Do Not Go Gentle, Ladies

It's becoming increasingly clear that I am  now ' a woman of a certain age' , perhaps an evermore indeterminate age- no!  Succomb to several age related truisms? Well, ok.  Deign to reveal my actual age number ? No problem.  This led to an awkward moment last week around the cafeteria table at the National EMT certification testing in Manchester, where I was whiling away a Sunday morning. One young man opined that he was  "almost a quarter century"  and he had a hard time believing it, and another chimed in.  Pondering the ridiculousness of  these statements, I advised them to wait until they were pushing fifty and contemplating that their life was at the very least half over, or at worst they had perhaps twenty years left.

A silence ensued, the reason for which  may have been that these puppies could not fathom 'pushing fifty' , and may have paused to reflect why they were hanging with someone who was; eh ... tough to gauge.  In my more flattering recollection,  I  imagine them thinking:
"She's almost  FIFTY? Jesus." We'd spent the last six months training together for this certification, during which I often spoke of my college-age sons; apparently these guys didn't do the math.

Anyway, my point is, Do not go gentle into that good night well may have been penned for women at this juncture.  Though always an exerciser, I've made few concessions (certainly not diet) to the ravages of time. However, due to genetics  I've had an advance leg up on the competition in one area, that of  hair dye. Hypothyroidism can beget prematurely gray locks;  in my instance requiring obligatory dye before age thirty.

"Let it go!" some may say, and given my naturally minimalist preen-factor proclivities I certainly would if I could. But as those thirties wound on, it became apparent that while my temples favored a fine silver hue, above the ears and at the crown my crop sprouts  flat dead white.  Paeans to  Madleine Kahn's character in Young Frankenstein notwithstanding, this is not the look for me, thus I must .... dye.

Now to the meat of the subject at hand, in which I pass on my meager wisdom.

1) It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature

And by this I refer to skin tone. A brunette looks sickly and sallow with golden blonde tresses - look no further than the ashen results for  Sandra Bullock in All About Steve and The Blind Side.

Despite this, most women of that indeterminate age begin heavily highlighting or even going 'blonde' (appears orangy), which I feel is a mistake.  At this point I refer the reader to wonderful Nora Ephron's  I Feel Bad About My Neck , specifically the chapter on Maintenance.  The entire book is required reading, but a quick synopsis:   Nora had been happily covering her grey for many years; one day her stylist convinced her to try highlights, after which she could not stop checking out her hair in every mirror.  As Lilli von Shtupp would say, It's twue, it's twue !  Highlights are tremendous fun, but unless mine stay in the ash hue and in the background  I get the same wash-out effect as if I were a blonde.

This is not to say that highlights don't have their uses: one of the difficulties in dyeing one's hair is the unrelievedly flat tone that results. Also, in my case (once again due to Hypothyroidism which causes the hair to become coarse) after repeated chemical treatments one's hair begets the consistency of straw. This won't do, obviously. So as the twin forces of age and hypothyroidsim ever more firmly clenched me in their jaws, I began casting about for answers. Who wants harsh chemicals on their scalp, anyway?

My search eventually led me to young stylist who recommended Bigen. This is a natural, henna-derived product from Japan. Its hues range from black to light brown, and there are a few competitors, among them Waterworks, but nothing seems to cover the grey as well as Bigen. Yes, I can do it myself at home - particularly the touch ups, which are needed every five weeks.  Besides creating softer, silker hair - even just after a color- one of the other nice features about Bigen is that its color contains natural highlights and does not appear flat.

Previous to this, I was enduring what is euphemistically called "a two step process" at the salon, costing $120 to $190, and I needed it every five weeks because my hair grows fast.  First they would cover the grey with brown, and then add a highlight so the brown didn't look so flat and ugly. We're talking two  to three hours of agony in uncomfortable chairs with no footstools ( tall women, don't salons just suck? Don't your feet always stick out at the hair wash sink?) , well documented by Ephron.  For someone who rarely even applies makeup anymore, this was an unconscionable waste of time and expense.

So these days I do the Bigen part at home and leave highlighting ( now only required every 5 months or so since I carefully control my own touch ups, avoiding the highlights) to Fantastic Sam's  (partial for a bargain $40, use reconnaissance missions to pick your stylist carefully) and gratefully leave the cut to an experienced professional (not Fantastic Sam's, I'm cheap but I'm not stupid), in my case the magical Heidi at  Olivia's in Concord NH, whom it took me four years to find after we moved away from my old stylist.