6. Fifty Shades of Going Gray

6. Fifty Shades of Going Gray

The following is a transcript of this episode. It has been edited for clarity.

Intro: Welcome back, ladies. Today we’re going to talk about gray hair. With salons closed during the pandemic, so many of us showed our roots for the first time, and some women decided to stay gray for good. Is silver the latest hair trend? Is the stigma of going gray gone? How do you know if you’re ready to ditch the hair dye? And if you are, how you can ease the transition to your natural color? Let’s go. Welcome to More Beautiful, the podcast for women rewriting the midlife playbook. I’m Maryann LoRusso, and I invite you to join me and a guest each week as we strive for a life that’s more adventurous, more fulfilling, and more beautiful than ever before.

Maryann: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the More Beautiful podcast. Today we’re talking about going gray. And here to join me is the lovely and talented Katrina Salinas, who is one of the best hair stylists in the Bay Area. She also happens to be my stylist, she has been for about 10 years, wouldn’t you say?And I adore her. Hi, Katrina.

Katrina: Hi, Maryann.

Maryann: Well, first, I have to say, I was recently looking at some vintage photos of my family back in the 50s. And a lot of women in those pictures were our age, you know, they were in their 40s and 50s. And they had gray hair. No one was dyeing their hair. And they looked so old. So old. Would you say that hair color is the single most groundbreaking beauty invention of all time?

Katrina: I think I would say that. But I also think that back then, people didn’t live very long. You know, we had a shorter lifespan. And they didn’t have all these anti aging creams and proper nutrition, possibly. So I think they just accepted it. And it was reserved for people in certain classes, or for people in the movie industry like celebrities.

Maryann: The people who are glamming it up. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, well, we’ve come a long way. Because now you really can defy your age with hair color. I mean, it’s amazing. Right?

Katrina: You can. It’s one of the number one things that you can do to maintain a youthful appearance. But also, it’s one of those things that can age you, if it’s too dark or it’s improperly done. Or if it makes the hair look very damaged. I think that it’s a two way street on that. If it still looks healthy, has shine, has a certain volume to it, and really enhances your overall appearance, then I think it’s beautiful. I mean, I love it. I love seeing it day in, day out.

Maryann: Right, well, you’re so good at doing color. And I agree with you, you can have bad color, and you can have great color. You know, it’s funny, because we all start going gray at different ages. I was so young, I was in my 20s when I started going gray, and other people are now just, you know, at age 48, going, oh, I have a gray hair. You know, I’m so jealous of them. So, like, you can be at any given stage at any time in your life. Right? What would you say to somebody who came to you, and just, you know, was starting to go gray or just wanting to start covering it up? And like what’s the first approach?

Katrina: The first approach is always finding out what their lifestyle is like, and what their expectations are. Because if I offer them full coverage gray in a color that needs to be touched up every four to six weeks, and they cannot keep that up because of time or because of cost, then that creates this palette that isn’t desirable. No one wants to see that, you know, oh, look at me, I’ve got roots, it doesn’t…nothing matches. So I think that people usually go too heavy handed at first. I would approach it this way: Maybe we should put a vegetable base color on, maybe we should put like a demi permanent on—something that’s going to blend gray so the different categories have the ability to blend, not cover. So it doesn’t completely alter your natural color. So you can play with different tones, you know, you can play up the gold, you can play up auburn, or you can go dark.

Maryann: You’ve been doing that with my hair, you know, with the golden tones, and I love it. But every woman comes to a time where she’s wrestling with this whole idea of, do I want to do this upkeep for the rest of my life? Right? Because it’s time consuming. It’s expensive. It takes a toll on you after many years of dyeing your hair. And I know I’ve wrestled with this too, like, do I continue this? Or do I go natural? And it’s sort of become trendy, now. I see a lot of younger women with gray hair, and I know it’s not the same thing. It’s the trendy, you know, hair color. It’s like bluish gray and purple gray, all these beautiful colors. But it seems to be losing a lot of its stigma, gray hair.

Katrina: I would say it has, and I actually look back to just a year ago, and just over a year ago. And thinking about the conversations I was having with clients, thinking about all the emails that were being exchanged because we were in lockdown for a good portion of this. So there was the early conversation of, oh my god, what do I do? And then there was, well, maybe I’m just going to embrace this. And I think when we started to see in the media other celebrities doing it, and people in general saying, I’m just gonna go with it, I’m not going to cover my hair, my color, I’m going to show it, and you see Instagram photos of people showing their roots. And it was actually…I think it was a hashtag.

Maryann: It was? What was the hashtag?

Katrina: I think it was #showyourroots.

Maryann: Oh, that’s cool. I missed that.

Katrina: And I was just noticing, the conversations did shift around it. And sort of, things we played with before, like you and I have talked about before, got more serious. Because people had this dilemma. Do I do this on my own? And you know, just get Madison Reed or go to the grocery store? Or have something delivered on Amazon, right? Or get one of these boxes that some of the hairstylists in the area we’re doing, like customized? Or do I just roll with it?

Maryann: You started to see your gray roots come out and you’re like, OK, I can live with this. Some people just decided they were going to live with it, at least during the time of the pandemic.

Katrina: It’s not new. It was a conversation we started. Because I really looked back at this, like, when did I start these conversations with people? When did we get serious about it? And some of my clients…We started the conversation, like back in 2018. Flirting with it, and then changing our approach to hair color to begin a transition. And then the transition itself. And one client, it took us two years to grow her gray hair out. It’s a long time. And it was strategic how we handled it.

Maryann: So you bring up a good point. What is the strategy? Because the growing out stage can be so annoying, right?

Katrina: I think so. But I think also too, people aren’t judging themselves so harshly now. I feel like people used to look at someone with roots and go, oh, you know…I mean, we used to look at ourselves and go, oh, I’m not taking care of myself, or I’m showing my age, something in that area. Like we’re not keeping up. And I think that changed.

Maryann:So besides the pandemic, what do you think changed that?

Katrina; I think it’s a kind of emerging conversation about, what is beautiful, what is age? What is age appropriate? Obviously, if you’re in your early 20s and you are prematurely gray, that’s a genetic thing. And you’re starting your career, and perhaps you don’t want to be seen as an older person, or be judged.

Maryann: Right, that’s understandable.

Katrina: But I think as we get older, we sort of let go of those judgments. Because if it really is between coloring my hair and getting unwanted attention for not coloring my hair, you know, it seems sort of trivial. And I think we all kind of woke up out of that. I feel like we did. I mean, I absolutely love to color people’s hair. And if they have a fantasy or something they want, it’s kind of liberating and exciting and a creative expression, and that drives you in a totally different direction than something that’s burdensome, something I have to do.

Maryann: Right. I always think about that. I always think about what people ask you to do and what, you know, sometimes you don’t want to do. Do you get requests where you’re like, nope, can’t do that, or it’s not going to work?

Katrina: It’s usually because their hair may not be appropriate for that. And I’m really honest about the upkeep on things, but sometimes it’s because it’s just really not my forte. Like I’m not a unicorn hair hairdresser. So I’ll send them to one of my colleagues who is, and you know, I think you should do it. And my thing now is like, I think you should do it. I think people have feelings and people have ideas about what they should look like. And I think that they should just explore it. It may be an awkward stage. It may be, you know, I mean, it may be a time where maybe you look back and go, I wish I hadn’t done that. But maybe you will. I mean, I’ve bleached my hair out and chopped my hair really short. And I look back, and I’m just so glad I did that.

Maryann: Right, because you experimented.

Katrina: It wasn’t my best look.

Maryann: I think Sun-in was my worst look. Did you ever use Sun-in back in the day?

Katrina; Oh, yes I did.

Maryann: You know, I saw it on a shelf. It’s still around.

Katrina: People still do it. And I actually have clients that use it. They’re natural blondes. I mean, I caution them against it, but they still use it. And it just makes their hair look blonder.

Maryann: Yeah, it’s summertime fun. Unlike the orange it turned my hair.

Katrina: Yes, my hair was also kind of a flaming orange in the top.

Maryann: I would love to see a picture of that.

Katrina: I hope I have one. And then I think after that I just dyed it black, like L’Oreal blue-black.

Maryann: Oh, that must have been pretty.

Katrina: It was pretty…ish.

Maryann: Pretty-ish. But let’s go back to gray. Because if a woman does decide she wants to go gray, she’s kind of just tired of the whole, you know, regimen, are there options? Is it just going gray or not going gray? Or are there things you can do to play up the gray to kind of ease the transition?

Katrina: Yes, well, it is how you approach it, which you’re going to need to talk with your hair colorist about. And it needs to be a strategy. And it’s not necessarily going to be easy. I mean, the most extreme thing you can do is grow your hair out as long as you can stand it, and then cut all the colored hair off, which I have done for clients and it was absolutely amazing. But a lot of women don’t have that as their number one focal point, jump off point. A lot of people won’t do that.

Maryann: You have to be brave.

Katrina: So the other things are to grow the natural hair out as long as you possibly can, incorporating things like those temporary root touch-ups, the sprays, or the powders that you apply to just sort of like, you know, right buffer out there.

Maryann: Some of those are good, too.

Katrina: Some of them are really good. I mean, I just looked online, like what the top popular ones were, and I think they’re all good if you get a good color match. If you’re a really specific color, you’re gonna have to use two different cans or two different colors.

Maryann: Oh, how do you do that? Do you have to layer them, or…? Because you can’t pre-mix it.

Katrina: Yeah, you can. You’d have to like, where it’s darkest, use the dark color, and where it’s lightest, use the light color.

Maryann: That seems too complicated.

Katrina: It seems complicated.

Maryann: For me, spraying those things on my roots, sometimes the bathroom ends up with more color than my head. It’s very messy.

Katrina: Yeah, the number one thing for me is, does it transfer? Does it transfer to all your clothes? Is it going to run down your scalp? Or is it going to be really sticky on the scalp? But I mean, there’s only one way to know, and that’s to try it.

Maryann: Right? I’ve tried the L’Oreal one, I believe. And I’ve used Bumble and bumble. Those are both pretty good.

Katrina: Right, yeah, the L’Oreal one I think is the number one. It’s also affordable. You can get it at Costco. Great for brunettes. There’s also a product called Color Wow. They make a temporary color. It’s a spray, and I think it might come in a little palette, too.

Maryann: Yeah. And then there are the brush-on ones.

Katrina: The brush-on ones are good. The Madison Reed one is very good.

Maryann: I use that too.

Katrina: I mean, there’s been different iterations of the same type of product. And they probably are reformulating, making them better. Because there’s such a, you know, market for that. There’s so much demand. The other one that people love is Oribe. That one’s great. So higher price point, but it’s really good. And when people come in and I see that on their hair, I always say, that’s a good match, stick with that.

Maryann: Oh, good to know. Do they have more colors than a lot of the other manufacturers?

Katrina: It’s not that they have more colors. It’s just that the colors are truer, it’s more what people are wearing right now. You know, it’s not like, black, dark.

Maryann: Dark brown, medium brown, light brown.

Katrina: Brown, right. And for redheads, I really haven’t found one that I really like.

Maryann: Yeah, that sounds tricky. Well, I mean, because those sprays and brushes and all that stuff, they’re great for when, you know, you’re in between color jobs. But you’re saying that you can use them if you’re actually growing out your color. But it seems like you’d have to use an awful lot.

Katrina: You would have to use an awful lot. So you really have to look at what you’re spending and how much time you want to spend and how many sheets you want to destroy, or pillowcases. But I also think it’s a way to temporarily cover. You won’t use it every day, particularly now because not a lot of people are in office, not a lot of people are working with the public or in an office environment.

Maryann: So now’s a good time to do it. If you’re going to do this, do it now.

Katrina: Yes, do it now. And people have been doing it. And then there’s the things that are going to, you know, you’re gonna utilize the colorist for. Which is glossing, temporary colors, or semi permanent colors, is what we call them. Or just highlighting or low-lighting and keeping it really strategic to where you’re going to be seeing. If you’re zooming, you want to keep it around the face. And also hairstyling. How you style your hair, maybe you really need to think about this strategy of how you’re going to move your hair around. I’m encouraging people to do whatever it is to just, you know, push that forward, because it can be a long process. Imagine how hair grows. It’s growing maybe a half to an inch a month. And most people don’t get an inch. But let’s just say you want to replace all the hair that’s on your head, you’ve got over 12 inches of hair.

Maryann: Yeah, you have to chop a little.

Katrina: You’re going to.

Maryann: What about…I’ve seen a lot of women, as they’re growing in their gray, spraying their hair, or maybe they’re dyeing it, or just putting in a rinse of like blue or purple or pink. Is that another option or way to go?

Katrina: Well, the hair has to be lightened chemically in order for those colors to even show up. So if you’re going to do that, you might as well remove or try to remove professionally—have a hairstylist do it—all the pigment from your hair. All the old pigment, it doesn’t come out at once. I mean, I had a client, it took us three times. And about four hours per session.

Maryann: Wow, I didn’t know you can even do that. And you’re talking about the hair color, right, that’s been embedded in their…

Katrina: The color can be removed. There’s lots of different ways to go to it. But you have to remove it by using an oxidative process. Usually, it’s what people call bleach, or we call it lightener. So you’re going to remove that pigment as much as you can. And it usually gets to a very, very pale yellow color. And then we use the toners, which are colors that will determine the end result. Hair doesn’t go to gray, hair doesn’t go to nonpigmented. If someone colors hair to the point where it has no melanin, no pigment left, it’s destroyed.

Maryann: OK. See, I didn’t even know that you could do that. I mean, what about if you did spray the colors over your hair that’s like brown and gray? Is it possible that it could just, like, settle on the gray? And be like sort of a highlight color? Or is that just completely impossible?

Katrina: It’s theoretically possible. A lot of times people will throw on some kind of fun color and expect it to grab on to their white. We call it unpigmented hair.

Maryann: The gray, yeah.

Katrina: But that hair, it doesn’t have…Sometimes it’s not as porous. It’s not as receptive, believe it or not, to that as you think. Once you get to about 100% gray—like if you’re 100%, it’s not even gray, it’s white unpigmented hair—and you have like a soft, fine quality to your hair, you could put rinses. I mean, I used to do it back in beauty school, we would use Fanci-Full.

Maryann: Right, my grandma used that. It was a blue rinse. She was so proud of it.

Katrina: I forget what that blue one was called. I want to say it’s called Blue Steel.

Maryann: Something like that, yeah.

Katrina: And then the other one that was really popular was called Frivolous Fawn. It was kind of like a pinkish beige.

Maryann: I’ve never seen that one. It sounds like Jean Nate, or one of those old school products.

Katrina: I mean, this is straight up, I think, from like the 30s, 40s or 50s. And you would apply it and saturate the hair and then you would put it in a roller set and dry it in. And so it was considered a temporary color, or back in the day we called party colors. And they would make them in pinks and mint greens and things. And if you had lightened hair, which a lot of women did have streaks, I mean think about The Graduate, like the movie The Graduate, Anne Bancroft.

Maryann: Yeah, who was 35.

Katrina
She was 35, and people…I just recently rewatched that. In our mind she had a gray streak, and it indicated she was older.

Maryann: Yeah, she didn’t have a gray streak?

Katrina: It’s not gray.

Maryann: Oh, it’s not? What is it?

Katrina: It’s just a very platinum blonde.

Maryann: Oh, I had no idea.

Katrina: But it’s weird how that indicated to us that she was much older.

Maryann: Right, right. It was kind of like a Cruella strip, is that what you’re saying?

Katrina: Yeah, I love it.

Maryann: I have to go rewatch that. I recently wrote about that movie just to point out that that woman was not even a middle aged woman. The actress was 35 years old, and so was Dustin Hoffman, I think. Or he was maybe 30.

Katrina: They were very close to me.

Maryann: Yeah, they were. Can I just say I’m just noticing now that my dog is curled up at your feet?

Katrina: Yes, she’s fine.

Maryann: My dog Mochi is sleeping on Katrina’s feet. I didn’t even notice, sorry about that.

Katrina: She’s occasionally licking my toe.

Maryann: At least she’s being quiet. She’s licking your toe, oh my…

Katrina: Well, we have a special bond.

Maryann: That’s so funny. So, I don’t know. I mean, what would you do? I mean, I don’t know how much gray you have. I have a lot. I’m perpetually in this dilemma about what to do about it. But I don’t think I’m gonna go gray anytime soon. I used to say until 50. Now I’m like, maybe 60? What’s your personal kind of goal for that?

Katrina: Well, it’s when you’re ready. I stopped coloring my hair when I was pregnant with my son. That was almost 18 years ago. Like, putting permanent color on it. I noticed my hair was very dry. You know, you go through that thing when you’re pregnant where you don’t want anything on your body or in your body—

Maryann: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Katrina: —you know, teratogenic. And you’re so worried about, you know, cancer and all these things.

Maryann: I stopped coloring, both pregnancies.

Katrina: Right, you can do that. And you just do it. And people go, oh, well, that’s great. You’re taking care of yourself, and you’re looking out for your baby. And I’m a hair colorist and hairstylist so I was around all these chemicals all the time. And I just wanted to reduce my exposure. So I stopped. And I actually love gray hair. I welcomed every gray hair. And I think because of that, like my sisters are like, god, you don’t have any gray hair. When we were your age, we were completely white! And it’s weird, because I’m about 15%, 20% gray in the front.

Maryann: Well, I remember on my wedding day, I was I was 26 years old. And I’m sitting there taking a photo with my in-laws. And my mother-in-law standing behind me going, wow, Maryann, you have a lot of gray. And she’s plucking the grays from my hair. That was the first time I really knew I had some gray. And I didn’t do anything about it for a few years. Because it wasn’t that, you know, it wasn’t that visible, because I couldn’t see the back of my head.

Katrina: Well, you have such thick hair.

Maryann: Yeah. And in dark hair, it shows up really early. Anyway, it was just sort of like, what, really? And my mom had gone gray in her early 20s. So yeah, I’ve been doing this for now…it’s a long time.

Katrina: Well, and it…I mean, I enjoy seeing you on a regular basis. But I can see how it feels like, it could feel like, oh, a burden. And I always liked the approach to coloring hair like, oh, I want to do this. This is fun for me. And I know, I’ve seen that transition between, it’s not fun for me anymore and it’s just a chore to do. And you know, that’s when I think a colorist or someone, if you’re noticing this in your clients, you need to suggest something new. It might be a really simple thing.

Maryann: Right? But if people say to you that they’re going to try to do this on their own, they’re just going to let it grow out and not do anything to help the process, what would you say? It’s tricky, right?

Katrina: I mean, I was judging that when I was…I see that around, I see people doing that. And what I see is sort of like, I call it Neapolitan. You know, the very root area is not colored, it’s natural, and it’s gray or silver. And then you have that like sort of dark band. And then you will have what the ends will do naturally when you stop coloring it, it’ll overtime lighten and oxidize. And that’s kind of like a yellowy orange color. And I think to myself, why wouldn’t you just cut it? Because then you get this stripy look, right? Or I think to myself, you know, there’s got to be another way around that. But then I think, wow, good for her. She has all that confidence. I mean, I wrestle in my mind with judging it and then thinking about how I’m going to improve it. And then thinking, well, good for her.

Maryann: Well, you’re a stylist, you’re always thinking about…I mean, just like I read bathroom signs and want to edit them in my head, or I want to get a little red pen and start you know, rewriting things. It’s just what you do when you’re, you know…

Katrina: Yes. A lot of people would have their hair just chopped off if I had my way. But I keep that to myself because I’ve noticed, you know, sometimes I have clients that come in and someone’s been brutally honest because they’re a really good friend. You know? And it hurts their feelings. It hurts people’s feelings to say your hair looks terrible that way. I would never say that. You know, I would always come up with something complimentary or want to find something, you know, that if it was a problem, I want to help you to fix it.

Maryann: So if we have a friend that’s walking around with hair like that, I would say to a friend, I could totally see you with shorter hair. You know? It just, there’s a way you can phrase it. And I agree with you. I mean, in a way, it’s just so empowering that someone doesn’t care. I mean, I’m always wrestling with that, too.

Katrina: Yeah, but some things are not a person’s intention. And that’s where I think we can help. That’s where I think you can you have some, you know, input that could be constructive. But if it’s just, I don’t like it, it doesn’t look good on you, it makes you look old…I think people need to not say those things. I think we just need to be more kind about it.

Maryann: Right, it’s hurting. Well, we women have so much going on. I mean, especially right now. There’s so much stress in our lives. There are people who are pulled in so many directions. I mean, it may be hair color is not at the, you know, forefront, you know?

Katrina: It may not be a priority to that person right now, because we don’t know. And the truth is people are in transition, and have been in transition, since even the beginning of the pandemic. There is a transition that’s happening. And I noticed it in 2019. With everyone just saying, I feel really burdened by having to color my hair, I want to know what I look like without this. And I think there was just some sort of deeper thing happening in society for women. And I don’t know where it comes from, because I don’t watch TV, and I don’t really pay attention to a lot of trends. But I noticed it on this, like, deeper level that people were like, I don’t know if this is me. And I’m really questioning like, what’s my authentic self, and a lot of reevaluation, and that was happening prior to COVID. And I’m always down for that conversation. Because I think that’s our job. I mean, yes, I can slap hair color on you, you know, but I think if you take it a little further, that’s the job of somebody in the beauty industry or that’s the job of someone who’s a stylist and helps you choose your clothing, or someone who helps you apply makeup.

Maryann: Because that’s your goal in the end, right? Just to make somebody feel a little bit more empowered, better about themselves, kind of…I mean, every time I leave your salon, I just have a little bit more skip in my step. You know, you just feel kind of lighter, knowing you did something for yourself. And it’s not about your look so much. It’s just about, kind of, we have so much going on and it’s just nice to feel like maybe you’ve pampered yourself a little bit. That one day a month.

Katrina: It’s self-care. It’s also a person’s, like, own creative expression. What they should look like. Do I think everyone should look like someone from a magazine? I don’t.

Maryann: No, that would be a crazy standard.

Katrina: I mean, I haven’t opened a magazine since the beginning of the pandemic.

Maryann: I love it. No TV shows, no magazines.

Katrina: I mean, I watch like a Netflix thing once in a while, like a series. But usually the hair and the makeup aren’t the main thing. If I watch something, it will be for the hair and the makeup, sometimes. That’s all I’ll get from it.

Maryann: Have you gotten inspired by anything recently?

Katrina: Oh, the French movies with like Brigitte Bardot or like Jean Moreau or, you know, things that are really artistic. You know, and then the way the women are, they’re just so naturally beautiful. I don’t know if a hairstyle would make any difference.

Maryann: I recently rewatched Breathless, which is one of my favorite movies. And I think I found my Halloween costume. The short hair. Jean Seburg, was that her name? I think she worked for the Herald Tribune, New York Herald Tribune, which is now of course gone.

Katrina: Right, you find your muse. And I don’t look like her.

Maryann: Well, who of us does?

Katrina: I mean, you probably look more like her.

Maryann: No way.

Katrina: But in a way, there’s something about that person that does inspire us. We don’t need to look like that, we need to look like ourselves. So when I discovered that I just need to look like me, it was so freeing. And then I don’t focus on myself. I’m in a salon with mirrors all day. I look at myself maybe one time because I’m not…It’s not a shock to see who I am. It’s not like, oh, that’s not my image. I know who you are. And like, I might need to get, you know…

Maryann: There are mirrors all, I mean…Spending too much time in front of a mirror is not great.

Katrina: Oh, it’s not. I mean, you could really fuss all day long. Or you could just give it up, make sure you don’t have, you know, whatever stuff caught in your eye or your mascara is not going down your face.

Maryann: So how many of your clients who say they’re gonna stop with the hair dye actually do it?

Katrina: Right now we’re at about six. So one of them, I just saw her, I cut her hair. And she has successfully transitioned completely out of hair color. And we did that by going gradually lighter over probably two years to very highlighted. And then she made an appointment with this celebrity stylist down in the LA area. And he’s known for that, he’s known for taking women from completely colored to, to what is so beautiful, like a sterling gray or whatever looks best on them, he matches it. So she had to wait many months. And it was probably a six to eight hour process. And it was not inexpensive. But it’s gorgeous. She looks beautiful.

Maryann: Oh, that’s great. And for those clients that say, you know, I’m gonna keep doing this, I’m gonna keep coloring my hair. I mean, anything to make it easier on them? I mean, do you ever try to get them to prolong their visits? Just maybe they’re stressed, maybe they don’t want to go to the salon every month, or maybe…

Katrina: Yeah, we’ve been doing that. Most people have changed their timing. Most clients are coming in between six and eight weeks. And they used to come in between two.

Maryann: Right. Pandemic scheduling.

Katrina: So let’s just say there’s a little bit more tolerance for the roots. It depends on your hair color. If you are a super blonde, bleached blonde, we cannot go longer than six weeks. There’s actually a perfect timing for outgrowth with certain hair colors, and you don’t want to miss it. It’s a commitment, and people who have that type of hair color, they have to be committed. So stay on schedule, you have to stay on schedule, if you’re Marilyn Monroe, it’s every four to six weeks. There is no other option.

Maryann: You know, it’s interesting, I just thought of this. But if you do go gray, you have to probably rethink your whole wardrobe. I didn’t think about that, right. Because your whole palette changes. Maybe your complexion doesn’t change, but…

Katrina: There is one thing that I will say that I didn’t realize was changing how I judged people, about whether or not they could go very light and whether or not they could transition to gray. And I started to realize it’s whether or not you have eyebrows. And it’s sometimes a delicate conversation because I said, if you’re going to do this and lighten around the face, very light, and then we’re eventually going to go to you being a gorgeous silver all the way around her face, it’s all framing. You’re going to need to have eyebrows.

Maryann: She had very light, very pale eyebrows.

Katrina: Very sparse.

Maryann: Well, that’s easy enough to do. They have tinting, and they have all sorts of techniques now.

Katrina: She had to get microblading. And she said, You know, I hadn’t thought about that. And it really is something you should consider. So there were other things that you wouldn’t think are related, but are taken into consideration because if you have very light skin or olive skin, whatever skin tone you have, and then you have very pale hair and you don’t have eyebrows or really much eyelash, you can just sort of fade away.

Maryann: Yeah, we should do a whole episode on eyebrows because eyebrows are so important. You know, they make you look so much more expressive. And they do have a youthful, kind of youth boosting…

Katrina: Oh, it’s taken me twelve years to grow my eyebrows.

Maryann: You have nice, dark eyebrows.

Katrina: Oh, that’s…you know, that’s a benefit.

Maryann: I like the Boy Brow. That’s a great one.

Katrina: I’ve tried a lot. I think this one’s a little dark.

Maryann: Next podcast, brows!

Katrina: Well, I mean, I wish I was a brow expert, but I’ve been around people who are brows experts. So you know, luckily, I can just make a phone call or text someone and get great recommendations. When she got microblading and then began to use a kind of like latisse type of product for the eyebrows—there’s a lot on the market now—and some of those eyebrows came back, it really framed her face differently and it really makes a difference. And so, you know, I think if you’re not looking at the whole person, you’re making a big mistake. Look at what their wardrobe is, you know, look at what colors you see them in. What is their inspiration? Sometimes I’m asking people, hey, bring in some Instagram photos or bring in some photos, so I know. Because I only see that snapshot of them and lots of people coming in. They’re wearing, you know, typical run around gear. They’re wearing, what’s it called?

Maryann: Leisure wear. That’s the thing, yeah.

Katrina: I can’t always tell. But I can usually tell from the glasses. You know, sometimes a person’s glasses are designer, or larger or have more bold color patterns. I can kind of get it. Yeah, you know, and then I can realize, OK, this person has a little bit more of an edge. And we can probably play in that direction. And I have to ask them about their work. What is their work environment? Because if someone’s in a really kind of like more conservative finance environment, we’re probably not going to go with the having blue streaks of hair underneath or…

Maryann: Right, and they should probably know that themselves. Right?

Katrina: I mean, there’s that tension between who you are in your private life and who you are in your public life.

Maryann: Well, I say, no matter what a woman decides,I say go for it. I say more power to you.

Katrina: I agree. I mean, what can happen? People can reject you.

Maryann: Oh, who cares? I think we’re beyond that.

Katrina: I hope we are.

Maryann: Don’t you think in midlife, we are beyond that? Like, I don’t know, who’s gonna reject you? And why, I mean, you know, is that person really worth being in your life?

Katrina: I know, I agree. And that’s what I say probably day in, day out. And so for me, I try to be a safe person, someone who’s safe, who’s not going to tell you your ideas are ridiculous. I’ll help you figure out a pathway forward. And most of my friends are like that. All the hairstyles I know are like that.

Maryann: Yeah, I think we’re beyond the point, also, where I think we have this one image of what we should look like. I think our repertoire of middle aged women in the media and movies, TV is changing so much that we see all kinds of versions. You know? I love it.

Katrina: I was watching some of those Norwegian shows for a while.

Maryann: Yeah, you and everybody else.

Katrina: Yeah, but like crime drama. And I noticed the women, they just, you know, their hair is not perfectly in place. There’s gray hairs, they barely have any makeup on.

Maryann: A lot of European women are just so natural and beautiful. It’s so freeing.

Katrina: It is, and I was watching them going, they’re so beautiful, but in such a different way than what I’m used to seeing. You know, I mean, some of the television shows that I remember watching, you know, a female surgeon would show up and her hair would be perfectly quaffed. And she’d have makeup on. And as someone who’s seen surgeons, you know, either have had surgery myself or gone in and been there waiting, they come out there wearing scrubs, or hairs pulled back into a ponytail, they don’t have any makeup on. And they’re working. This just, you know, it’s almost like an excessive amount of glamour applied where it’s not needed. And when you have glamour, you can be glamorous in different ways. And sometimes it’s just an attitude. Like I know people who get away with things that are just, I think I could never get away with that.

Maryann: I completely agree. It’s the attitude, it’s your confidence. When it comes down to it, it’s confidence. You carrying yourself with that confidence that you need, you know, and you moving around in the world in a way that just exudes this charm, charisma. Gray hair or not.

Katrina: If going gray gives you that feeling, or gives you a feeling of more self confidence, thenthat’s what you should do. It’s not going to be an easy path. I’ve had people that said, I don’t think I want to continue with this, and I’ve had to talk them like, we’ve worked so hard. I’ve had to, like…Stay on this path, just six more weeks. And here’s the thing, if you grow all your hair out and you have all gray hair, or streaked hair, whatever you have, you can always color it.

Maryann: Right, but it must be hard to color it after going through all of that.

Katrina: I think it is, but I’ve had a client who shaved her entire head and she did for, I think it was for a cancer benefit. She just shaved her hair off, it was completely bald.

Maryann: Oh, that’s brave. That takes courage.

Katrina: And she was gorgeous.

Maryann: Yep. Love it. I promise Katrina, I will keep you posted if I decide to grow out my gray. I’m not there yet, but…

Katrina: Well, I’m not saying shave your head.

Maryann: Yeah, no, I’m not going to shave my head either. Well, though, that could be an option, who knows? We’ll see.

Katrina: Might be easier.

Maryann: Yeah, I know. I have so much hair, I’d probably have to like do it every day. Anyway, oh my gosh, anything else you want to add about color or gray? Or…I think we covered a lot.

Katrina: Just find someone to talk to about it. You know, find someone who doesn’t judge you. Maybe don’t ask your husband. You know?

Maryann: My husband knows better. He would not go there. He would just be like, whatever you want, honey, whatever you feel like you want to do.

Katrina: Smart. And some of them just don’t have the vision. You know, they don’t have to manage their look day in, day out. Some of them have visions. I mean, I obviously know men who have amazing opinions on things. But don’t ask someone who can’t envision it, right? Or don’t ask someone who you feel too vulnerable around. Just ask someone neutral. You know, or a hairstylist.

Maryann: Hair stylist is probably your best bet. Or a creative, honest friend.

Katrina: But not brutally honest. I just want to say, you know, I have been a brutally honest person for…I am very honest, in most settings, but I have tempered that as much as I can with kindness, because when I have a client in my chair whose feelings were very deeply hurt by a brutally honest friend, I think, we could have avoided that altogether.

Maryann: So no brutal honesty, just love. Kindness.

Katrina: Support. People are in transition. They’re, you know, they’re going from a larva to a butterfly. So don’t judge them yet. It’s in transition.

Maryann: I like that image. All right, we’re all gonna be butterflies. Thank you so much for coming.

Katrina: My pleasure.

Maryann: Thank you, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks in the salon.

Katrina: That’s right.