But I could be a natural grey...
My father is a natural blonde, and my mother is a natural
brunette. My maternal grandmother and most
of her children (except my mum who took after her father) were natural redheads. In a properly organised universe, I’d’ve inherited
one of these distinctive hair colours, wouldn’t I? But, no – after a few years of baby blonde hair, I eased
into my teenage years with hair that, at best, during hot summers, was
honey-blonde, and at worst (ie, most of the time) was what could diplomatically
be termed ‘mousey’.
But I did get the sort of skin that so often accompanies
ginger hair: vampire-pale, mole-speckled, bursts into flame at the first hint
of sunshine. So that’s ok. Thank you,
Universe.
Anyway, at seventeen, I decided that dying my hair
tart-blonde would be a good move. My dad
always said blondes have more fun (and he should know, as he ran off with our
teenage babysitter when I was seven), so I figured I was ready to embrace the high
life. I chose the palest permanent blonde
colour available, and remained that colour for years, not counting the periods
when I added orange and back combed it into a monstrous frizz. [I was always
drawn to punk rock].
Having blonde hair really did change my life. I got a lot
more attention from men, for one thing, which was a surprise to me as nothing
else about my appearance had changed. Except
that I maybe used an excessive amount of slap – looking back, it was possibly
my resemblance to a 1950s streetwalker that got me all the masculine attention.
What is it about blonde hair that taps into so many men’s libidos? Beats me. It did cause me a problem when I
first fell properly in love, however, aged 23 (I’ve always been a bit slow), as
I allowed the object of my affection to believe my blonde hair was
natural. I actually couldn’t believe he truly
thought it was real. I mean, my eyebrows are brown (if you know what I mean).
And I’m not from Sweden, or one of the Midwich cuckoos. But he believed I was a natural blonde and I
let him continue to do so because I couldn’t bear the thought of disabusing him
of this idea which had clearly become part of what he loved about me. When he
did work it out, we were more or less finished anyway, but it didn’t help.
Anyway, in my thirties, I started going for darker, more
natural-looking blondes, and then I spent many years with my hair coloured in
various shades of ginger, which actually suited me better than any other
colour. The problem with ginger hair
colours is that they fade more quickly than other colours, the lovely vibrant
orange shades turning…well, mousey. So I
eventually moved onto shades of what were called ‘light brown’ but always look
quite dark to me. I try to use reddish browns, and sometimes I just go for the
full-on ginger look despite the inevitable disappointment that a fortnight of
hair-washing will bring.
So, why am I going on about hair colours? Well, the thing is, I haven’t coloured my hair
for about two months now, and the natural colour is beginning to show through.
And, shock horror, quite a lot of it seems to be grey! It’s still dark at the
roots, but there are definite silvery streaks at the front and sides. Now, I have no problem with being grey. My partner’s hair went grey-white in his
thirties and he later grew a beard so he looks like Captain Birdseye these
days. We never have a problem choosing
someone to be Father Christmas. I have a friend who is my age and naturally
grey, and she is gorgeous and looks younger than me. But most of my friends dye their hair. My mum dyes her hair. My colleagues dye their
hair. It’s a class and geographical
thing, I think. I am from northern working-class
stock – council house, comprehensive, FE college – and women like me, in my
generation, dye their hair. They just
do. I rarely wear make-up these days and
I have been the recipient of disapproval from my peers and elders because of
it. Anyone would think I’d started
wearing sackcloth and jesus sandals! I have several much more middle-class
friends from an older generation in London and they have all grown old
gracefully and sport lovely grey and white hair. But no one has seen my natural
hair colour, including myself, since I was seventeen.
I mean, it's not as if showing my true colour would transform me into a prune-faced, squinting granny with no teeth, complaining about how much better things were in the old days, is it? Not immediately, anyway. I'd have to put some work in.
So, I’m thinking – Lockdown has already made me cut my hair into
the worst bob the world has ever seen, so why not take the opportunity to grow the
colour out altogether? I could at least
see how grey I actually am (before I quickly get the Clairol out, sobbing hysterically).
But now,
just to spite me, The Clown Prince has decided to send us all back to work in a
few weeks, hasn’t he?
Listen up, Boris, two months isn’t enough time to grow out
several inches of hair, and I can’t go back to work piebald, can I? Have some
compassion for your citizens, man…
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