I Will Dye My Hair Until I Die

There’s nothing like going to the salon. I love everything about it: chatting with my hairstylist, having someone else shampoo my hair, but most of all I love how in an hour I feel so much better. My silver sparkles are replaced by the perfect shade of red (that I wasn’t born with), and when I look in the mirror I feel more like myself.

Sure it only lasts a few weeks until the silver lining starts around my crown, but I don’t care. Because for two weeks, I feel wonderful and I’m not vulnerable when the wind blows and exposes what’s underneath.

I've been dying my hair since high school when a box of dye was $2 because I desperately wanted to be blond. Then, in my 20s, I’d spend an entire paycheck getting highlights. My 30s were spent going a few shades darker, trying to find the perfect chocolate brown in front of my bathroom sink. Then one day I noticed them: a few gray, worry hairs sticking up right on top of my head. They didn’t bother me at first, but as the years passed, they didn’t slow down. I tried to be okay with them. I really did.

I couldn’t do it though. So, I graduated from dying my hair at home, to going to see a professional every month or so because I will dye my hair until the end of my time. People have asked me how much longer I’m going to dye my hair because maybe there’s a certain age where others think you should just stop doing anything that makes you feel and look better, but I disagree. I actually have it in my will that I need a fresh color for my funeral because it’s important to me that I finish strong. Yes, I have control issues.

I know there’s a gray hair movement going on right now. I like it. Actually, I love it. I’ve seen women who look vibrant and actually younger with the perfect shade of silver. But it’s not for me and my pale, thin Irish skin. The thing is, my gray hair is so close to the color of my skin and it washes me out so badly I don’t even look like myself.

Natural is best when it comes to hair color for a lot of women, but I’m not one of them. And I’m totally okay with going to the salon and touching up my roots whenever I want to. I’ve already told my kids that when I get older, they will probably have to drive me to the salon or dye my hair. I don’t care how long I live, my hair will not go gray.

It’s not about conforming or feeling like I have to live by a set of rules. Hell, it’s not even about looking younger or trying to uphold an unrealistic beauty standard. It’s about doing something that makes me feel better. And for me, that will always mean coloring my hair.

Katie lives in Maine with her three kids, two ducks, and a Goldendoodle. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, at the gym, redecorating her home, or spending too much money online.