Goodbye to Hair Dye
AOL Coaches Q&A with Anne Kreamer, 51, author of 'Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity and Everything Else That Really Matters'
Q: You decided to go from bottled brunette to natural gray. Why?
A: Two years ago I saw a photograph of myself and I thought, Who am I kidding? I looked fake. My hair dye wasn't fooling anyone. So after 24 years of coloring my hair every three weeks, I decided to find out my real color and get off the treadmill. When you are dyeing your hair, you're consciously aware that around your forehead people can see the stain of brown from the dye. And after that, you're worried about everyone seeing your roots growing out. You're always kind of obsessed.
Q: Now that's you've gone gray, do you think you look older?
A: What I discovered is that if you're young and you have gray hair, people do think you look older. But once you are in your 40s and 50s, gray hair doesn't actually age you. And so far no one has offered me a seat on the subway or a senior citizen's discount. But they do look at me as a mature member of our culture. And that's kind of swell. I don't feel old. I don't think I project old. But I also don't look like I'm trying to be 30.
Goodbye to Hair Dye?
Q: Why do women care so much about gray hair?
A: There are two pieces to that question. The first piece is that a hundred years ago, the average life expectancy for a woman in this country was 47. Today it's almost 80. For the first time, we are watching large numbers of people actually grow old. The second piece is that in the 1950s easy, affordable and relatively safe home-hair coloring was introduced at the same time women started going into the workforce in major numbers. Dyeing your hair became associated with a kind of liberation, and we've never looked back. And here we are: a solid majority of women over 40 -- 65 percent -- dye their hair.
Gray hair used to be associated with grandmotherly types. Think Barbara Bush or Queen Elizabeth. That's hard for my demographic. But now so many of the women I see with gray hair are chic with great haircuts and interesting personal style. It's not about "letting yourself go."
It's about saying, I'm going to invest my energy and my money in a different way. All those years dyeing my hair added up to $65,000, not adjusted for inflation. If I had invested that money, today I would have $300,000, enough to pay for both my daughters to go to private colleges. 
Q: Then it's a contest between paying for your children's college and looking sexy?
A: It's a contest between self-actualization and fear. The two things that scare women the most about getting older is that they’ll lose their sexual attractiveness and their professional opportunities. On the sexual attractiveness piece, I decided that the easiest way I could pseudo-scientifically quantify the connection between the hair color and attractiveness was to do a Match.com experiment. I posted some photos of myself first with photoshopped brown hair and then three months later with my gray hair. I assumed, as most might, that men would be more interested in dating the brown-haired me. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Turns out three times as many men were interested in going out with me with my gray hair.
Q: So men don't care about gray hair on women as much as we think they do?
A: The majority of men don't. If a woman's overall persona is attractive, they could care less. It's a little bit like the proverbial: Does my butt look too big? A lot of men think "We like that!" Much of our insecurities are informed by what we see in the media. We don't see very many sexy, interesting role models out there. There's Helen Mirren -- just look at her smile and sense of comfort in her body and clothes. What's not to love? The sort of images we tend to see are the 'Desperate Housewives' view of what 40 can be like, let alone 50.
Q: So you think men are more forgiving of a woman's aging process?
A: What it really boils down to is confidence, a sense of comfort in your body. Who wants to be with a person screaming a bunch of insecurities and feeling unsure of themselves? Gray hair color is a very vocal symbol of "I acknowledge who I am and I'm happy about it."
Q: How does that translate to the workplace?
A: Gray discrimination does exist. Many of the professional women I interviewed spoke about how they felt they needed to dye their hair to be viable in the work place -- either to get a new job, not to be passed over for promotions or to seem competitive in terms of pay or relevancy. It was really a front-of-mind issue. Female headhunters verified that for me. None had a single female client or job candidate with gray hair. And they themselves dyed their hair! I also looked at the Fortune 500 top women. Just 3 percent had visibly gray hair. None of our female senators have gray hair. Seven congresswomen out of 70 have gray hair. Today it seems as if the most provocatively political statement a woman can make with her hair is to let it be naturally gray.
Q: Going gray is also an intensely private thing.
A: Most women have an age where she thinks she looked her best. It might be 16 or 25, for others maybe 35. We want to preserve that image of ourselves at that age. We feel that's who we are and can't really acclimate to the vision in the mirror. Based on the hair color and hair cut, hairdressers can guess that age with real precision. Once I decided to look my age, I spoke with as many people as I could. There are several women in my book club who have fantastic white hair. I asked for their advice and they told me, "We were never happier than the day we quit dyeing our hair." I talked to other friends for inspiration and encouragement, and then I decided to tell the family. Kurt, my husband, was like, "Sure, whatever" -- one of the hundred shades I've had since I've been with him. My older daughter, who's dyed her hair pink and blue at different stages, was also game. But my then-eighth grader said, "I don't want an old mother." And I realized none of the other mothers in her school had gray hair. I was going to look different. When you're 13, anything that is going to stand out of the crowd is not welcome.
Q: Did you make any other changes at the same time you decided to embrace your gray?
A: So often so people make the mistake of thinking that if they change one thing, they don't have to change anything else. What was really cool for me was that not dyeing my hair was an entry to other points of self-discovery. For example, I realized that I had gained weight. It was time to pay a little attention my body and get that under control.
Goodbye to Hair Dye?
Q: So it's all about growing up, not growing older?
A: Our daughters are now 17 and 19. As a mother I want to instill a sense that they are beautiful, they're great and they don't need to freak about external stuff. Their seeing me do this allows us to have conversations that are about a different order of magnitude. We do have different seasons in our lives.
Q: Did you ever want to go back?
A: Listen, nobody ever told me to my face that my hair looked particularly bad when I dyed it. And no one has told me that now that I'm gray. However, I can say that I feel altogether better and livelier. I actually feel far more unique. I only wish growing it out had gone more quickly! The transition took getting used to. Now it's a great color. Not the white I wanted it to be, like Halle Berry in 'X-Men.' More like salt and pepper. Everybody's shade of gray is different.
Q: Are you naturally fearless person?
A: I'm terrified of flying and of heights. I worry about my children driving. I'm just as fearful as most people. But certain things, I figure what the heck, just give it a go.
Q: Do you feel more respected?
A: I've had lots of women come up to me and say, "I wish I had the courage to do that," or "I'd do that if I had good hair." Which are all ways of saying they are slightly sort of scared to think about it. Because of every hair type, every skin type, every body type can have gray hair. It is what we were meant to have.
Greying early is hereditary, I think. I have an aunt who was totally silver by the time she was 30. She never colored her hair and even though she is about 50 now, her hair looks really great.
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