At age 57, Victoria Marie sports a full head of long, lustrous gray hair\u2014in the city of Los Angeles, as an actress, in an industry where youth is life. \u201cThis is who I am,\u201d she says. \u201cTake it or leave it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across the country, in North Carolina, Martha Truslow Smith embraces her premature gray\u2014at age 26. \u201cI never want to pick up a bottle of dye again,\u201d says the graphic designer.<\/p>\n
With its ubiquitous hair dyes, creams, injectables and surgeries, the antiaging industry is a multibillion-dollar field. Yet more and more women are declaring they\u2019re done with it. They\u2019re done with being told aging is shameful. They\u2019re done with spending money, time and effort to hide signs of aging\u2014particularly gray hair. And some of them insist this anti-antiaging trend is here to stay, despite a bevy of naysayers.<\/p>\n
The Visible Rebellion<\/strong><\/p>\n Truslow Smith found her first gray hair at age 14. By the time she was in college, she was dyeing her hair and feeling embarrassed by her gray roots.<\/p>\n The cycle of dye-and-shame was \u201ca slow, quiet monster that developed in my life that I didn\u2019t allow myself to really acknowledge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n At age 24, she decided to face it. She was in a relationship and realized she wasn\u2019t truly being herself. She was hiding a ball of stress from a man she wanted to marry. So in the summer of 2016, Truslow Smith stopped dyeing her hair\u2014and started an Instagram account called Grombre to chart her growing-out process and to build a supportive community. She invited people who celebrated silver to message her and be featured on the account.<\/p>\n In July 2018, the account had about 7,000 followers. Then Refinery29, a women-focused online outlet, wrote an article about it, followed by BBC News and other media organizations (unsolicited). Now, Grombre has about 46,000 followers and almost 1,000 posts featuring women of all ages. And Truslow Smith (now married to the aforementioned gent, who \u201cloves\u201d her hair) gets so many emails from women wanting to tell their stories that she can\u2019t possibly feature them all.<\/p>\n Women who decide to go gray naturally say they\u2019re tired of dyeing. And then there\u2019s the double standard: on men, gray hair is considered distinguished.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n She\u2019s found the massive interest surprising and wonderful. \u201cIt\u2019s a change I would like to see in the world\u2014to have women feel like, if they don\u2019t want to dye their hair, then they shouldn\u2019t be obligated to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n For her part, Victoria Marie feels no such obligation. In the summer of 2013, when she was in her early 50s, she uploaded a video to YouTube about her gray roots. She was recovering from a series of bad dye jobs and had decided to let her gray hair grow in fully, like she used to have it. She titled the video, \u201cGray Is the New Blonde!\u201d<\/p>\n Women started emailing her\u2014excited to tell her how much they related to what she was saying. \u201cI thought, \u2018This is interesting. People care about gray hair? How bizarre.\u2019 I had no idea,\u201d she says. Many told her they were letting their gray hair grow in too.<\/p>\n Now, in 2018, Marie is preparing to release her first documentary, Gray Is the New Blonde<\/em>, which profiles women who have decided to go gray. The film\u2019s Facebook page has about 13,000 followers.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen are saying, \u2018I\u2019m here, and this is my path, and take it or leave it. I\u2019m not going to shrink to societal pressures anymore and feel like I\u2019m not worth anything unless I do. I\u2019m very worth something, with gray hair and all.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Who Goes Gray<\/strong><\/p>\n Both Truslow Smith and Marie say the most common reason women decide to gray naturally is they\u2019re tired of the dye process. \u201cThey are just fed up with this every two to three weeks of having to go get their hair done,\u201d says Marie. \u201cAnd it\u2019s no longer fun like it was when we were in our 20s and 30s. It\u2019s a requirement now.\u201d<\/p>\n Many cite the double standard\u2014that gray hair on men is usually considered distinguished. They decide, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with my gray hair? It looks good!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Some women also stop dyeing their hair for health reasons\u2014for example, if they\u2019ve had cancer and want to avoid the chemicals.<\/p>\n One woman told Truslow Smith, \u201cI lost my son, and he will never have the chance to go gray.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of women kind of being fed up with being bullied [by antiaging marketing messages] and realizing that there is so much more to life\u2014that we only have so much energy; why are we spending it on things that at the end of the day don\u2019t totally matter?\u201d Truslow Smith says.<\/p>\n But another common theme among these women is fear. In a culture that values women for their looks and equates beauty with youth, women who are considering going gray are often afraid they\u2019ll be rejected\u2014for work, by potential romantic partners, by family members, even by strangers. And many times, those fears are realized.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people get a lot of negative comments and feedback and pushback,\u201d Marie says. She knows of one woman in her 30s who was in a training class for administrative work. \u201cShe\u2019s got great features, and she looks so chic, but that male instructor shamed her verbally in front of everyone in the class and said, \u2018You\u2019re not going to get hired if you don\u2019t go and dye your hair,\u2019 and brought her to tears.\u201d<\/p>\n When Marie started growing her gray out, one of her friends pressured her to dye it, to the point that he offered to cover the cost. Later, she realized his protests were actually related to how he viewed his own aging. \u201cTypically that’s what it\u2019s about,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the person who\u2019s decided to go gray. It\u2019s about the person who\u2019s saying to them, \u2018You should go dye your hair.\u2019 It\u2019s because of their own fears and their own insecurities about the aging process.\u201d<\/p>\n Women who do go gray despite any negative pressures tell Marie they have one regret: they wish they\u2019d done it sooner. \u201cWomen say over and over again, they did not expect to feel so empowered, so authentic,\u201d Marie says. \u201cThey feel fierce, they feel strong, they feel powerful. And they\u2019re rockin\u2019 it.\u201d For that reason, she believes, this trend is no fad. \u201cIt is a movement, and it\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n Wrinkles: to Fight or Not to Fight<\/strong><\/p>\n Gray hair is one thing. Wrinkles? That\u2019s another matter. If a woman goes gray and doesn\u2019t like it, it\u2019s easy enough to dye her hair back. Wrinkles are harder to get rid of.<\/p>\n Even women who go naturally gray aren\u2019t always so gung-ho about ditching antiwrinkle creams\u2014despite the fact that scientists and dermatologists say most such creams don\u2019t work.<\/p>\n Often, it boils down to fear of regret, says Abigail Brooks, author of The Ways Women Age: Using and Refusing Cosmetic Intervention<\/em> (2017). They\u2019re afraid they\u2019ll end up looking older than their friends who use antiaging creams and procedures. And they also face some guilt.<\/p>\n Per pervasive marketing messages, \u201cto age well, particularly as a woman, means that you should be fighting aging every step of the way,\u201d Brooks says. The idea is, \u201cthis product gives you the power to fight back, and therefore you should say yes to that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n The antiaging industry itself is ready to embrace aging at least partially\u2014or it wants to sound as if it is.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For her book, Brooks did find women who were refusing antiaging creams and procedures. And she discovered a main commonality: they accepted aging as a natural process that didn\u2019t need fixing.<\/p>\n \u201cThey actually talked about being able to understand the wrinkles and the sags and the bags and the gray hair as beautiful, just in different ways from how a young, wrinkle-free female face might look,\u201d she says. They saw these signs of aging as \u201creflective of lived experience and actions taken and thoughts had and emotions felt. And they thought that that was a really interesting kind of beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n Many women also said they were less focused on attracting male attention. \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019ve moved beyond that cultural expectation of the reproductive-vessel-slash-sex object, and that allows them this whole new, exciting phase of life,\u201d Brooks says. \u201cThey feel like, I\u2019m going to feel empowered to focus more on my mind now or more on other aspects of what I always have wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, when Brooks interviewed women who did use antiaging creams and procedures, she found that they equated beauty with youth. Age-related changes \u201cmade them feel like their bodies were outside of their control,\u201d Brooks says. Some \u201ctalked about needing to look younger to continue to be viable in their workplaces.\u201d Others wanted to find a new male partner.<\/p>\n These women told Brooks that unlike men, they had to look younger to be taken seriously. \u201cI think we have to say, but is that really OK?\u201d Brooks says. \u201cIs that where we want to be?\u201d<\/p>\n The Antiaging Market<\/strong><\/p>\n As the number of older Americans has increased, so has rebellion against antiaging marketing, with people asking why signs of aging must be hidden or \u201cfixed\u201d or \u201ctreated.\u201d<\/p>\n In the summer of 2017, the beauty magazine, Allure<\/em>, declared it would stop using the term antiaging altogether. \u201cI hope we can all get to a point where we recognize that beauty is not something just for the young,\u201d wrote editor-in-chief Michelle Lee in a letter from the editor\u2014while also clarifying, \u201cno one is suggesting giving up retinol\u201d (probably the best-studied antiaging ingredient).<\/p>\n The antiaging industry itself is on board with this embrace-aging-to-some-extent idea too. Or, at least, it wants to sound like it is.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not anti-aging, we\u2019re anti-wrinkles,\u201d declares Neutrogena (whose Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle cream is marketed to \u201ctreat\u201d wrinkles \u201cand other signs of aging\u201d).<\/p>\n In a CoverGirl television ad, model Maye Musk muses, \u201cThey say at a certain age, you just stop caring. I wonder what age that is\u201d (as she applies a foundation that \u201creduces the look of wrinkles\u201d and a graphic notes she\u2019s \u201c70 years young\u201d).<\/p>\n Antiaging marketing has largely evolved from \u201caging is a problem\u201d to the supposedly more empowering, \u201cyou are the solution.\u201d Take charge, the ads declare. Fight! Nurture yourself!<\/p>\n In some ways, the revised messaging is a welcome change, says Brooks, who is director of the women\u2019s studies program at Providence College in Rhode Island. But in other ways, it continues to reinforce the mindset that looking your best means looking as young as possible.<\/p>\n Nonetheless\u2014and despite the fact that many women are shunning these products\u2014the marketing seems to be working pretty well. Statistics about the size of the antiaging market vary widely, in part because they don\u2019t all include the same sectors (such as cosmetics, cosmeceuticals, pharmaceuticals, exercise equipment, surgeries, even perfumes touted to make women smell younger). Estimates range from under $100 billion to more than $300 billion. But the general consensus is, the market is huge, and it\u2019s growing.<\/p>\n Some of that growth is due to the fact that the industry has diversified its target audience, points out Toni Calasanti, a sociology professor at Virginia Tech who specializes in gender and aging. \u201cMore and more people are getting pulled in and at younger and younger ages,\u201d she says. Women in their 20s are now key antiaging targets\u2014as are men. \u201cThere are some gender differences, but the similarity across all groups is, we need to not look old.\u201d<\/p>\n Aging with Freedom<\/strong><\/p>\n Women who eschew antiaging products and procedures \u201ctalk to me in so many interesting and exciting ways about new room for growth, for freedom, for exploration and even liberation with age,\u201d Brooks says. \u201cThey feel like now they can move into new avenues where they have more room for self-development or self-expression.\u201d<\/p>\n Truslow Smith has a similar take. \u201cI\u2019m getting the sense that women who are embracing their gray hair are entering a new chapter of life that is unexpected, and they\u2019re finding a new sort of love and contentment with themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Truslow Smith and Marie emphasize that they\u2019re not suggesting it\u2019s bad for a woman to dye her hair. They just want women to have a viable choice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe operate within beauty standards that have been a big bully,\u201d Truslow Smith says. At 26, she recognizes that as the years go by, she\u2019ll develop a lot more wrinkles, gray strands and other signs of aging. \u201cAm I going to choose to believe that my value is decreasing as I\u2019m getting older? Or am I going to choose to absolutely love myself and my full potential\u2014and walk my path the way that I feel called to walk?\u201d Self-acceptance, Truslow Smith says, \u201cis a revelation that is not expressed within any sort of beauty advertisement\u2014that women are claiming for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At age 57, Victoria Marie sports a full head of long, lustrous gray hair\u2014in the city of Los Angeles, as an actress, in an industry where youth is life. \u201cThis is who I am,\u201d she says. \u201cTake it or leave…<\/span><\/p>\n