Dyeing my hair makes me feel spruced up and new. It’s not very different from putting on a new dress
During my life, my hair has been copper, auburn, red and burgundy. Right now it is Crimson Promise
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Your support makes all the difference.I have an addiction. My friends and family know it – it’s clear just by looking at me – but the time has come to go public. My natural hair colour is mid-brown – or at least it was the last time I looked, which was roughly 25 years ago.
As a teen I first dyed it deep mahogany, which was as much as my school would allow. Later I coloured it black. I wanted to look like Joan Jett though, with my complexion, the reality was closer to Dawn of the Dead. Since then it’s been red, copper, auburn and burgundy. Right now it is, according to the packet, Crimson Promise.
You can keep your tanning, waxing, threading and manicuring – they’re not for me. A fresh dye job, however, makes me feel spruced up and new. It’s not very different from putting on a new dress, although as a DIY-colourist, it’s a whole lot cheaper.
I mention this because our use of hair dye is increasingly politicised. Scientists last week revealed they had discovered the gene responsible for turning hair grey, which will aid the development of methods to stop it. On Radio 4 on Friday the classicist Mary Beard presented Glad To Be Grey, in which she looked at the pressure on older women to colour their hair, lest their salt-and-pepper locks render them invisible or, worse still, unemployable. Beard was dispirited to find that the overwhelming majority of women over 50 choose to hide their grey hair.
It is sad that in these supposedly enlightened times women fret about how their hair may affect their employment prospects, while men can age gracefully, their grey apparently making them distinguished and wise.
It’s great to see Beard, Christine Lagarde, Jamie Lee Curtis and Emmylou Harris with their grey hair, though the fact they are in the minority among their respective age groups shows that there is indeed a problem. “Pay attention to your hair,” Hillary Clinton cautioned Yale students 15 years ago. “Everyone else will.”
But does this mean that, by colouring my hair, I am vain or shallow, or engaging in some sort of deception? Am I giving in to pressure and betraying my feminist principles by abandoning my natural shade?
I like to think not. Messing about with how I look on the outside doesn’t make me empty on the inside and, aside from one bleaching experiment during which a white streak turned a muddy green, it has always been a joyful experience.
And it’s certainly not about looking younger – though as I reach middle age I’ll admit that it’s a not unwelcome side effect.
What’s important here is that it’s a matter of choice. My hair is a canvas on to which I can project my mood, and I love doing just that. A sweep of eyeliner and richly artificial hair colour is what keeps me feeling like me.
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