Thanks for asking, but NO I do NOT qualify for the senior discount...

...a.k.a. why my Silver Fox Odyssey has ended!

Do I look anywhere NEAR senior discount age?

It is one of those dilemmas that most women have to face at some point in their lives (and most men don't understand).  Grey hair.  To go "Silver Fox", au naturelle, grey and gorgeous.....whatever you want to call it.  

I tried, I really did.  

If you have been following my posts at all, you know that I have been trying to grow out my natural hair, which includes a lot of grey for my age (I am in my early 40's).  I felt empowered by other women and their silver journeys.  If you are on this "journey" you know very well that it is an emotional roller coaster!  For a wonderful support blog for this "change of life" (and yes, boys, it is THAT BIG OF A DEAL to us of the feminine gender) I suggest you visit +Lauren at 

howbourgeois.blogspot.com

For me, the journey has ended.  For now, at least.  I had been fighting through the "skunk line" 2" growth, the "candy corn" hair look (because, in part, I had 4-5 different colors on different lengths of hair), the thinner grey hairs, even the "oh....you started your family LATER IN LIFE" rude comments.  

But there was one comment that did me in.  Yep, it was ONE....SMALL....COMMENT.  Said innocently enough.  I was in a beauty supply store, buying semi-permanent clear gloss with daughter in tow (who, by the way, was very clearly calling me MOMMA, not grandma).  When we went to ring out at the register, the sales associate asked me, "You don't qualify for the senior discount, do you?"  And that. WAS. THAT!

I don't care what anyone thinks of my vanity.  I had had enough.  I realized at that point that this Silver Fox was looking simply like an old grey mare.  And I couldn't accept that.  I was done with anyone mistaking me for Charlie's grandma.  I am not emotionally ready for that. 

I think, in my particular case, my aged look had to do mostly with my redhead background.  I am too light in complexion and get washed out too easily (which ages us terribly!).  I tried wigs with the goal of covering up while the grey grows out - nope, not for me!  I tried gently glossing the greys with a little blonde, washable color - also a no go.  It all just looked silly. Too obvious a cover-up.  The color crayons worked for a while, but once the growth was a good 2-3" out it was too much work!

The picture above was taken today.  I am not wearing ANY makeup.  I visited a salon last week that put Goldwell brand semi-permanent color (washes out in 6-9 washes) on as a base (using my natural dark as a color match) and some blonde and caramel highlights in the front only.  I walked out of the salon looking - and feeling - 10 years younger.  

The cost of coloring is still a factor for me, and we will see where that leads me in the next few months.  But I love getting ready in the morning again!  I love walking out the door in my bling jeans and cute tops.  Simply put, I love my hair.  It really, really means that much to me and to many (most?) other women too.  

With love (and brown hair!) - Denise

Facing up to reality (aka "As the Grey Grows")......

*******UPDATE: I USED THE FOAM IN COLOR, AND NOW HAVE PURPLE HAIR...........GRRR.......TO BE CONTINUED*******

I just don't know if I am ready for so much reality being thrown at me!  Perhaps I am just not that strong.  I imagine myself as Wonder Woman - forever in that hot unitard with the shiny gold belt and those curly, perfect auburn tresses.

 Perfect = Auburn.  Grey = NOT.  

I.AM.NOT.WONDER.WOMAN.

I tried on a couple wigs this last week, to test out what I look like as a full fledged "silver fox".....

I feel like a grey turtle.  No offense meant to turtles.

I looked in the mirror and saw my mom staring back at me.  No offense meant to my mom, either.  It's just, my mother is 72.  Thirty years older than I am.  Up until now, I thought I would grow out this grey and be the hip, stylish mom who wasn't afraid to rock her natural hair.  And still be perceived as young(ish).  The reality?  The grey is aging me, very (very) quickly.  

In the last month I have heard "Oh, you started your family later in life, huh?"  a half dozen times.  Prior to this grey grow-out, I had never heard that.  NOT ONCE. Could it be just a cruel coincidence?  

Which reminds me.....it is JUST PLAIN RUDE to say that to any mom!  Please read this question and answer link:

I'm-an-older-mom-how-should-I-handle-rude-comments-about-my-age?

Back to my question....cruel coincidence?  Maybe.  I admit that I actually like a few of my grow out shots above.  Especially the one in the middle!  Haha, I am a silver rock star!!  ;-)  And before I was growing out the grey I admit I did get called Charlie's grandma. But only once, and by someone who had an obviously limited perceptive ability.  They are fully forgiven.  

As I analyze the grey look, the real me, and the (however unfair it may be) perception of grey hair...I keep coming to the same awful conclusion.  I am not 50, or 60, or 72.  I am 42.  What do I need to do to look, and feel, 42?  

I want to look like +Lauren Stein  - click here for her blog - who still looks the beautiful late thirties that she is! 

 Not....happening....

I know there is inevitably some out there who are saying (and sighing), "Geez!  You are only as old as you feel, so....get over it, be 42.  No matter what your hair color is, just deal with it.  If you don't like it, color it.  Either way, we don't want to hear you whine.  There are bigger problems in life!"

Yes, indeed.  There are bigger problems in life.  But in my life, at this very moment, this "minor problem" is becoming a major obstacle to my daily joie de vivre.  I am faced with the question of "can I accept this reality" every time I see the bathroom mirror (which, with a 3-year-old who is in "advanced" potty training mode - there is an oxymoron -, is about 10 times every hour).  

I was made fully aware that the grow-out period, especially where I am right now (about 4" of outgrowth) is really, really tough.  I haven't given up, not just yet.  Next step is a color-in foam product.  Going to try:

I found it at my local Sally Beauty Supply, so I will be posting pics shortly of the finished look. After all, this IS a blog about the experience.  Good, bad...or even ugly, if that is how it turns out!  ;-)  But, this has gotten good reviews....so we shall see.

<<<<< STAY TUNED >>>>>

Silver Fox - The Dilemma of the Wig

OK, so here is a recent picture of the "progress" made in the attempt to go "au naturel".  I happen to think it looks significantly better than the orange popsicle look from April!  LOL

Now, only a minor "skunklet" look, easily covered

Here is the orange look that I hated and that started this whole silver movement into motion:

YUCK!

(So, I know that this picture isn't really THAT bad......it was professionally done, so that helps a lot.  But that orange was so ugly, so unnatural and harsh.)

Yep, I have a stripe.  Yep, it is a little challenging.  But I have found a product that I really like to help camouflage the skunky look.  Here's the link:   Mimic hair makeup for grey hair.   It works so well! :-) The only complaint I have about it is it feels a little chalky, but I am super sensitive so I think the "average" user wouldn't notice.  And the chalky feel isn't so annoying that it would cause me to stop using the product. This stuff would work great, even if you aren't going to go grey but just want something that works in between root touch ups!  

I wish I had an exceptional shot where you can see the look with the Mimic product on my hair, but I wore a hat for most of this summer so I lack good (and hatless) pictures.  ;-) I will try to focus on that for the next post.

It helps that my hair has "layers" of color in it, including (but not limited to....) blonde, light brown, grey, red, strawberry blonde and dark brown.  

Hubby LOVES the grey - tells me that all the time, and he is being genuine (i.e. says it without any prompting!  Haha!).  I am blown away by that, and must admit that his "approval" makes this process easier.  

Most days I am fine with the grow out.  I usually wear a feminine baseball cap or a cowboy hat and when I don't I can cover up the line easily enough at this point.  But I can see it is going to get more difficult, as the line creeps further south and yet isn't far enough along to go with a shorter hairstyle. Hubby won't go for a short cut so I am starting to look at hair falls and other "alternative" hair options ---- yes, A WIG!  I found some that are...intriguing. 

The plus - I can go any color and I can cut/shape a wig to any style I like. Some are even heat resistant so they can be curled with a low set curling iron.  I can also be "someone else" for a day!  ;-)  Maybe hubby would like that?!  Heh heh.  

The minus - it is a wig....a WIG....hmm, am I ok with that?  There is a certain stigma attached to wigs, less so in big cities but definitely in the "small town" community where I live.  The notion that only women who "need wigs" (insert inappropriate stereotype here) wear them is most certainly alive and well in rural Montana!  Can I rise above that?  I like to think so, but I am considering the wig in the first place because of my own insecurities regarding my hair.  That fact is unavoidable.  Would a wig actually ADD to those insecurities?  

To be continued (soon, I hope!)......

Uma-Boshi and the Joy of (eating) Squid Ink

While my dear husband, beautiful child, and lovely friends are out enjoying a most SPECTACULAR Saturday in Denver, I am stuck inside recuperating from "the general crud".  This short-n-sweet post is the result! Enjoy...

The Inspiration

Upon perusing my google buddies, I came across +Lauren Stein hilarious post about her interesting culinary experiences with Japanese food.  Having lived there for a year, I too have a couple anecdotes to share.  First things first, though - must pass "props" to Lauren...so, here's the link to the original post that inspired me:

How Bourgeois: That Time I Had to Eat Pureed Monkfish Liver and Two More Appetizing Recipes

OK - here we go!  The "Uma-Boshi" story.....

The Japanese have some amazing culinary treats, and one of the favorites of "gaijin" (foreigners) like me is ume-boshi.  NOTE:  that is ume-boshi, which is a pickled plum.  It literally translates to "plum balls" (ume is plum and boshi is ball {you can probably see where this story is heading. huh?}).   This yummy snack is somewhat akin to sweet gherkin pickles - tart enough to make your cheeks pucker, but with a sweet aftertaste that causes INTENSE cravings.  Ume-boshi are highly addictive.  They come in Costco-sized glass jars that'll last you about a week if your addiction isn't completely at crack-level yet.  Seriously, there needs to be a recovery group for this stuff.  I can see it now..."Hi, I am Denise...and I am an ume-boshi addict.....(Hi, Denise!)."

Back to our story.  One of my co-gaijin at our school had the addiction pretty bad.  I don't know if she has come clean about this yet, so let's just call her "Jane," shall we?  Jane went to the fridge to get another crack-ball out of the glass jar and it's...(GASP!)...empty, so she jumped on her bike and pedaled down to the nearest grocery store (which, in Japan, is on every corner).  She rushed into the store, found the nearest clerk, and asked in her best 1st year Japanese, "Uma boshi wa doko desu ka?" Which, of course, she thought meant "Where are the pickled plums?"  Except......Jane said uma, not ume.  Ume is plum.....uma is horse.  I will let you do the translation.

Yep, she was thoroughly embarrassed. Once the clerk got the "OMG-you-ridiculous-gaijin-do-you-know-what-you-just-asked-me?" look off of his face, he politely directed Jane to the pickled plums.

And...The Joy of (eating) Squid Ink story..... 

This one's pretty much to the point.  Spaghetti made with squid ink.  Ewwww! It tastes like....well...spaghetti dipped in pen ink.  Thick, textury pen ink.

Maybe I am just not an exotic food fan. I mean, I feel the same way about caviar and avocadoes.  But come on....really??  There are restaurants in Japan that are solely dedicated to this one gross adventure.  Think about that - every single person in the restaurant, talking, laughing, eating and drinking, with these blackened teeth and tongues. Yuck. Actually, kinda funny too!  We laughed at each other so hard we cried!  It was a fun experience, but truly, truly gross.  ;-)  Hmm...I have just had a minor epiphany - since the Japanese have a great sense of self-deprecating humor, maybe that is the draw of it?

Now that's  attractive!

{Silver} Fox on the run...

Update - As I was writing this post, I was simultaneously continuing my internet quest for silver fox advice, and looky looky what I found:

 How Bourgeois - "Going grey? Hooray!"

I love this chick; she is so cool and her hair is just gorgeous, exactly what I am aiming to achieve.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday:

Lately, I have been scouring beauty magazines, pinterest boards and celebrity websites, searching for a solution to an age old problem hardly unique to little ole moi.  Just this morning I spent over an hour looking through a tangled internet nest for my particular silver egg.  That bird just wouldn't sit, it seems.  I still have no idea, short of Jamie Lee Curtis-ing my long red hair, how to gracefully transition into the inevitable.  I have grey hair and plenty of it, so I want to "go grey" and escape the hair color whirlpool in which I am starting to drown.  Am I ready for this?  No clue, just yet.

Okay - time for you all to just curb the eye-rolling and "oh please" groaning.  This is a very big deal!  I am the mother of a preschooler and I have twice already been called her "grandma".  S..M..H!!  How much worse will this get when I silver fox the locks?  I live in a rural town of about 5,000 where, I kid you not, the average age of a middle school mom hovers somewhere around 30.  When Charlie starts the 6th grade, I will be 52. There goes that bell curve.  Yikes.  Perhaps hardest of all for me to swallow, I got my first grey hair in the fall of my freshman year in college, when I was barely 18.  The same month the Berlin Wall came down.  That was 25 years ago.   I still remember the very moment.  Not when the wall came down, oh no...when I saw that grey hair in my right temple.  My priorities were then and perhaps still are pretty well (un)balanced, don't you think (insert my hardly contained smirks and snickers now)?

Please, dear readers (including two of my own former hairstylists and some great friends who are color professionals), allow me this one guilty obsession.  The truth is, I am neither afraid of the aging process nor interested in unsuccessfully struggling to maintain a look that no longer works for me.  It is just that I really, really like my hair color.  It has hovered somewhere between a shade of auburn that appears sun kissed in the summer and a lush mahogany/brunette in the winter, for the better part of the last 17 years.  When people would ask me if the color was natural, I would always answer, "yes it is, but with a little enhancement!"  I would usually either lighten it a little or add dimensional high and low lights.  They always pulled a little red, so even when I went darker I had very pretty auburn glints within the layers.  However, this last year has been a hair color disaster.  I am now grey enough that my hair feels much more coarse and wiry.   I have tried blonding it up, going (way too) red, adding more low lights and one overall color effect that I termed "the zebra".  Not attractive, no, not in the least.  All the while, the greys just keep on appearing, marching in a tiny but clearly visible line from my forehead to my crown like albino ants heading off into follicle oblivion.  My temples are almost solid white, now, and any colorist worth their salt will warn of the risks of those hairs over processing, causing one to look a little too much like a certain fast food clown.  Been there, suffered that.  To make matters worse, we are on a well that has some nasty mineral deposits that can cause my hair to look and feel like sunburnt straw.  At this very moment, I have tricolor hair, and not in the beautiful multi-dimensional-looks-like-she-was-born-that-way hair. Nope, my current color looks more like candy corn, with a top inch of blonde that didn't fully process over the grey, followed by red that was so intense I had to strip it out and it is still noticeable, followed finally by a horizontal line of highlights and lowlights that would probably look fine on me, for about the first week following a professional service.  Then the troop of albino ants again repeat their march.  On Monday, I have my first appointment with another new stylist (the fifth in two years) and I feel as if I am going to an oncologist, only to get the "bad news" I already know - this particular case of greycell follinoma is incurable and the prognosis for remission is not at all looking good.

My Goal: 

From this.....

                            
Desperate for help, I have started googling "grey hair at 40," "going from red hair to grey," "going grey gracefully," and a plethora of other particular phrases that all essentially mean "I give, hair."  I found one very interesting blog in the process -

I am ready to give in to the beauty of age.  Even if this grey is premature for a 42 year old.  Even if I have a two year old who I do not want mistaken for my grandchild.  Even if I am living the life of most women half my age (especially for that reason, because I am not half my age and I am proud of that fact).  I am a wonderful mother and wife, and that is in large part due to my life experiences.  I am calmer, wiser.  I am more capable & confident to "be the change" I want, as well as to stand up & embrace within me the kind of woman I desire my own daughter to be one day.  I celebrate my next life journey! If that is really true, really true, then it shouldn't affect me to consider going short and letting the grey come in completely

...to this

natural, right?  But you know what?  I just don't agree with that notion.  Not yet, anyhow.  I have gotten my feet wet, even stepped into the pool up to my knees.  But I don't know if I am fully prepared to take the plunge. Maybe I will be, come Monday...

Music moves my soul

I am not writing this blog to change the world.  I simply want to share my thoughts and emotions.  It is cathartic for me and I need the mental outlet.  While it may be a selfish motivation, I honestly believe I can help others, and if I can give even one person out there in this great big world some hope, humor, or diversion then I have achieved something worthwhile (and maybe I have affected a change anyhow).

So this post falls under the "I am a music nut and think you should be, too" category.   Music has such power, you know?  If I am down, I can turn something great on Pandora radio and be uplifted in a matter of minutes.  I love sitting here in my reclining chair, typing away all of my stresses and swaying a little while Howie Day tells me, "I somehow find you and I collide..."  I adore most '70s and '80s hip hop, arena rock, and new wave music.  However, I can so get into a good jazz or bluegrass tune as well.  And, yes, I do admit it...I just love love love disco and country (even some of the older cheesy stuff, like Whose bed have your boots been under? My humble apologies, Shania, for calling your work "cheesy." But, really?  Who chooses such a dumb title for a song?!)

Pandora radio is such fun!  To date, my fave stations I've created include Enya, David Wilcox, PM Dawn, Little Big Town, Steve Miller, Robert Plant, The Cure, The Ocean Blue, Blue October.  Now I need your help. I am getting stuck in a "Pandora rut," where the same songs are starting to come up over and over.  I started listening to Spectrum Radio on Sirius XM and I have come across some new (to me) bands that are just amazing.  Lorde, Adele and Birds of Tokyo are the first musicians that pop in my head.

So, can you please help out a music junkie?  I need a serious fix.  Post a comment below, with one or two of your favorite "new finds" in the world of great music.  Please do not share any musicians that regularly use vulgar or explicit language.  I love great harmony, lilting tunes, fantastic drums or guitar, and anything that sounds like it was written for the healing of heart.  The songs that bring tears to your eyes and chills on your neck.  I can't wait to see what some of you share!  If you cannot share below, post a comment on Facebook.