On My Way To Gray

By Margaret McCormick

Like many women today (and some of the women I interviewed for this story), I had been thinking about ditching the dye for a while before the coronavirus pandemic gave me the push to transition to gray.

My natural hair color is brown, but I’ve been coloring it blonde for half my life. It’s part of my identity. But when I turned 60 last fall, I started thinking it was time to get real. “I don’t want to be doing this at 70 or 80,’’ I thought to myself. I asked my hairdresser to let some of the gray show through the blonde. If you looked closely, it already was.

Blondes have an advantage when they begin the process of going gray. Because their hair is light, the dreaded “skunk line” or “line of demarcation’’ that shows up as the gray comes in is less noticeable. That makes the process easier.

It has been almost six months since my last salon color. My hair looks and feels healthier. It’s silverwhite at the top and gold at the bottom — an awkward two-tone look that’s hopefully more noticeable to me than anyone else. By this time next year, my transformation to “silver sister” should be complete.