Glad to be grey

I saw in the paper this morning that there is a website dedicated to celebrating grey hair (www.goinggraylookinggreat.com). While this is a Good Thing, it's a pity that losing hair colour is something that needs a website to reconcile people to it. And looking at the site, it's still pretty high maintenance, with talk of highlights and different shades to soften the blow of (whisper it) getting older. It's in the interest of the cosmetics industry to hard-sell the illusion that hair colour from a bottle equals youth and beauty. In fact, everything from foundation to nail polish is marketed to sell that fantasy. Face it, we are all getting older every second of the day (unless we're dead, and there's another branch of cosmetics to deal with that). How do you want to spend those seconds as they stretch into minutes and hours? Doing something fun, something enlightening, something helpful? Or crouched over a sink squirting viscous goo into your hair and hoping you won't drip over the soft furnishings? Let alone sitting in a salon having someone else do the squirting while relieving you of a hefty sum? As I've said before, I am notoriously low maintenance. I deal with my eyebrows if they're starting to take over my face and I reach for the bleach if my facial hair starts to make me look like Peter Wyngarde, but otherwise I am much as nature intended. (Nature likes a laugh.) It never occurred to me that I should dye my hair. I've been greying since my early twenties and, yes, it shows. So what? Mind you, I'm a little put out that it's coming through in strands so I look like someone's draped tinsel over my head. I was hoping for a dramatic wing of silver, or perhaps a touch of distinction at the temples. (Have you noticed that women go grey while men become distinguished?) I know I'm odd, but I don't think getting older is something to shy away from. Age is supposed to bring wisdom. How can you advertise your sagacity if you've disguised your years with dye and surgery? So embrace your fading follicles. Grey pride starts here. And use the money you would have spent on hair dye on something worthwhile.