Grow, Damn You! (*explicit)

The first thing you should know about short hair is what your hair will do when it is short. Do you have fine hair with little body? GREAT! Short hair is for you! Do you have thick hair with lots of body and curl? Maybe not something you want for the rest of your life.

I am of the latter breed but I think regardless of who you are you fret over making your hair into something it's not. My mother was of the afore mentioned camp and she spent an hour every day curling every strand, teasing, and shellacking it into place. Then the humidity would hit and it turned withery and looked like a hairstyle I would want.

Mine is the opposite. I arise from a lovely slumber to a floret of cauliflower sitting on my head. I straighten and try to pin strands down so they will fall on my head rather than flagging 2" high. Albeit a current resident of the South, I have no desire to don pageant hair and do not ascribe by the words, "the higher the hair the closer to God." Those are not my words, but the words of some other fantastic smart ass.

That being the case, I remember with wistfulness the days where I would roll out of bed, run a brush and some smoothing cream through my hair and walk out the door. Truthfully, I like being able to hide behind a ponytail and pretend my slacker tendencies are a "style." But the Sheltie look had to go and I'm seriously glad I gave short hair another go.

Since this is my playtime for hair I went on Pinterest and looked up interim hairstyles. This way I can get excited about every stage in the grow out. One woman posted on Cafe Gray that she couldn't find enough cute hairstyles for grey hair. I ask you this: when you are a blonde, brunette, redhead do you look at hairstyles only for that hair color? Of course not! You look at hairstyles. Period (in case you didn't see the punctuation mark). So although I enjoyed rocking the asymmetrical bob, I don't agree with some hairstylists who think you can only go short or a chin-length bob with grey hair. You can do whatever the hell you want to with your hair. Grey is a hair color and it's a valid OPTION, just like red, brunette, blonde. Unlike most of the others it's a cool tone which immediately brightens your complexion. So let's explore the cool things you can do with it.

Looking at the pictures you can see a cute pageboy cut with bangs. So freakin' adorable! I can grow into that by late July. After going short you just want something that's uber-feminine and this cut just screams Audrey Tautou. The blonde cut will cry out to my autumnal need for a rocker cut. Autumn is my favorite time of year: it's my rutting season, the weather is cool, there's no humidity (!!!!!!!), and you get to wear cool boots and coats, and scarves (and all the stuff I knit throughout the year).

Finally for the winter I will be thinking holidays, dressing in reds and wanting to look a little less rocker and little more soft and pretty. This Katie Holmes look can be turned into soft waves or mussed for a cool girl look. So the only thing I have to do now is go to my hairstylist and have her teach me how to play with the hair I have now. After all, this should be fun. It's hair. It gets cut, it grows, it can be shaved off- it is a woman's ultimate expression. If you take one thing from this realise that it's not about the color of your hair or your age, it's what makes you feel gorgeous. So ladies, it's time we had a little fun.

 PS- please post pics if you have any suggestions for how to style my hair!

Drinking the Kool-Aid

There comes a point in the greying process- around month 8- that you're just freakin' fed up with the two-tone look. There are wobbles along the way but man! Month 8 is a bitch. At this point you're brave; you've rocked the Sheltie look, you've defended yourself amongst co-workers, friends, family, and strangers. So why not just cut the damn hair off already??!!

And if you're like me, you see so many of your silver sisters who are rockin' short hair, graduated, and looking fabulous. And, if you're like me, you want to be close to done too. This is not a decision to be entered into lightly, you can't just go into the salon on a whim and hack off your hair. Okay you can, but you will be more likely to go into apoplectic shock. Not only will you be SILVER but you will also have to redefine yourself by your haircut.

I took about a month and a half to two months to prepare. Judge me if you like but I drew inspiration from pixies like Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham. I know, I know, but they really rocked their short looks! SO I talked to my stylist a couple months back and yesterday... this is how I came out... It kind of reminds me of my beautiful mom, who we lost last year.

I was a little panicky that my final grey is actually beige but I have to remember that I still have an inch and a half of color on the ends. That incha and a half reflects on my silver making it look beige. When I pull it up *SIGH of relief* there's the silver! SO who knows when I'm actually going to graduate but it WILL be before the big Silver Sister meet up in October.

 For any of you that are thinking about going short, just do it. It's kind of awesome and more than a little rock star. Know your hair type and look for celebrities with similar hair textures. I have THICK hair and so much of it. And although I had two muses for my cut, I had to look at pics with a similar cut from women who had similar hair types. Otherwise, I could have been disappointed.

If you think you can't wear short hair, you're wrong. If you don't like short hair, not a problem, you can rock the long hair and it will be awesome. I'm living proof that anyone can wear short hair. The last time I had hair this short I was in the 7th grade and in love with Prince. Sheila E had this cool short hair with a rattail. Sigh, I tried to copy her. It just looked like a Brillo pad with a dirty little rattail hanging off the back. Bad, really bad. I also didn't know what styling utensils and products were. Bad, really bad. Ugh, really bad. So I had a little trepidation on how this would turn out.

Also realise that this is day 2 of my haircut and since it's my Holy Week (any Eastern Christians know what I'm saying), I have had zero time to play with my hair and train it into what I want. Product is your friend, as well as a straightener. Spend some time playing and you'll get it down to a science (I'm almost positive).

At the end of the day just remember one thing- it's only hair. You are going grey, you are brave. You are rocking a skunk stripe, you are brave. You don't need to hide behind a ponytail. This is such a great time to try new things. I can't tell you, I didn't have a moment of regret. And let me also tell you, that's rare for me. Or maybe I should say, it WAS rare for me. Now I think it's just a part of the new me.

A Plethora of Dating Sites

Plethora. It's one of those fabulous underutilized words and it also applies quite accurately to the number of online dating sites available. I have tried many and loved few. I am one of those people who like to meet men organically, in their natural environment. However, I am also one of those that has many DOH! moments realising that I missed many a golden opportunity to express interest and take it to the next level. Very much like the guy I met in Glasgow who walked several miles out of his way to walk me to the right train station, stayed with me to show me the exact train I needed... far beyond what I needed but he was cute so hey, why not? Then he lingered and did I say anything other than a profuse thank you?? No. Missed opportunity. Sigh.

Aside: just to have a gratuitous pic before the big cut this Thursday. Although I'm slightly cross-eyed, the sentiment remains the same: Rock on! with your bad self.

So since I have developed this bad habit of missing opportunities, I turn to online dating. Since I went on to Ok Cupid I have had several dates. Nothing that swept me off my feet but I realise that even with 4 inches of roots it didn't affect the guys that I went out with. It was the same mix I had when my hair was fully dyed; some really good-looking, some not so much, some pretty cool, others not so much. Really, there's no change. The difference I DO notice is that these guys are pretty nervous and I'm not at all. I'm actually pretty damn comfortable, confident, and cool. In another blog post I think I'll go into how to steer a date but for now, we'll just focus on the different dating sites.

Match.com. Would you like to custom order yourself out of any surprises? Would you like a man who is 5' 11", auburn hair, violet eyes, originally from Moldova but speaks Tagalog? You can find that on match.com! The trouble is that match.com members get into such specifics that they don't look outside of their narrow boxes much. Oh, and the 'wink' feature is super-annoying! So the MO (modus operandi) is that a guy will look at new girls in the age group he specified. He will send out winks to several or 50. You are supposed to wink back, until you start the small talk phase. Chatting seems to go on longer on Match.com than a lot of other sites.

OKCupid.com. If you are a girl, prepare to be overwhelmed on OKC. There are so many more men on there than women and your inbox will always be full. The trouble with OKC is there are a lot of people looking for hookups, which is one step away from craigslist ads. They have the endless stream of questions to answer as well. The more questions you answer, the more you know how a person potentially matches with you. But the questions never end. Ever. Men are more likely to email you out the gate and start with some small talk but dates usually ensue much quicker.

eHarmony.com. eH is designed for meeting "the one." There are quite a few questions and for a girl who's a minority in the Christian world (Eastern Orthodox Christian), they really don't know what to do with that. There seem to be a lot more women on this site and the men are slim pickings. I haven't been on this site for years because of this fact but when my very attractive friend joined I saw what they paired her up with. Not great. My dates from eH were guys who lied about their height (5' 3" is not that close to 5' 9"), showed pics of when they were waaay younger and had hair, and they were looking to get married yesterday.

Specialty dating sites. Since I am of a minority religion I do belong to orthodoxchristiandating. But with any of these sites I think the foundation is all religion, or whatever the specialty consists of. I have met men on this site- great men from all over and you start out having something important in common. But the likelihood that one of you is going to move because of an online relationship? Probably not as great as you'd think.

So I guess it all comes down to what you're trying to get out of this site. I recommend trying some out though. It gets your mojo going, helps to identify what you really want right now, and it also reinforces that you're attractive whether you have two-toned hair or not. There's a lot of good that comes out of it but be prepared to really invest some time into it.

Color Lift Part Deux

There's a lot to this color lift so I'm going to spend a little more time on this. As I went into the bathroom to re-examine my grey in yet another light, I noticed that there were a few areas where there was red hair about an inch from the roots. The roots had more white. Oh no! I thought that the color lift had deposited some dye on my virgin hair. Damn! Seven months of grow out for nothing.

Not completely unlike me to jump to conclusions, I called Aveda up. The manager had me come in that afternoon so she could get a closer look. She said that there were a few spots where the red was further down but that it was my natural hair color. Apparently, all the greying has had me grey even more and there are spots that are getting lighter and lighter. I'm constantly going lighter. What the--? Does this mean that when I graduate from hair dye, I won't really graduate?? She further explained that hair color shows up differently and there was no hair color on my grey. I know my hairdresser took special care and she was so careful that this is why I have that darker stripe at my demarcation line. So whew! I am glad that the process was a total success!

This process of color lifting is not for the faint of heart. The chemicals contain a lot of peroxide so for all of you with ppd allergies, I'm afraid this might not be a good bet for you. The color doesn't rinse out but the peroxide formula penetrates the hair shaft and breaks up the color, sort of eating through the color. As I said in a previous post, one application of organic coconut oil and my hair was restored.

Even though it sounds like a harsh process, I look at the before and after of my hair and it's sooo much easier now. I really am not conscious of it when I go outside. I realise that writing a blog about your hair makes you a wee bit more obsessed with it than the Average Joe but it is making this transition even easier. I feel like I'm really starting to see what my color will look like when I'm all done.

Roux-fully Challenged

I did something I SHOULD have done several months ago: I went to a salon and had a color lift. This is the polite way of saying I had the salon strip out as much of the color as possible. This is not for the faint of heart because it is heavy on the chemicals and can make your eyes water. But it lasted for 10 minutes, cost $10 at Aveda, and with some coconut oil left in for 30 minutes (thought I was going to say 10?) my hair was as good as new. Except one thing- it's LIGHTER!

These are pics of me right before I went in to the salon, right after, and styled with Roux Fanciful rinse (I'll get into that in a minute). Disclaimer: I was going into the salon and wanted my stylist to know exactly what kind of tween tantrums my hair will pull if not whipped into shape, so she could suggest shorter styles. Lest we forget, I reside in the South: a swampy climate which ensures dewy skin and frizzy Texas pageant hair. Going to a short 'do is done with trepidation. So here is the 1, 2, 3 of my hair transition:

Several oddities came up when I saw my new hair. First of all, I was in mourning for my lost Sheltie look- now I wouldn't look like my puppy anymore. Second, and I know I should have come to terms with this long ago, I would never be a redhead again. Other than the occasional wisps of red hair I still have, my days as a ginger are done-zo. Also, my silver has changed completely; almost unrecognizable to me. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that some of the dyed hair must have gotten on my virgin hair and coated it. Against the dark red my grey looked somewhat pewter but against the blonde it looks redder. The jury is still out, but really I think my grey is just adjusting to reflecting the new color.


One question you might have is why the hair is so much orange-ier at the top of the dyed hair in Pic #2? This is due to the original hair nightmare- the craptastic ombre that I had dyed over. Apparently that cherry chocolate undercoating has now oxidized to a lovely shade of traffic cone orange. The second question you may have is why is there little-to-no improvement between Pic #2 and Pic #3? This is because I'm roux-challenged.

Roux-Fanciful is a rinse that perhaps your grandmother would know. I have seen silver sisters that have super light blonde ends and they use Roux to turn their blonde silver. I'm not exactly sure the extent of Roux because I can't seem to get it to work for me. I have tried it in Silver Lining and Tru Steel but to very little effect. I've glopped, combed through, sjoozhed (it's a word), smooshed and still failed.

Regardless, I am loving the change in the lighter hair. I feel like this makes the transition easier and my silver blends in much better with the blonde-ish color. Even though one of my favorite kids at Church said my hair was different, just a light orange *thud*, alas still it's better. And next up will be shorter hairstyles!

And Now the Answer You've All Been Waiting For...

So what is the question to this whole blog? It's whether or not grey hair will affect your love life. In some ways, yes. You don't attract young'uns as perceived peers (but you still attract them all the same). Some shallow men will want a checklist of features that you would have to work a lifetime to maintain (see a Real Housewife series). But those are unrealistic standards that the best salon and plastic surgeon can't live up to.

In so many ways that you wouldn't realise, grey hair DOES NOT affect your love life. After one week on OK Cupid I went on a first date. Typical coffee date on a Sunday afternoon with a nice, really interesting guy. I took a pic right before I left to meet him (hence the car backdrop). The two-tone hair never came up and there were no lingering looks about it. I mentioned it briefly and there was really no reaction about it. Why? Because it doesn't matter. After nearly three hours of conversation, I left to run some errands. Oh, and I got asked out for dinner next Friday.

So there you go, ladies. It really doesn't matter. You don't have to change anything about your life when you go grey. You don't lose your desirability, you don't lose your youth. You don't have to put your life on hold waiting for the stripe to grow out; you keep living as though this is the best day of your life. What you DO lose is the high cost of hair color (add up the thousands you have spent on hair salon color, DIY kits at home, color correctors, etc.). Most of all, you gain an authenticity; a self-love for what God gave you. You become fully a woman because you love and accept yourself for you. This is further enhanced by the fact that this self-love expands outward and you have so much more love for others. I spend no time looking at women's hair unless I want to pay them a compliment. I think I've increased the level of compliments I give daily five-fold.

So if you're feeling self-conscious about yourself- don't. Whatever you choose to do will be accepted. And I'm living proof of that.

The Online Dilemma

I have stated before my dislike of online dating. I find that it's (obviously) not organic and it leaves people at a distance. It also is easy access to a lot of people looking to date and it gets your mojo kickin', which is good. Since I don't want to pay for Match I thought I would just have an online profile at OK Cupid just in case I did want to go the online route. OK Cupid seemed like a good option because A) it's FREE and B) it's geared toward nerds like myself.

Now the critical juncture of an online profile is the user name. This is not something I especially excel at and after realising that EVERY user name I could come up with was already taken (including the addition of 'asaurus' at the end of each), I finally settled on my favorite whiskey. Another 30 minutes spent writing little quips about what I'm all about and answering somewhere around 200 questions (it never ends!), I finally call it a day.

The next day I wake up to 8-10 messages. This is a respectable number and I wasn't really looking for any but that is my daily average. Now this is the part where you will learn why I don't like online dating. Most of the guys were perfectly nice and normal. I have a date with one of them this weekend. Other normal guys let chit chat go on for far too long and then you can't help but lose interest. And then, #thud#, the others. One had a user name that makes him seem like some good little Christian man. Cool. He's good-looking too. He's also poly amorous and into some really kinky stuff- eek! Others are looking for a hook-up- nope. Others are writing me to tell me how much they work out and have nothing intelligent to say... nope again.

Then there are the (what is the PC way to put this) socially-challenged lot. The most common way a guy can guarantee getting blocked (if none of the above-mentioned methods haven't already applied) is over-eagerness. Ugh. Case in point, one guy rambled his whole life story and why we'd be a great match. This was the introduction email. I felt overwhelmed and let that one die. Another had a perfectly nice opening email and I responded. The next email gave me three phone numbers, times to be reached at any of them, and assurance that whichever phone I called (and to PLEASE call!!) he would return my call within the hour. Nope.

A question I hear discussed on the Silver Sister's Club is whether you should use a picture of your dyed hair or your skunk stripe. I mentioned this before but I think it bears repeating. Use your current picture. Even if you have a current picture mixed in with a bunch of older pictures when you're styled and coiffed with freshly dyed hair, you don't want to risk the guy feeling deceived about your appearance. I say risk rejection upfront instead of in person. So the only pics of me are with my skunk stripe.

I had one guy- intelligent, cute, interesting and very interested writing me. Huh, looks promising. And then he tells me how he likes older women. I scratch my head, not feeling like 38 is 'older.' I look at his profile and it says he's 34, not exactly young enough to be my son, so I call him on it. Oops! he forgot to update his profile and he's really 24. Good grief.

Okay yes, the silver will affect every aspect in your life in some way. I had my opinion of grey hair before I stopped the dye and I can't expect the world to become enlightened overnight. But the biggest change comes from the fact that I stopped coloring for ME. I had been coloring my hair for everyone else, or at least what I thought was expected or wanted of me. And the biggest change is that I have a peace and comfort in myself- even with my awkward hair. And I'm kind of addicted to this doing things for me business. It kind of kicks ass.

So regardless of what some guy thinks of grey hair, they see ME, not some airbrushed girl who is afraid to state an opinion or pretending to be whatever the guy wants so he'll choose her. I don't have to play games because I'm very much myself. Instead of spending all this time trying to anticipate what strangers might possibly like, I can spend more time being a good person and dedicating myself to things that matter and are authentic. I chose me and that's really all that matters.