Ever since hair dye was a thing, it became not OK to have white hair once you started having them. That’s kinda unreasonable, when you think about it. Why aren’t we allowed to be ourselves?
I’ve grown old enough to know why people sometimes have short white hairs sticking up from their parting, even when the rest of their hair is uniformly dark and long enough to lay flat.
It’s because they have few enough white hairs that they can pluck them out and carry on as if they had no white hairs at all. Sadly, white hairs are tenacious little buggers that grow right back while people are busy living life. By the time they realize it, they’ve been sporting inch-long antennae that have spent the past month waving merrily at everyone else.
White hair in the time of COVID-19
The interesting thing is, I’ve been seeing fewer people in this state since COVID-19 broke out. Of course, I’ve been seeing fewer people, period. What I mean is, instead of short white hairs that stick up, people now seem to have long white hairs that lay flat. It was a revelation.
Why? Because the sufferance of white hairs is a painful life transition. You start by hastily plucking out isolated offenders (even though it’s not the best thing to do, really). You hope that that takes care of the problem, but it’s really just the beginning of the end. Every month there is a new white hair, or two, or five.
One day you find a white hair that is not new and short. It is long and shiny, skulking traitorously in the hinterlands of your scalp. Maybe you start thinking about dyeing your hair.
The problem with dye? Yup, the nefarious skunk stripe that creeps out of your scalp unless you go and get it touched up every freaking month.
The alternative is, of course, to just let nature take its course. But ouch.
Then COVID-19 happened. And lockdowns happened. Salons and shops became verboten. Suddenly, we couldn’t dye our hair even if we wanted to. We could still pluck, but with the sheer amount of crap going on, it simply didn’t cross our minds to.
It became OK to have white hair.
All in the same boat
Just the other day, I met two colleagues in the staff pantry. There we were – three women, all experienced professionals wearied by the demands of the pandemic. We were all about the same age, until quite recently dyers (them) and plucker (me) of white hair.
As we stood there masked and two careful metres apart, there was one surreal moment in which the chat died down and each of our gazes drifted upward to the hairline of the next woman. All of us had a handful of white hairs long enough to waft gently (as opposed, mind you, to short ones standing stiffly up) from our partings.
We grinned, and left.
A new norm for white hair
It’s a pity that it took a pandemic to get to this point. And I’m sure that, soon enough, the salons will be thronged again and hair dye will be flying off the pharmacy shelves, but I hope that there will still be brave souls wearing silver threads.
I hope that we stop the foolishness of trying to look forever twenty-one.
I hope that we wear with pride our mementoes of a very difficult year.
I hope that in embracing the fading of our youth, we learn to value the gift of life.
When COVID-19 started, I had three short white hairs sticking out. I hated them. Four months down the line, one has fallen out, one has grown long enough to lay down and mingle with its dark brethren, and the last one, my favourite, has found a home in my forelock and developed a jaunty wave. It’s not so bad.
I’ve got other baby white hairs peeking out here and there now. Each one makes my heart sink a little, but I’m going to let them be. They are the natural highlights I never had before. They are marks of experience. Most of all, they’re part of me.
How has life in the pandemic impacted your feelings about white hair? Let us know in the comments!
