Anyone let their hair go gray?
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Ladies, ladies...it's not gray, it's SILVER.
For true gray hair, please see Wheeler, the little tuxedo critter in my avatar. LOL.I've been doing the "short, edgy cut" thing and while I'm sure I don't look any younger than my 56 years, I FEEL young with goofy hair that I can mess around with. In some lights my silver is really obvious and sparkly. Other times my hair looks more of a dull brown. My mom has gorgeous silver hair and I can't wait until mine looks like hers.
I don't have any advice for growing out colored hair, though. I used to henna my hair years ago. When I got to the point where my silver roots were showing way too much, I just let that current application of henna wear off, and that was that. I guess since I loving having short hair, I would have just chopped off any permanent color. But I know that is not for everyone.
But I'm another who is too lazy to keep up with coloring and I guess I'm too cheap as well.
Overall I also find that I'm enjoying getting older and receiving full credit for having put in more than half a friggn' century on the planet. So my silver hair is a badge of ....something or other. HA! In short: Go for it, Swimangel!
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Swimmer-
My daughter is a hair designer at an upscale salon. She used to color my hair and then put highlights (foils) on it. When I let it grow out she stopped coloring it and just used fewer and fewer foils on it and cut a shorter style. My hair is so much healthier now and I don't have to worry about roots. Coloring hair is such an enslavement. Who needs it?
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my niece did say she likes her mom's 'metalic' highlites.
Tabby girl, my hair does the same thing, in bright lights my silver is obvious and sparkly (esp after going to the salon and getting it cut and styled). That is why my husband thought I had it highlited under the flourscent lights. But in my avitar, the photo was taken and I didn't have alot of bright lights shining down on my head so my hair looks dark brown while my mom's hair is silver with a touch of brown/grey.
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Oh, yeah, lvtwoqlt, my hair is amazing...right after I cut it done! There's a mirror in the salon's elevator and they must have the most perfect lighting shining down. My hair just radiates. Then I get home and it's like, WTF? HAHA!! Oh, well, I'm getting more silver all the time...eventually I hope I'll sparkle constantly. I have threatened to go LILAC once it has all turned (just for one last hurrah of weirdness). We'll see.
Yours actually looks very lovely and silver in your avatar!
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My natural color is 'blah' brown so I have colored it for years. I have had it several colors, mostly auburn shades. I decided to grow out the auburn once, so I used Loving Care, a semi-permanent color from Clairol. I used a red shade so my brown outgrowth didn't show, and eventually I just quit putting the Loving Care on, it gradually washed out and there was the brown. (I didn't keep that for long though, just too blah!) Now that I'm getting a fair bit of gray I do kind of a frost thing and that works well. I might let it go gray someday, but not yet....
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I have been doing coloring things to one degree or another since I was in High School and used to sit out in the sun with lemon juice cooking in my hair. I never ever thought I'd stop coloring it. I'd been a blonde, light or dark all of my life ... 60+ years.
After my chemo, my hair fell out and then later came back in as a super curly silvery gray color. The curls subsided, but they gray stayed. My daughter loved it. So did my husband. That was 2.5 years ago but I'm still getting used to it. I have gotten many compliments on the color and the natural texture is so much better. I think I like too. But if it weren't for the chemo, I'd still not know what my "real" hair color is.
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Shari I'm happy you have pretty natural hair color - my natural color was always a "blah-brown" (like yours MinAZ) but I'm hoping as the natural color grows in, I'll get pretty silver highlights - keeping my fingers crossed!
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I keep vacillating...when I do color, it is the semi-permanent kind so it fades away to gray in about a month...so Iet it stay a while then I color it again...at the moment it is gray
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Tabbygirl, Actually the silverhaired woman in my avitar is my mother, I am the one with the darker hair. I think by percentages my hair is about 30% silver my mom is about 10% brown. That photo was done by a professional photographer for the Through Healing Eyes Calendar and the calendar shot shows my grey more. We are Mrs. November 2009. (check out this site with the calendar shot http://www.throughhealingeyes.org/calendar_09_nov ) Through Healing Eyes is a local non-profit organization raising funds through calendar sales to help people dx with breast cancer, provide information about breast cancer, and show that there is an active life after breast cancer. My mom was dx in 2001 and I was dx in 2007.
Sheila
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That picture is so lovely! The thumbnail doesn't do you justice!!!
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EWB, to get the photo for my avitar, I held the calendar up and took a picture with my camera so the lighting was different. Like I said the calendar shot does show my grey crown more clearly. I have another shot done just after my dx and the light was directly over or behind my head and the silver really showed like a halo on my head. My hubby really laughs about that photo.
Sheila
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JO! I heard you were in the hospital on the weekend. Everything okay now or is that a stupid question?
Sheila, take another picture of the calendar, your avator doesn't do you justice, I agree!
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Oh JO, I just checked your latest posts. So sorry about the LE, but glad that you're okay. Good job on the speed to the ER. You done good!
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Hi JO - sorry you've been wiped out - I'll say a prayer you get over the cellulitis and the antibiotics don't cause any havoc with your digestion. Maybe your dream about yellow hair was a sign of SUNSHINE returning to your life?!
Sheila - I love your avatar - thanks for sharing the link to the calendar page - if my hair could look as gorgeous as your mom's, I'd never hesitate to stop dying my own!
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Feeling OK JO - thanks for asking - though I'm still not back to my old energy level, even on Synthroid. And I'm upset that I gained 10 pounds the past month - I'm back to my heaviest weight again, sigh. I had lost 16 pounds on Weight Watchers just prior to my BC dx - but it's ALL back. Even through the surgery and chemo, I felt happy knowing I never regained that weight - but now a dark cloud of disappointment has come over me - especially since my PS wanted me to LOSE 10 pounds before my hernia repair on July 10th. The good news is school is finished (I work in a middle school as a computer aide) and all the end-of-year parties with the pizza, pasta, cake and cookies are DONE! I'm going to try to lose at least 5 pounds this week - so I'd better get up off my computer chair and hit the pool! Isn't it simply ridiculous how weight gain/loss can still affect my moods after having BC? 0
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Swim, I am waiting on mine to turn out like hers, it does run in the family, her grandfather was totally silver in his late 20's and I don't remember my grandmother with anything but silver hair.
I had lost 10 lbs prior to my bc dx but now I am also trying to lose the 15 lbs I picked up the last 2 yrs and I am not taking any type of hormone treatment. I keep watching the Pentagon channel and seeing the neat 'fit for duty' exercises that they do, but I haven't gotten motivated enough to get off the couch and join them. Although i am taping the ones I like.
Does that count for exercise?0 -
Hi again JO - hope you're feeling better. I need to check out your cellulitis thread to see how your antibiotics are working. I can't wait to be finished with the Arimidex - my entire skeleton feels like it has arthritis - especially in the morning! Thank God for Tylenol extra-strength.......although now I heard on the radio that the FDA is lowering the daily amount of acetaminophen because they say too many people are overdosing themselves and they're seeing an increase in liver failure. They said the largest cause of liver failure in the US is overdosing with acetaminophen!
Check out this link for the news:http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20090701/fda-may-restrict-acetaminophen
I've never been a "pill-popper" and I'm not one now.........I only take Tylenol in the morning when it's too painful to walk to the bathroom. But I've been reminding my daughters of the dangers of over-the-counter meds, including Tylenol and Advil (they take these meds only for menstrual pain). Sigh......more to worry about, not for myself, but for my kids' future.
ANYWAY - enough tangents - this IS supposed to be a thread about gray hair, how I DO get lost in tangents, lol. I'm actually making a hair appointment today and I'll ask JUST for a wash/cut/blow dry without the color. I'll let you all know what my beautician says!
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Well - here I am - the day before my big abdominal surgery - and I caved in and got my hair colored and cut! It wasn't the gray roots that was bothering me - it was the brassiness of the old color that was washed out! I met another woman leaving the beauty parlor who had the most gorgeous brown hair with a few little streaks of silver.......I told her if my gray looked like hers, I'd go natural too. She told me she's tempted to start dying her hair now, even though she's never done so - but I told her not to start because her hair had beautiful sheen and body. Then she told me she was 77 years old!! This woman's hair was so gorgeous for her age - my own hair is much grayer! And she was in great shape too, although a bit wrinkled, but you could tell she was a natural beauty with no assistance from plastic surgery! Oh to have those genes! 0
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I let mine go natural and really love it. Now is is past the shoulder, naturally curly and mostly gray but it blends in and makes it look more blond. I love it. I use to color is auburn and then frost it heavy. No more money on hair for me.
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Home from the hospital on Tuesday and feeling stronger every day - but - I HATE my hair color! It's sooooo dark! Why didn't I just get the cut and leave the washed-out reddish color? Sigh.......now I'm thinking, once I get these pesky drains come out and can drive again, I might try to get some foil streaks put in. This is the same hair color I always use - and it always starts out dark (like my original hair color) but after being in the hospital for 5 days, my face is a bit pale and the dark color looks stark. Oh well - I'm not planning on going to any social events - stuck home with my binder and drains - reading a book and watching TV - so I shouldn't complain. At least I now FINALLY have a very flat tummy! 0
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So glad to hear it all went well! You done good! 0
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Sheila, I've noticed the same thing, for years. I figure the process of a hair going gray must start and stop a bit before it just out and out goes gray for good.
My hair has been going white in front for many years. At first I had it frosted. Nice, but I'm not a hair salon type of person, too much effort. Then I let it go. My skin is very pale, and I looked very washed out and old. Definitely not a good look with a younger husband. My solution has been to use semi-permanent color, like Natural Instincts. It doesn't wash out if your hair is much lighter than the color you're using. So I use the lightest one they have. The white in front turns blond, the light brown hair in back gets a little warmer. I sometimes see a little bit of a line on my brownish hair, no lines in the blond.
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The ladies in my family start to go gray early, so I started in my 40's. But for many years I just treated it like naturally frosted hair. Then I colored it dark for awhile. Then when enough gray came in that I can have it "blonde" without bleaching first, I have used a honey blonde color. Let it go natural a few months ago with all my hospital events etc. I may go back to the honey blonde a little later, but right now it is pretty much silver-gray all over, its not that bad.
Of course, my younger brother has the pretty, wavy, silver gray hair - what hair he has left, that is.
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I let my hair go grey a few years ago (about two years before being diagnosed with bc), I wear it
short and it is a beautiful pepper and salt color with light grey streaks in the front. I get a lot of compliments and would never dye it again. Sometimes there are a few people, especially ones I haven't seen for a while, who are a bit taken aback. They shake my hand and stare at my hair, but
most of them eventually say they really like it. My hubby thinks I look sexy and my adult children keep telling me how great it looks and that I'm a real role model. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that at 61 the grey hair looks so much better than when I was dying it.
Do what is best for you - but grey hair really softens the face and, I think, makes a statement that a person can be proud of being an older woman and it sort of lets people know you are
comfortable in your own skin.
Good luck and good health.
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swimangel, I bet you really look hot with a flat tummy, oh I wish I had one.
fortunate1 if that is your hair color in your avatar, it is gorgous. love it. I would love to see a picture of everyones hair color.
I have noticed several people who have gray hair use the blond color on their hair and it always looks good.
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I am 13 weeks out from chemo and I have very short gray hair. I had more compliments when it was white, but now that the hair is coming in gray, there are fewer comments. I am debating whether or not to color it..........Sometimes I want to just leave it alone, then I look in the mirror and sort of freak out.
Spar2----blond color on gray hair. Hm..........
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I love pure white hair - but I'll never get that myself without bleaching. Heck, I'm afraid to bleach my hair with foils to get highlights.......my hair is dry enough now, I can't imagine making it any worse. Jess - if my hair were all gray I'd definitely try to use a blonde permanent rinse to make it blonde - but maybe you should just wait till it gets longer. Maybe you're getting fewer comments because your hair looks longer and more "normal" now?
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I have several friends that use a neutral or honey blond color like clairol of their gray hair and it makes it blond.
I love pure white hair also but mine is a mixture of what I like to think of as silver and gold which makes it look blond.
We ought to all take pictures of our hair so we can compare colors. What do you guys think?
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A few years ago, before BC, I decided to let my hair go natural. I'd been coloring it since high school and had been practically every color in the rainbow. Letting it go natural was, however, a horror and I almost caved in several times. Finally, I went to my stylist and told her to cut out as much color as she could and I didn't care how short it was. She didn't let me watch, but eventually everyone in the shop came to gawk as the hair went flying. When I finally got to look I almost passed out. It was short short short. Many times I'd be out running errands and women would come over to me asking how long ago I'd finished chemo. How prophetic that would turn out to be. Anyway, a few years later I was diagnosed with BC, had a lumpectomy, chemo, and radiation. When I lost all my hair I decided I'd go natural bald. It was so freeing. And again, I met many women who had gone through the same thing or were recently diagnosed. Now my hair is growing out a beautiful shade of silver with curls everywhere. I love it. Now I'm waiting to hear if the cancer has returned. I figure if I have to go through it again, my hair will come back with even more curls and maybe a gorgeous shade of green.
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I have colored my hair for years. Many colors! When I lost my hair during chemo, I had a large selection of wigs and I was a different color every day. When it grew back, I had more gray than pre-chemo. I left it alone for several months.
Unfortunately, my gray hair is not a beautiful silver or white. It is gunmetal gray and ages me horribly. I have gone back to color. I am 50 and use strawberry blonde. My natural color is a medium ash brown. I love the strawberrry blonde. Everyone says I look younger with that color. I always looked younger than my real age until chemo. It aged me very much. Having colored hair makes me feel prettier and younger. I know that eventually I will stop, but for now....
The picture in my avatar was taken days before I started chemo. I am wearing one of my wigs that I had gotten for chemo.
C
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