To dye or noT To dye

It’s a dilemma faced by most people of ‘a certain age’: let your hair go grey, or reach for the dye bottle?

Grey hair is one of the strongest visual indicators of age and even if you’ve managed to avoid some of the other obvious signs, such as wrinkles and a sagging waistline, your hair colour will give you away every time.

If you’re uneasy about the prospect of growing older, then the chances are that you will do whatever it takes to retain your youthful hair colour, even if it means regular trips to the hairdressers or struggling to make sense of an off-the-shelf dye kit: “part hair into strands and, wearing the gloves provided, tip bottle A into container B and shake well before applying”.

Why we go grey Our natural hair colour comes from a pigment known as melanin, produced by the hair follicles. As we age our follicles produce less melanin, resulting in grey and silver tones. The age at which you turn grey and the amount of hair affected depends largely upon your genes, but the average person will spot their first grey hair in their 30s and most people will have noticeable grey strands by their 40s. By the age of fifty, fifty per cent of people will have gone grey.

The aging process also makes your hair follicles and the oil glands in your scalp shrink, resulting in hair that is thinner, dryer and more brittle. People of both sexes may also lose some hair as they grow older. Although we tend to think of hair loss as an exclusively male preserve, women can also lose volume as a result of hormonal changes during the menopause.

Grey is the new black Women may also feel under greater pressure to keep up a youthful appearance. While an older woman who refuses to colour her hair may be described as ‘brave’, a grey haired man enjoys the much more flattering label of ‘silver fox’. But grey hair shades can be chic for both sexes, whatever their ages: young, hip celebrities such as Rihanna, Zayn Malik and Nicole Ritchie have recently hit the headlines for adopting silver grey hair shades and the trend for grey colourants is growing.

Why more of us are refusing to dye It’s ironic that while younger people are now choosing to colour their hair in grey and silver shades, many older people are turning away from hair dyes. While there is no single cause for this change of attitude, there are several reasons why the number of cheerleaders for being ‘grey and proud’ may be on the rise. Lockdown certainly escalated the trend. With hairdresssers closed and people working from home, many saw this as an opportunity to chop out the old dyed growth and embrace the grey.

Is hair dye harmful? Scare stories about the dangers posed by certain chemicals have continued to surface, in spite of a major re-think by manufacturers in the 1980s, when research revealed that substances used in hair dye at that time caused cancer in mice. While modern studies have shown that prolonged exposure to hair dye chemicals may give professional hairdressers an increased chance of contracting cancer, no concrete evidence has yet been found to suggest that hair dyes are unsafe for regular personal use. The jury is still out on the risks faced by today’s consumers but even a tiny seed of doubt may be enough to persuade some people to stop colouring their hair.

We can’t turn back the clock As we age, our skin colour alters, picking up more yellow tones. This means that a mature skin tone may no longer look as good against a vibrant, youthful hair shade (although if you do decide to colour your hair a professional hairdresser will be able to advise on the best shades to use). Because aging hair is dryer and more brittle, the chemicals in permanent dyes can leave the hair looking dull and lifeless, so a desire for healthier looking hair – whatever its colour - may ultimately persuade us to let nature take its course.

Role models lead the way Back in the day it was an unspoken rule that any celebrity over 40 should automatically dye their hair. These days, however, we’re surrounded by high profile figures sporting grey hairstyles – think of male celebritiess such as Gary Lineker, José Mourinho and George Clooney and female high rollers like actress Meryl Streep, Jamie Lee Curtis and Andie MacDowell. Far from hinting at age and infirmity, their grey hairstyles exude power and charisma.

These days we are all living longer, in better health, and it may simply be that the trend towards accepting grey hair shows we are more relaxed about the aging process, living life to the full instead of hiding away. To quote celebrity hairstylist and founder of Twitter’s @ thegreyglammovement, Cynthia Alvarez: “Grey is the new black. The colour has taken on an entirely new life and meaning – today grey is beautiful, sexy, chic, fabulous!”