Men are like a fine wine. They get better with age.
As each day ages us (and there’s a rather depressing thought for a Monday), a lot of us have noticed that our hair isn’t as colourfast as it used to be. Remember that day when you noticed your first grey hair in the mirror? The sheer horror that was felt on the day when you suddenly realised that you were staring your mortality face to face with a steely gaze reserved only for your arch nemesis… no? Just me? Well the cheese stands alone then.
In any case, I’ve often been asked if it’s acceptable to grow old gracefully and just refer to the fact that men are like a fine wine (the older they get, the better they get) or deny the fact by dying their grey hairs. And depending on who you speak to, there are various opinions on this. So before I send you diving for the bottle (the dye bottle… drinking and dying ends with mixed results), let’s think about this a bit.
Thanks to George Clooney, Harrison Ford and countless other actors who’ve decided that going grey is du jour, the infamous silver fox has made a bit of a re-surgence lately. It had been maligned by being synonymous for dirty old men before, but you see, there’s quite a difference between a silver fox and a dirty old man. One is a distinguised man, who rocks the grey hair look, and has the suave coolness and boyish charm to match. The other however, is tantamount to a human car crash, desperate to show that he still has it with the younger folk, but looking every bit three times their age and coming off a lecherous creep.
Silver Foxing
Let me perhaps demonstrate with George Clooney. We saw Mr Clooney in a number of Ocean’s series and then in great films such as “Syriana”, “Up in the Air” and the recent “The Ides of March” (not that the Ocean’s films weren’t good, just that they weren’t his best work, albeit quite entertaining) where he plays someone with a certain dignified quality. He’s been rocking the salt and pepper look since his late “ER” days but plenty of men and girls still want to sleep with him and almost every man wants to be him at his age. Let’s contrast him with shall we say, Nick Nolte, who looks every one of his 71 years and then some. Nick is also choosing to let his hair grey (in that photo anyway), but has all the grace and dignity of a stumbling alcoholic under disco lights (if the tabloids are to be believed). I know which I’d rather be.
Dye! Dye! Dye!
The other type of man prefers not to let his hair tell his age (despite his face or skin telling a different story), and covers it up with materials. The big risk with this though is matching the dye with the original hair colour can be an extraordinarily difficult task. You’d think that having black hair would make it easy to find a hair dye to match? Well, I’ve seen dye jobs where the black hair dye was even darker than the original hair colour, to the point where there was so much contrast between the person’s white skin and the new hair colour that they looked like a they could have auditioned for KISS. All that was missing was the make up.
If you venture down the route of hair dying, I recommend going into a hair salon and having it professionally done, but also choosing an entirely different shade altogether, rather than going through the pain staking process of matching your hair colour. A consultation with the professional is a fabulous idea as it will leave you more comfortable than standing in a supermarket or pharmacy mulling between chestnut and walnut (they’re both nuts! What’s the freaking difference?!). It is more expensive to have it professionally done, but at least you’ll feel more confident and you may be able to do the touch ups on your own if you’re feeling particularly frugal (your hair dresser may recommend the shade of colour you need).
The other consideration with hair dye is ensuring that the, well, “Carpets match the curtains” so to speak. What do I mean? If you’re grey all over and you’re going to painstaking lengths to convince everyone that you’ve still for your hair colour, why should it be different down there? The devil is in the detail, after all. That, and you’ll look rather silly with your two tone hair when completely naked.
So which is better? As I said, it depends on who you speak to. Some people really like the “salt and pepper” look and some people (especially those who have been going grey since a young age) prefer to keep it dyed. The rather fortunate reality is that society’s attitudes to men getting older is a lot more accepting than it is for our female counterparts. I always believe that while society still believes that, why not take advantage of it? I started with a few grey strands when I was 16 which caused me great alarm, and because I have black hair, I thought it was worse. But now that I’m 31, the idea of a few greys streaked through my hair makes me feel more distinguished and I feel more comfortable with the idea (of course, if you’re completely white haired at the age of 30, this is an entirely different story). Looking slightly older, or even your age isn’t bad - however a bad cover up job will add years to you.