The Gray Hair Post

Hello. My name is Allison and I have Gray Hair.

I see you recoil in shock and disbelief. I hear you gasp in horror.

But to be honest, I got my first gray hair when I was 16 years old. Since then it's been a game of cat and mouse. The dark auburn cat is trying to chase away that pesky gray mouse.

I'm only 29 years old, I'm not old enough to be *this* gray. But from the moment Sarah Bradley was born the grays increased. Then when Mac came home those nasty buggars increased exponentially. Ive decided it's a medical issue I've named "Stressed Induced Gray."

Since this blog is for moms by a mom, I thought it would only be right to share this gray-ness with you. So, for the first and hopefully only time, here is a picture of my growing-out gray - soon to be covered with Miss Clairol's "Auburnin' Hot" Level 3 Permanent hair color.

So...here it goes. My gray hair. (I'm hiding my hair in shame over here, I can't believe I'm sharing this!)

I mean, you can see some huge grays there. And in the bottom half of hair in this shot you can see how much there is mixed in with the brown. I mean, my hair used to be all dark brown. It's so light up there it looks like it's thinning, which I promise it's not - you just can't see it.

Last night I had a hot date with Miss Clairol to wash those grays away. We spent some good time together, Miss Clairol and I. She took good care of me.

See? Same shot, red hair! Usually my hair, regardless of box color, turns out black. So this turning out actual RED was a shock. But those pesky grays are covered and hidden for the next month.

I think for women, at least women under a certain age, admitting that there are grays in there is hard to do. It's embarrassing. Maybe back in Biblical days women over 30 had gray hair and they were seen as attractive matriarchs of the community. Gray = authority in a way. But not here. Not now. It's like you must maintain the hair color of your youth (or someone's youth, at least) and then when you reach a magical matronly age THEN you're allowed to go gray.

My husband and I have discussed it. When I hit 35 or 40, or maybe when I need to be seen as "cool" by the kids and their friends, I'm totally going to rock the gray streak in my hair. And I will rock it! You just wait. But for now, I'll keep my dates with Miss Clairol.

Until next month, Gray Hairs... until next month...