My grandmother – we all called her “Boo” (not in the above picture) – was one of those quintessential dignified little old ladies whose concept of appearance was rooted in looking presentable whenever she needed to look presentable. She had a process for doing everything and this included making sure that her hair was colored the “right” color of gray. Gray was okay, but it couldn’t be yellow, it had to have the “bluish” cast to it.
Achieving this required the “blue-tint rinse”, as it was explained to me by my mother who answered my curious question: “What’s that on the pillow case – why is it dark-ish?” No doubt my mom was thinking “@#%^!! I have now a pillow case that has to be bleached or it’s ruined!!” but to me she said, “Oh, that’s probably from Boo’s hair dye – just coming off on the pillow case.” Hmmmm…? Little me didn’t really know much about hair dye at that time… Neither Mom or my other grandmother did “hair dye”. Both had dark-ish based hair color, and so they grayed naturally – kind of into a charcoal set of tones. Boo, however, had the thinnish, light brown hair color, originally, that ended up being the gray of the “yellow variety” – not what she desired – hence the need for the “blue tint rinse”.
As a little kid I saw groups of little old ladies at lunch when I was with my grandmother (not Boo), and at times I remember thinking about the varied hues of their gray hair – some kind of went “pink”, some “lilac”, some “blue”, and some stayed yellow if they didn’t have the gift of hair that my grandmother had – the lovely charcoal, wiry, naturally highlighted gray hair…
Here I am, and I haven’t seen my natural hair color in almost 30 years! Crazy as it is, I began to play with hair color when I was in my late 30’s. It was required because I had to do something to feel better during a reinvention period when I had discovered that I had a cheating husband. That is another story for a different day.
But for now, I try to go with it and not stand out too much. I’ve tried going lighter, but I feel like I’m fading. One day I will gently get into my natural state, but I’m not ready yet. My grandson recently told me that I couldn’t be a grandmother because I wasn’t old. I’ll keep that remark. Out of the mouths of babes…
