Tuesday was a gray day in more ways than one.
The skies were Seattle, Wash.-gray with goose gray-clouds hovering around the mountains. The colors were gentle and soothing -- both above and as reflected on the rain-spattered streets.
I was paying more attention to colors that day, because the day before, I'd talked with color consultants Erin Bakke and Diane Giusti about adding color to my house. Like many Las Vegas, Nev., homes, mine got its start with Navajo white and stayed that way far, far longer than it should have. The two color pros suggested sage greens and an ivory cream should be in my future.
So I've been thinking about adding color in a positive, uplifting way.
Just in my head. Not about my head.
Peggy DiMaria, the wife of my longtime hairstylist, Tony DiMaria, told me Tuesday that it might be time to take the plunge. Courageously, but gently, she recommended coloring my hair. My face was becoming washed out by the gray hair framing it, she said. My hair was no longer just a dash of flash.
Tony concurred.
"It's time," he said, not realizing he sounded like an executioner. I saw myself going to the hair coloring guillotine, my hands tied behind my back.
While Peggy is an artful colorist (I see her work walking out the door every time I come in for a haircut with Tony), I do not go gently into the good color salon.
My greatest fears involve roots that scream, "Look at me, I dye my hair," and hair thinning from repeated coloring. I am nervous that my brown hair could look so dark, I'd be mistaken for a Romanian Gypsy on vacation. Those black helmets some women call their hair belong on the back of a Harley.Most of my female friends in my age range have cheerfully colored for years. I'm nearly the last holdout, blithely believing I was just "a natural girl" whose salt-and-pepper hairdo was perfectly fine. Coloring my hair was not something I voluntarily planned to do.But I knew Peggy was telling the truth. My hair wasn't about to suddenly turn that beautiful silver-white that so many men and women enjoy. I am going to be gray and brown for decades. Mouse brown is not a color I wish to be associated with, thank you very much.On the way home from the salon, after looking at myself in the mirror at every stoplight, I plunged into depression. Really. I was on the verge of tears thinking I was heading down the road to becoming a blue-haired old lady, even knowing that Peggy would never let that happen.Was I overreacting? Of course.But for me, coloring my hair would be a significant first.Now, I don't think I'm alone here. I think for those of us who have to be nudged into hair coloring, it's more traumatic than for those who take the step willingly on their own.
Some of the nudges can be pretty brutal. Being asked if my mother is my sister is flattering for her, less flattering for me, although I do not begrudge her that she inherited her father's straight black Cherokee hair, which now has a few silver strands.Some of my hesitation to take this step comes from her mother's hair, which from month to month could be either coal black, brown or even auburn, although thankfully, granny never went so far as to go rooster red or floozie blonde.In an effort to be less of a nutcake about all this, I'm trying to think of my head as being like my house.Adding color is a way to brighten and refresh a home that has a basically good design. I'm just refreshing my head. The gray matter inside that graying head is OK.Color will be added to my house and my head. The house will look dramatically different; the hair will not. The house will look less tired and more invigorated, and, if I'm lucky, my face will too.Ladies and gentlemen who color your hair to look like your younger selves, your ranks are about to increase by one.Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal. Powered by Yellowbrix.
