GREY IS THE NEW GREEN…

If someone says grey is green, we would assume the person to be either colour blind or insane. Grey and green are of course different colours. They signify different things which are poles apart. Grey means weak, old-age and ambiguity. In contrast green depicts strength, youthfulness and decisiveness. Green is now trending. It finds its place as a prefix in every other thing in the market. At the same time, grey is also a very common colour in nature, be it colour of animals, birds, and fishes. Being a neutral shade, it helps them blend with their surroundings and ensures their survival. It also compliments and gels well with almost any other colour. Despite its inherent benefits, we usually find awkward if someone dons grey hair. People become inquisitive about your biological age and why on earth you have left that damn grey thing undyed. This blog is an attempt to analyse the colour grey, specifically greying of our hair and how greying hair brings a new meaning to our lives.

Shades of grey

In fact our lives are never a clear road. Life has its share of roadblocks, uncertainties, randomness, shocks and surprises. In real life, choices we make decide the course of our lives. And one such choice is either we dye our hair to conceal premature greying of hair (on our head), to look much younger than we actually are and just to stick to the set standards of personal grooming, or not to dye our greying hair so as to accept our natural look, to not give a damn to the popular notion of grooming, and to engage is a meaningful way of self-love.

Science behind greying

It is a fact that the degree of black colour of our hair depends on the level of pigments in each strand of hair. And the level of pigment depends on a lot many factors, like – genetic disposition, physiology, lifestyle, and the aging process. The pigment production naturally slows down as we grow old, during our late thirties to early forties, giving our hair a greyish accent. This is also the point in our life when most of us begin to face some kind of health issues, which we usually refer to as ‘mid-life crisis.’ These are all natural processes which we all have to face as mortal beings as part of the natural process of entropy. And there is no need to think or worry over such matters. These issues in our life need to be tackled not with tailored cosmetic and quick fix approaches – like dying, over relying drugs and medical prescriptions, not modifying our lifestyle, not getting physically active, not switching to healthier diets, etc. Rather these issues need a more pragmatic approach of adopting an active lifestyle, eating the right diet (less of sugar, salt, fat and refined flour), socializing, pursuing a hobby and of course learning to manage stress and bodily pains on regular basis.

The beauty of greying

It is an irony that we have ended up learning a much skewed concept of beauty, thanks to the mainstream media and lately social media. It primarily focuses on skin and hair colour, cosmetic looks, and other physical attributes. We are constantly bombarded with visuals and promos which shows fake people donning fake smiles insisting us to use some cosmetics and chemicals only to look fake like them. We then end up buying and using those cosmetic chemicals, passing our hard earned bucks to some multinationals without realising harmful effect of those chemicals both on us and on our planet in the long run.

However, beauty is more than the sum of all such physical attributes. It includes our thoughts, attitude, interpersonal relations, manners and other subtle things within us. They remain undercover until one puts in some effort to appreciate those subtleties of a person. Good looks can be achieved with application of certain cosmetics and chemicals, but the beauty within us doesn’t need any cosmetic treatment. It remains with us till the very end and needs some nourishments through positive self-talk, self-love, reading books, pursuing a hobby, etc. There are people who adorn their natural look, like – grey hair, bald head, dark complexion, etc., and they still look so graceful and beautiful. Though we all understand this, we still fall prey to the idea of beauty as being portrayed by the celebrities and social media influencers.

Going grey promotes body positivity

People dye their hair either to enhance their style quotient or to counter the body shaming that we face every day due to our greying hair. Succumbing to body shaming is easy. We end up dying our hair as a quick fix approach to gel and feel accepted in the crowd. But, it takes some amount of courage to fight body shaming and say yes to greying hair. Greying hair in fact should not be seen as sign of physical weakness.

Going grey certainly promotes body positivity. We accept and appreciate our body with all its inadequacies, like – greying hair or loosing hair and going bald, or gaining or losing weight etc. Transition from body shaming to body positivity is elevating. The first step is acceptance, not denial. With acceptance we develop confidence and we learn to live with all bodily inadequacies and live a more meaningful life. Going grey also enhances the appeal as the unique grey colour helps one stand out in the crowd. At the same time, the person also choses to stand against the popular notion of grooming.

Benefit-cost analysis of going grey

There are many benefits of going grey with almost no cost at all. Looks apart it benefits us heath wise, moneywise and time wise. Going grey means we save ourselves from the hazardous exposure to dyes, the chemical composition of which is only known to the manufacturer. We also end up saving some bucks, since the price of chemical dyes depend on the brand. As we all know certain brands command a premium. The routine of dying our hair is tedious one and time consuming. The effort and time wasted in the process could have been put to some better use. Thus, going grey helps us achieve some degree of freedom and gain a level of self-confidence in the process. We have to play the long-term game and count the gains from grey hair. If we don’t dye, we age gracefully observing the grey accent of our hair changing from a darker shade to lighter one.

Grey is the new green. If we are youthful in our heart, body and mind, there is no need for some artificial means to assert our youthfulness. Youthfulness lies not in our physical attributes like the black colour of hair on our heads. Rather it lies in our body (physical strength), mind (mental agility) and soul (wellbeing).