To Grey or Not to Grey?
Chris Cimino
As we age, subtle or sometimes not so subtle, things begin to happen to our appearance. Usually one of the first changes is the sign of grey hair taking root. First it starts quietly and scarcely enough that you can often pull them out. As if that will stop it.
Then eventually, at least for men, the salt and pepper phase begins. It's at this point you might have to make a decision. Do I attempt to color my hair back to it's natural tones? Do you go with the old, "touch of grey" look? Or do you say, this is me, have at it grey hair.
Now I know this is where a very obvious double standard exists, especially in this country. Many times if a man decides to go naturally grey he becomes more "distinguished". If a woman does it, they are often criticized and some of society might say they appear more "extinguished". Truly not fair. I'm writing this blog more as an observation and that we all have personal choices on these appearance issues.
When it comes to this issue of coloring your hair to hide the grey, in the realm of other things people choose to do to slow the aging appearance, this is nothing. I have personally tried a few different approaches. Some more muting of the grey than others. This has been met with varied to no opinions or reviews on my hair.
I should state that at my age, to still have hair is a huge win. My genetics have worked in my favor. Many friends and peers are less fortunate. Damn this getting older (deeper into your life). I'm going to try and start a trend changing "getting older or old" into calling it "deeper into your life". Sounds more interesting and less foreboding than "getting old".
So it turns out, as we get "deeper into our lives", the way in which we respond to these changes in our bodies, varies quite a bit from state to state. I recently received in my work email a link to a report from northstarinbound.com. StyleSeat apparently surveyed 2,006 Americans about their feelings and experiences with getting older. I will include a link to their website at the end of this blog, and I thank them for this insightful information.
However, I'm just going to point out a few interesting findings up top. New York ranked #14 as a state most hesitant to embrace aging in all aspects. The state also came in at #7 in it's distain for embracing looking older.
To break it down further in New York, only 39% accepted their hair color becoming grey. While 50% were ok with their aging skin.
The breakdown for Americans that believe older folks are just as beautiful as their younger counterparts was a fairly robust 73%.
Please click on the link below to dig in deeper into where Americans embrace aging or reject it more. There's some really interesting info here. Some quite surprising. For example you might think California or New York would be at the top of the list for rejecting aging. To me, it was a huge surprise that Michigan was #1 in having the people that least embraced aging, followed by Maine, Alabama, Florida, Nevada, Illinois, Missouri and Massachusetts, before finally California.
The most aging positive people it turns out live in Iowa, then Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota and Kansas.
More Georgians embrace grey hair, while many Maine residents prefer a more youthful coif. The Sunshine state of Florida had the highest number of residents who took to cosmetic procedures to maintain a more youthful look. More than California!!!
It's definitely worth taking a look into the results of the study as it also breaks down the way we accept aspects of aging by gender as well. Thank you Style Seat and Rachel Perez at northstarinbound.com for providing us with the food for thought info. Please click on the link below and have a read. Where do you stand on all of this? Does your state's results surprise you? We would love to hear from you.
Chart courtesy Style Seat