50 shades of grey - why I'm loving the new trend in hair colour

Grey hair is a huge trend right now. Everyone from catwalk models to style mavens in their 20s seems to be rocking every shade of grey. And it makes me happy. Why? Because although I currently I dye my greying roots, too afraid to let my hair become flecked with white just yet, when I get older I want to confidently claim my grey hair and not allow it to define me in terms of age.

The science part
We get grey hair when an enzyme called catalase stops taking oxygen out of the melanin pigment (which is, in fact, white to begin with). As we age, or become regularly stressed or suffer a sudden shock, our bodies produce less catalase, therefore our hair remains white. But that's the science part. Culturally, grey hair is associated with age and going 'down hill' but this is all changing as the population lives longer and stays healthier. Women want to and quite rightly can stay fashionable and beautiful indefinitely - grey or not. 

At the hair dressers the other day, having a few inches chopped off for Autumn, I read the Schwarzkopf Essential Looks magazine (above and below) and was encouraged to see almost all of it  devoted to their new Age of Beauty collection,  about maintaining style and sass well into your sixties and beyond. The grey haired models features were beautiful, one of them, Tanya Drouginska (below) still walking the catwalks and looking every inch the glamour puss – and with an air of Jerry Hall about her, I felt, with her high forehead and prominent features.

Model Tanya Drouginska in the Schwarzkopf Essential Looks magazine

Feeling more powerful and self-assured
According to stats in the magazine, more than half of the beauty spend in this country is by women over 40. What's more, most of the women surveyed said they felt more empowered and less stressed in their 50s than they did in their 20s. I can fully believe this, as I was often inordinately stressed in my early-to-mid 20s trying to forge ahead into a career (on a typically low wage), worrying about getting onto the property ladder, and wondering whether my love life would ever work out. Although I do still find things to worry about unnecessarily, over the past few years I have definitely begun to feel more confident, self-assured about my skills, and less worried about what other people think - well, most of the time!  

From celebs to beauty journos
Watching Oprah's Super Soul Sunday last weekend with Ali McGraw from Love Affair fame made me realise you can actually look better with grey hair than if you dye it. She's now 75 and looked far more relaxed and radiant with her grey up do, plain white shirt and statement jewellery than the pictures they showed of her at 65 with dyed dark hair. She certainly sounded happier, more grounded and more in touch with her inner self now, thanks to the passing of the years.

Ali McGraw with her dark hair

Ali on Super Soul Sunday this year, aged 75

Caucasian skin fades with age, and so keeping the same dark hair colour only ends up looking harsh and, well, more aging, which is the reverse of what we want it to do. I recently had the pleasure of meeting a beauty journalist, who had decided at 50 to grow out her blond highlights and go fully grey. She said it was a big decision, especially as she'd spent most of her career working as a beauty director for the likes of Marie Claire and Easy Living magazines and had been surrounded by pictures of beautiful women and information about all manner of youth-boosting products. Going grey, she said, coincided with leaving her high-powered job and training to be a yoga instructor, part of which involved living in India for a while and connecting to her real self, not being associated with her surface looks.

A new paradigm shift? 
Perhaps embracing grey hair is a sign of defiance and self-control, no longer feeling we need to dye our hair to pretend to be younger, and be that girl we used to be. For decades the cultural message for women has been 'you are valued on your looks', and while that is still mostly the case, perhaps, slowly but surely, it is changing. Also, the definition of beauty is expanding, which is exciting to witness. So many more colours, ages, shapes and sizes are being embraced as beautiful. As the population naturally ages anyway, women need to learn to value themselves and embrace whatever stage they are at in life,  finding beauty at every age.
As for me, I hope I will embrace my grey hair one day. For now, I'm using the most natural dye I can, which doesn't sting my eyes, as some mass-market ones have done in the past, and contains as few harsh chemicals as possible (one by Tints of Nature, to be precise).
Grey hair might be having a fashion moment among teens and 20-somethings, who are doing it in a cool/ironic way, and it's bound to soon be replaced as soon as the next trend comes along. But, the positive thing to have come out of this has been to show women that grey hair can be bold, beautiful and striking. 

How do you want to grow old?

Can you bypass ill health and grow old gracefully? A walk in the park causes Katy to ponder the ageing process, and how a lot of it is determined by our attitude towards getting older, and the thoughts we think

Yesterday as I was wandering through Abby fields in Colchester - part of an epic walk from one end of the town to the other, just to take a lamp to be fixed - I passed a lady whom I'd guess was probably in her late 60s; she had sleek, grey hair cut into a bob, smart sunglasses, and a confident air. Something about her made me stand up straighter, take deep breathes and hold my shoulders back. I had a thought, albeit fleeting, that I'd like to grow old and look like her. Now, I don't know what her life is actually like as we never got talking, but looked healthy and happy.
At the same time I spied her, I was pulling my iPhone out of my pocket, which at that very moment began playing a track from a talk by Louise Hay about growing older - I must have pressed a button accidentally, though I thought it was locked. (on that note, I've noticed a number of times how it seems to pick out songs that seem relevant to the moment; not so long ago I was sure the device was warning me off seeing a certain man, as it kept selecting tracks at poignant moments to do with being broken hearted; turns out it was probably right, but that's another story...)

choose how you age...
Anyway, Louise Hay's talk, given some 6-7 years ago, was about how she wants to create a community called 'Elders of Excellence'. She says that though we all get older, we have a large part to play in the process and must all take responsibility for our health. She also points out that whatever age you deem to be 'middle age', is when you will begin to deteriorate physically, which is an idea also espoused by Deepak Chopra, author of Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, who says we can change our very DNA through our thoughts, and that we, not doctors, are the ones who heal ourselves.
Anyway, I found it somewhat synchronous that within seconds I'd seen a healthy elderly lady, who just by virtue of passing by had caused me to consider my own health and longevity, and at the same time my iPod chose to play Louise Hay's words echoing my own thoughts.

no excuses
As it happened, I had just been for a jog - making the most of the glorious sunny autumn day - and had included some high intensity interval training, which is basically short, intense bursts of activity, such as jumps, sprints, press ups etc, followed by a short rest period.
Having just switched from editing Soul&Spirit to Bodyfit, my thougths are naturally turning more towards my physical and not just emotional and spiritual self, and I've made the commitment to not only strengthen my muscles and increase my cardiovascular health, but to increase my flexibility so I'm able to do the splits - I've given myself 12 months to achieve the latter. And I now believe it's possible. Deepak, Louise, Wayne Dyer and a number of other spiritual gurus all tell us the same thing: that if you believe something, you can achieve it and experience it. For years I held the limiting belief of "I'm not flexible". Well, as Wayne would say, whatever you put after the words 'I am' is critical to success or failure (for more on this, see his latest book Wishes Fulfilled, which is one of the best on manifesting that I've ever read). So, by saying, 'I am not flexible' I was enforcing that belief. However, last year I got sent the updated version of Vanda Scaravelli's Awakening the Spine, and was amazed and encouraged by images of this slight, 90-year-old woman putting her feet behind her head and bending into the most incredible postures. And she only began yoga in her forties. I also watched some Youtube videos of women who've taught their bodies to do the splits in just a few months by practising each day. So, no more excuses for me....

healthy mind = healthy body
What we do with our bodies and minds, not to mention what we put into them, IS our choice. We choose what to eat, drink and think. but it's a daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute practise. I won't get flexible overnight; progress, in any area of life, is often made by taking constant, continuous, little-by-little steps.
But the combination of seeing the elegant lady, hearing Louise's talk, and recalling Vanda's book all motivate me to take healthy actions so that, hopefully, I live to a ripe old age. I plan to be doing yoga - and the splits - in my nineties, and I have a feeling I'm going to grow old disgracefully, in that I'll be far less stressed and worried about what other people think by then. Though I do wish my grey hairs would hold off for another decade or so until I'm really ready for them!

The yin and yang of Ibiza

The Pool at the villa

Ginger the house cat!

 

I just got back from the White Isle (so called for its salt trade some centuries ago), where my deputy editor, Naz, and I spent seven heavenly days at a glorious, historic villa in the north of the island, overlooking the pine-covered hills. It was far better than any modern-day villa because this place had character: lots of old stone steps and over-head beams inside the house itself, with beautiful, well-established gardens surrounding it. Sitting sunning ourselves by the pool was a favourite pastime, as was attending the yoga sessions each morning with Arun, a knowledgeable, highly spiritual teacher who moved from London to Ibiza last year for a change of pace. 

The patio where we enjoyed canapes and drinks on our first night

But our main reason for being there was to attend Hazel Lee’s psychic development course – the final retreat of the spring, hosted by Psychic Retreats – that took place over three intense days of teaching. During that time, we were all challenged to do tarot readings for each other and strangers, often being pushed out of our comfort zones. At times I wanted to give up as I had only ever received readings, and never given them myself; but Hazel believed in us all, and told me I was a natural psychic – I just needed to stop thinking so much. ‘Thinking is bad for you!’ she would bark at me over and over. And she was right. By the time it came to psychometry, I did far better at getting ‘hits’ i.e. accurate information, when I relaxed and just said what had come into my mind, rather than trying to force something to come through.  

Flowers on the terrace overlooking the surrounding hills

The intense teaching was balanced out with relaxing trips to nearby scenic places of interest, such as two beautiful beaches at either end of the island. And at the end of the retreat, we tagged three nights of partying on to our stay. So it truly was like experiencing the ‘yin’ of the relaxed retreat environment, discussing philosophy, life, love and death, with the ‘yang’ of the drinking, partying, up-til-the-crack-of-dawn lifestyle Ibiza is probably best known for. And though I love dancing, I now realise I mostly crave a quieter, more contemplative way of life. I’d choose a week at Psychic Retreats over a week of hard partying any day. Dancing on a beach watching the sun set, to the beat of dozens of drums, was far more enjoyable than sweating away in Space nightclub, being trodden on, having drinks spilled over me and having to fend off lots of weird men! Not good.

But Ibiza has had this dual personality for decades, and will continue to do so. That’s not to say one way of life is wrong, or one is ‘better’ than the other; to say that would be dualistic and limiting. Sometimes a bit of hedonism can be fun after all! But life is always full of choices over where and with whom you spend your time; it all comes down to priorities, which change as you get older and learn more about yourself. And though I can’t predict the future, despite developing my psychic and intuitive skills somewhat, I know I want to return to Ibiza and to the beautiful villa – even though one of the rooms is supposedly haunted by the guy who built the place! – because it was an incredible holiday I’ll never forget.

Katy and Golnaz stayed in Ibiza courtesy of Psychic Retreats. Week-long and four-day weekend courses will be held this Autumn, beginning in October. For more information, visit psychicretreats.com or call Lucia Diamond on +34 615 471 587. There will be a full write up in the August issue of Soul&Spirit magazine, on sale July 15.