It was March of 2023 and it was time for me to touch up my gray roots. The problem was I just didn't want to do it anymore and I was worried the process was drying out my hair and making it course and brittle. I watched a few friends grow out their gray during the pandemic and I was jealous of their freedom. No more touchups, no more stinking hair color, no more chemicals. They looked great and they felt even better.
So I threw the box of L'Oreal Hair Color (in medium brown) in the trash and started looking for inspiration on the web from women who were doing the same thing. It wasn't hard to find.
For starters, several celebrities including Andie MacDowell, Jane Fonda, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Salma Hayek were also allowing their gray locks to grow in. They all echoed the same sentiment -- they were no longer going to allow the color of their hair dictate how they felt about themselves. But they were celebrities and everything seems a little easier for them, so I decided to find women a little more like me for encouragement and inspiration. Enter Instagram.
Within minutes I found several "gray" influencers and proceeded to scan their pages. They shared their before and after pictures, and all the in-between. I found what I needed -- a community of like minded women who could provide me with the support I needed.
If you're thinking of giving up the hair color and if you're ready to see what life's like on the other side of gray, check out a few of the accounts I found so helpful. Maybe I'll see you on Instagram?
Going Gray Influencers
Embracingmygray_2021: Sharon started her transition in 2021 and documents the transition to full on silver. She has as of 1/24 around 62.3K followers and numerous reels which are both funny and inspiring. She offers up how she handled people who said unkind things about her decision to go gray, which I found helpful.
Silver.s.t.y.l.e: Sandra's account is about more than going gray. She does an excellent job of sharing fashion, style and makeup ideas for silver foxes and I love that she includes stories of other women going gray. She has 138K followers to date.
Grombre: This is my favorite account as it accepts submissions from women going grey and features them. Sort of a scrapbook of women from all walks of life and from all demographics, all of them going gray. The account doesn't appear to be as fresh as it could be, submissions are from a few years ago, but it's still fun to peruse the photos and find inspiration from them.
If you have a favorite Instagram account that features women going gray please share it in the comments below.
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