two strands of gray was always on my head. I have less than fifty strands and turning 60. I inquired about dying my entire head gray years ago, but I was told that process of stripping the hair will damage it, so I declined.
Being a person who’s had almost every color under the rainbow in my hair, I think the gray hair look is cool. I won’t have to dye my hair gray though. I’m 22 and I’ve had gray hair since I was about 14, and it just gets more noticeable as I older. But I love my glittery strands, lol!!
I’m not gray yet but I would only rock the gray look with a light gray, dark gray, and a light pink look similar to the look of rainbow pearls. I saw a girl with box braids who had alternating light and gray box braids and it was gorgeous. I think I could rock this look with a touch of light pink or pearl pink.
Trend? No trend here. At my age, my gray hairs are in full effect. I am not dyed and have no intention of hiding them. While it can be challenging to see the white hairs encroaching on the dark hairs on my head, I am learning daily to love and accept them much in the same way that I absolutely love my natural hair. Plus, as a natural who transitioned for two years, I have no interest in trading one salon service (relaxing) for another one (dying).
When I go grey then most likely yes I’ll do it, but I’m not going to dye it that color on purpose. It’s a trend right now. I might as well keep my color the way it is until it does it naturally. Actually I was in my local Albertson’s and saw 2 like really young girls sporting grey hair. It looked cool on them, but it’s not for me.
I love the trend! My mom is constantly hiding her grays & I think they are absolutely gorgeous. I’ve been tempted a time or two to get a gray highlight myself. I’m all for it. Gray is beautiful and something not to be hidden. If I wasn’t so nervous about coloring my hair in the first place, I would definitely consider gray highlights.
I think it was sometime in the 90’s that me and one of my girlfriends got our hair braided all the time. One time, we chose the “salt & pepper” braid hair for fun. So this “trend” is not new to me at least…LOL
My mother is in her late 50’s and she’s shown me pics of her salon highlighted gray hair from her late 20’s and it looked really good on her. I like gray highlights but have never gotten them.
I have always loved grey/silver hair and as a child I admired how my mother’s looked. I remember hiding the boxes of dye she would purchase because I loved how well it looked on her. The women in my family when they leave their hair alone have beautiful streaks of grey and silver, it just grow in very nicely. Eventually my mom had enough people tell her how beautiful she looked with the silver and grey and how they wish theirs looked like her so they wouldn’t have to keep paying for the upkeep.
I got my first grey when I was 19/20 and I remember freaking out simply because I thought I was too young to have grey or silver or white hair so I would pluck that one strand in my sideburn for about a year and eventually I just decided that I loved it there like my own little sneak peak of whats to come.
I have always been a fan of people embracing their natural beauty because I do believe that until you see the beauty in yourself stripped bare no extras everything you do will come off as cover up instead of an enhancer of whats already naturally there.
In the 90s – yes, 1990s – I used to use Jerome Russell’s Silver Glitter Hair & Body Spray on my hair. I’d streak it through on dark purple hair, especially around my face. It’s temp but has good staying power. The effect was absolutely gorgeous and got me a ton of compliments, I’m sure they still sell it.
I’ve been thinking about it lately too, Lol!
Oh yeah, I remember doing that with the color spray in for Halloween and I’d just keep them after Halloween. And spray certain areas of my hair. I even used chalk before the whole caulk thing became big and at Christmas we used to braid in the tinstle. It’s fun switching up your hair temporarily.
This is cool! Here I am considering color since I cut my hair, because the gray is showing very well. This article helped me to forget about color and embrace the gray. I’m not coloring my hair, I’ll just let nature take its course.
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Please forgive me if this sentiment is in opposition to how you view things. I’m just saying what I think and what I prefer.
When I used to watch HGTV and DIY shows like the used-to-be popular show While You Were Out, I found it annoying that the builders would craft new pieces of carpentry, or buy new pieces of furniture, or strip a perfectly sound and nice-looking piece, and abuse it or apply an artistic paint finish to make it look “distressed”. And it boggles my mind that someone would pay $200 for jeans that look like run-riddled pantyhose.
That, to me, is analogous to a 20-year-old with zero problem with her face approaching a plastic surgeon and asking to be made to look 90. I’m not abusive of my possessions, and I tend to keep things for a long time, but use equals “wear and tear”; luster is lost, things get bumped and dinged, seams rip, fabrics become stressed and threadbare, life happens. So if I bought it new, and used it to that point, then it has earned the right to look that way.
In terms of whitlocked ladies, I am very well aware that greys can appear early, and if you’re honest and courageous enough to rock it, I ain’t mad at you. I love the look of a lass with an abundant headful of rich silver, healthy and beautifully displayed. But I personally have waited to “earn the right”, so to speak.
Not that you can tell that in my case, unless you know what to look for :-/. I’m one of the “golden” albinos; that is, I was born gold-haired, with a creamier shade of complexion and a light brown ring around the pupils of my otherwise blue-grey eyes, as opposed to what I call the classic albino white of white hair, blue eyes (that may appear pink in bright light because of the translucence of the iris), and milk-pale skin. As a younger woman, I knew another golden albino lady who was in her middle ages at that time, and I noticed that her hair appeared lighter in some areas than in others. After seeing that a few times, it occurred to me to wonder if that would be my version of “going grey”. Well, it seems my speculation is on point, at least in my case. I transitioned from several years of henna to the discovery of a whitish spot in the center of my front hairline. As I’ve watched, that spot has become a definite “white” lock. More accurately, it is a distinctly lighter color than the hair around it, And it is spreading. And you know, I kinda like it. I would never have put it there on my own as a younger woman, but now that it’s there, now that I’m “earning the right”, I don’t mind.
I love grey hair – always have. Personally, I just wish more women who are naturally going grey would accept and embrace it – I think its beautiful!
Twenty percent (and counting) of my hair is grey. I ain’t fighting it. People paying to streak/dye their hair all different colors and here God is giving me color for FREE. I say embrace it, just like my kinky, coily hair.
Even if I dye it, guess what….its still grey underneath.
I’ve wanted grey hair for YEARS, ever since I saw a gorgeous lady with flawless caramel skin and long grey hair at a store. She looked so classy! I’ve never had a dye job that didn’t break my hair so I’ll have to wait for it to happen its own. Only problem is I have a few and they refuse to follow the curl pattern of the rest of my hair.
If you would’ve asked me before I saw this article if I would consider dying my hair grey, I would say no. But after seeing how it looks, I must admit, it looks really pretty. Right now, I can’t say that I’d do it myself but it is definitely attractive on this young ladies here. I may change my mind in the future.
The people in my family (especially my dads side) hair didn’t really have grey hair. My grandpa on my dads side was in his 60s and he didn’t havegrey hair and my dad is 51 and he doesn’t have grey hair either. Since I take alot after him, I don’t anticipate me having to worry about my hair greying.
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Cute!
Good article. Recently my sister and I (who are both natural) had an impromptu hair pow-wow and we started talking about our grays. She is older, but I am the one with the few gray hairs. She plucks hers (yes plucks!!!) the minute she sees them. For a while I was cutting mine at the root when I spotted them but it was not like I would go on a search and destroy mission to hunt them down. Going forward, I think I’ll just let them do their thing and not worry about. Se la vie…
I know many black women who hide their grey hair with dye.
Genetics have never been on my side in that area. As so done who has been going gray since I was 13!!! Smh at 31 I now accept it. I henna my hair so it’s hard to see but I’m nearly a quarter gray at this point. I expect by 40 I’ll be half gray.. Point is I wish I had a stylist I would totally do that ombré gray it looks so pretty and then I would have to dye my hair with anything lol any new growth would just blend in
I actually wanted to dye my hair grey in my 20s. The reason is that I wanted to be well enough to enjoy it.
It sounds strange but people in my family get a few dotted round their head grey hairs in their late 30’s/early 40’s but it’s not until they are seriously ill do they get a tonne of it then unfortunately they die.
Not digging it on young women.
I have black friends who could not imagine wearing their grey hair! Dye it, weave it or whatever, they are not trying to embrace their grey at all!! Now me on the other hand, I don’t mind it all and would love to grey but the women in my family simply don’t grey…I dunno about this whole fashion statement. Had never heard of this and never even new that coloring hair grey was even an option! Wow
At my old job we could only wear our hair in natural colors. I wanted something different other than the shades of black and brown (and I wasn’t too fond of blonde), so I bought grey marley hair and did a head full of twists. I was 23 at the time and clearly not greying, but my supervisors couldn’t say a thing to me since technically it was a natural hair color.
I’ve used grey ever since with my twists, I love it, especially in the fall.
I wish I would have seen this last year when I wanted color at my old job. That is genius!
Many women erroneously believe that grey hair makes them look older, but it doesn’t. With their glowing complexions, neither of those women look a day over 30 with a couple that look about 19.
If women spent as much time on their bodies as much as their hair, they’d realize the fountain of youth can be found at the gym not in a box of hair color.
I’m 21 years old and I used to freak every time I was combing my hair and spotted a gray hair. Now I just leave them because they always find their way back on my head anyways. Never thought it’d become a fashion statement, but hey to each their own.
HI’ve been gray since high school. Since it happened when I was young it never bothered me when people would point it out. At this point I’m probably immune to the whole “gray hair makes you look old” mindset. What’s there is there and I don’t mind…and now it is fashionable! #win
i like contrast of a young face with gray hair
It looks pretty awesome. I’d rather admire it on others. I would like to enjoy my naturally dark hair during my young years. Then when I start seeing grays, only then will I embrace them like everyone is doing now with this trend. So yea, I’ll just wait till they start to grow in naturally lol.
First off, it’s weird to read something that suggests that black women are pressured to look younger the same way white women are. Maybe it’s my age (I’m “up there”) but I never thought mainstream media or skin care companies cared about how black women looked, young or old. I still think that’s the case, to be honest.
Secondly, NONE of those “unnaturally gray” women look old. In fact, with the possible exception of the woman with the TWA, none of them look like they’re south of 35. Then again, I’m well north of 35 and people’s jaws often drop when they learn that fact so…
Anyway…I love the little bit of gray I have and have started parting my hair to show off my one thin little streak off the side. My mother’s hair is silver, my father’s hair is white, and I seem to be on track towards inheriting both. Why would I hide that?
Oops…I meant to say “…all of those women look like they’re south of 35.”
Totally agree with your comments in the first 2 paragraphs. This trend i first saw 2 years ago in England i’m now seeing it’s caught on in America. I myself, in my 40’s, am about 30% grey and think it makes me look older than my actual age especially when i see most of my relatives with all or much of their natural hair colour. I was surprised however that a couple of people i know really believed i had dyed my hair grey. I have had a stranger approach me and tell me that i am too young to go grey and a colleague at work was surprised when i told her my age she thought i was in my mid 30s. All the white women i know you would never guess they were grey because it’s a ritual of theirs to have it covered. Me on the other hand i do miss my full head of natural black hair but i have no interest in dying. Some of me thinks it’s a little bit deceitful to hide what you have. It’s more important for me to have people accept the real me.
I think it’s such a well known fact that Black don’t crack that companies don’t bother marketing to us lol Black women are well known for aging quite gracefully and we’re celebrated for it.
In relation to the gray hair, I’ll have plenty of time to rock it when I’m older.
Mm, it’s cool. I’ve always thought grey hair was cool; wrote a story when I was younger( with a teenage spy character with a silver streak in her hair).
Last year I when I was 20 I did black yarn braids and put grey streaks in it, when I start going grey I won’t dye it, I dislike trying to hide “flaws” placing my esteem in the things I’m using to cover them up, I wore wigs for nearly the past year and my response was to cut all my hair off after letting wigs and my real hair being visible determine my mood for the past year, make up wigs or black dye I don’t want to feel like I’m slave to something…. like I HAVE to, they must stay in the realm of “choice” and not become necessity.
If we can get grey to become ageless because young people are intentionally doing it, maybe it wouldnt become such a stigma, with women and men being told to dye their greys so they can get jobs and not look too old etc.
I’ve always loved grey hair (and lamented the fact that my family doesn’t grey well at all), but I think we may be looking into this a biiiit too much.
“The trend towards gray strands – natural or not – can be seen as a bold, fashionable move almost akin to chopping off one’s hair. Going from black hair to gray tresses could be analogous to going from long hair to a super short fade. The move is edgy. It is different. It is unexpected. It speaks confidence and in that confidence comes beauty.”
It’s just dying your hair. When I dyed my hair green, I didn’t think of any of this, just, “Huh, I think I want to see how I look with bright green hair.” Maybe this article holds true for white/non-black women, but for us, grey hair is just another style. I’ve never seen black women freak out about greys the way white women do; we see it, we accept it.
Grey is a color ALL women have been told by society to cover up. Being able to embrace natural hair color is a movement.
Ugh. I wish they sold it in boxes. I’ve been trying to dye my hair grey for the longest and haven’t been able to get the color.
Ion and Pravana both make semi permanent silver dyes that I think would give the look – they’re available either at Sally (Ion) or eBay (Pravana).
I think it looks gorgeous and reminds me of Storm from X-Men.