This lockdown business has meant enforced lack of hairdressing.
Dyeing my hair is my only beauty vice. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I began to go grey fairly young and somehow determined that this was the one thing I could not allow. I wear very little make-up (just mascara really, although I would put a little foundation on each day when I was at work in an office), have never had a manicure or pedicure, waxed professionally only for one or two holidays and used a sun-bed just once in advance of my honeymoon. I don’t know one end of a facial from the other and always have to ask the nice John Lewis assistant to advise me when buying products for my daughter, who has somehow managed to acquire the necessary information from somewhere to lead a more normal beauty life than mine.
Anyhow, when I left full-time employment, I changed from having a top-up hair tint every fortnight in what approximated to my original brown, to going blonde (documented here, and here, in fact) and being painted rather less frequently. Whilst I acknowledge that I almost certainly look better blonde than I did before, I can’t quite reconcile myself to it.
I had pretty much decided to stick with the blonde for a while longer, until lockdown – already nearly a month after my holiday tint – meant that the grey growth became noticeable. And yet, not quite as noticeable on Zoom. Or even face to face in fact. I even have days when I quite like it (see this from just last week).
Having compared notes with someone else in a similar situation, I think I’m just going to leave it to grow out now, and perhaps just add a few light highlights here and there now and again. Can I contemplate long grey hair? Well, it seems to be grey and white and, as I always suspected, naturally highlighted, so perhaps it won’t just be the iron curtain of hair that I feared.
No-one sees women my age anyway do they? Who actually cares? As long as it’s not outlandish, I think I can deal with it. And if I can’t, well I’ll just put a face-mask on and no-one will know it’s me. Just another mad old bat with a bit of mascara on. Or I could spray paint it for the occasional outing.
So while I wander round the house catching occasional glimpses of myself in the mirror, I’ll have to hope that my strange hormonal equivalent of beer goggles will continue to convince me – at least on my cheerier days – that I actually look amazing.