RSSThe Best Thing About Aging 1
March 8, 2010
… is being taken seriously.
So difficult for women. Taking ourselves seriously.
Men do it easily and fake it easily.
I’m not quite there yet.
By now, we should look very steady, not swaying with every new wind. We might not be where we expected, but that doesn’t mean we failed.
We try too hard to play no-win games. The best of what we have become is inside us.
Heaven help you if your hair is medium brown. You’ll have had highlights, lowlights, been blonde, red, often several at once. We fall for every kind of advice. We wear pointy toed shoes that hurt. We wear painted on eyebrows, despite becoming a living cliché.
The Soft Seasons have naturally mouse-brown hair. They look great with finely woven caramel light. The Light Seasons speak of sunshine, so the brightening effect of pale yellow sun highlight is very consistent with their energy.
On everyone else : a distraction…that too often escalates over the years to become a highlight that has coalesced into one big uni-streak. That was me for years. Eventually, that was how I was used to seeing myself. What good is beach blonde when it makes your eyes gray away?
In Hollywood, you probably look odd without the yellow helmet, or the implants, for that matter. In the real world, at the office, in the car, at school, does Gwyneth’s yellow wall work in your favor?
The rich warmth of the Autumns, their spicy heat, and the dark force of the Winters is shattered into 10,000 pieces by blonde light. Give them a hot molten glow and a still, simple gleam, respectively.
Not everyone is flattered by blond, even if you’re 20. Which girl will be taken more seriously (ignoring the earrings)? Which twin’s eye colour is stronger?
When you’re blonde and you shouldn’t be, it feels tense to be around. Remember the relief when Pretty Woman took off the blonde wig? You FELT your insides relax.
Forced beauty feels so demanding.
Would Nick Arrojo, whom I love, have I ever told you, do tricolour stripes?
Accidental beauty could have happened by itself. Easier to be. Easier to look at.
Being taken seriously is one of the gifts of aging. Too many of us squander it by being blond when we shouldn’t be.
Perhaps there is only one person who should not take you seriously, and that’s you.
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6 Responses to “The Best Thing About Aging 1”
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Right on!
The whole world should read this!
This is one of your best! I was there and have pictorial evidence (no, I am not proud of those pics) to prove it!
Monochromatic hair colour just is so much more me as a dark autumn. Gives weight to me. I feel less flimsy. I can walk by a mirror and not question the reflection and then go, ” oh yeah that’s me…” I bet every single woman who does that streak to her hair has the same reaction. I have friends that have it and I have reached the point where I will, prefaced with “Please don’t be offended but you need to know this”, actually tell them the effect is not what they want and how much better they looked before they did it. It is not a cut after all and can be rectified the next day or that evening for that matter.
Do we do it to be more fashionable, to stave off the aging or the thought that we might be? I would no more streak my hair now than I would wear a tube top (remember those?) I don’t care how good my abs are, a tube top at 51 is just not a serious piece of clothing …it is a head band for pity’s sake and looks cute on a five year old. Even then it’s pushing it.
Okay I am done venting and how I got into clothing god only knows.
Thanks Chris…this is something that every woman should read!
I don’t know, you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone who grew up at the beach in Southern California (like I did) that Blonde isn’t the way to go LOL
My hair was what is usually called “platinum blonde” until I turned 16 or so when it started to darken to a golden blonde-brown hybrid. I’ve been lightening it off and on ever since. Problem is, I feel like “platinum blonde” IS my natural hair color, because that’s what I was born with. The real color that my hair is now is not “natural” to me, never has been. Never mind the gray – I’m not even going to go there. Ha!
I have noticed that there is a group of women, by no means all (I think they are deep seasons), who age themselves terribly when they add blonde streaks and highlights. The ashier the highlight, the older they look. All it achieves is a prematurely greying look.
Other people – the light seasons and some mediums – may look fantastic as blonde. But they are a minority. Kathy W, you may well belong to this group.
There are incredibly few natural blondes after the age of about 25. Apparently, blonde hair colour is linked to high oestrogen levels, which is linked to fertility. The more fertile a woman is, the higher her oestrogen levels, and (if she has the correct genetics) this is signalled by blonde hair. This is why blonde is considered so attractive by a lot of men. They are genetically programmed to respond to a range of fertility signifiers – glossy hair, bright eyes, good skin, waist-hip ratio (and blonde hair).
When oestrogen levels decline from peak fertility, the blonde hair darkens.
Who wouldn’t want to look attractive and fertile for as long as possible?
But in western culture, the idea of ‘being blonde’ seems to have completely swamped the idea of ‘looking your best’.
There are a heck of a lot of women out there who think that being blonde – despite contradictory skin tone and eyebrows – is a higher priority than LOOKING FANTASTIC with non-blonde hair.
Hi Jo,
Very interesting info on the link between blonde hair and high estrogen levels – I of course knew that all blondes start to darken in their teens if not earlier (except for a very rare few) but I never knew this. And being an ex-Southern California surfer girl I will absolutely admit that I have a culturally programmed preference to see myself as a blonde
My skin is light and my eyelashes are so blond that you can’t see them unless I put mascara on, my eyebrows are darker than my current hair color but they are still on the blonde scale, too light to be called brown. So I’m hoping all of this makes me one of the minority that can stay blond in my late 40s and not look like I’m trying too hard. Since this blog post I will admit that I have been looking at some older photos of myself and I’m thinking that my stylist has strayed a little too far with the highlighter recently and that next time I go in I may ask her to tone it down a bit. Although Summer is coming so I may not…
I do agree that there are many women who color their hair blond who would look so much better if they stayed in their natural color or went darker. Whenever I see Lindsay Lohan with a bad blonde (or the even worse bad brunette) dye job I can’t understand why someone with such gorgeous natural red hair would ever want to cover it up. Angelina Jolie has gone blonde for a couple of movie roles and she looks so much better as a brunette.
Christine, this is so interesting. I’m on the other side of the fence: one of the things that convinced me I’m a soft season is the fact that I look so much better with soft highlights. Same color hair gives me a flat look; highlights bring life to my face. But I agree that entirely too many women get highlights when they would look so much better with richer, all-one-color hair. Since I’ve become aware of color typing I notice these things a lot more. It’s a shame that so many women do what’s fashionable or expected instead of what suits them best.