hair dye — Econesting — Ronnie Citron-Fink

A couple of years ago, I decided to grow out my chemically-dyed hair. I work in the environmental health field and I was worried about the potential toxicity of the chemicals in hair dye. But I was also concerned about how going gray would affect my identity, my beauty. For me, like many women, hair dye was “the magic elixir.” Coloring my hair helped me feel youthful. During the transition to silver, I discovered that ditching hair dye also meant confronting strongly held cultural beliefs, some of them so ingrained I was barely aware of them: beliefs about beauty, choice, aging, and femininity. It also meant flouting beauty gurus, the media, decades of powerful and seductive advertising, my girlfriends, even the expectations of men in my life.

Through the lens of my new hair story, I wrote TRUE ROOTS as a guide to the complexities of environmental health and revelatory beauty for women of all ages.

Island Press is publishing TRUE ROOTS and it will be out June, 2019. Please stay tuned for excerpts and events. Here’s the first one:

It’s available for preorder at Amazon, IndieBooks, Barnes and Noble and my wonderful local bookstore, Oblong Books.

swirl2 A Trend.

"Take any girl in her twenties and then check back in with her 20, 30 or 40 years later. I guarantee that you will see a stronger, smarter, better version of that woman later in her life." ~ The Prime Book

Stronger, smarter, better...

Resonates, doesn’t it?

A Pushback.

Many of you know I decided to grow out my long, dark chemically-dyed hair. All transitioned now, it is a flowy silver mane. I love it. Yet, for decades I dyed my hair the color of coal. In fact, one of the main chemicals in my old hair dye, PPD, para-Phenylenediamine, is derived from coal tar!

The Green Divas invited me to write about the roots of our obsession here: 3 Questions About Hair Dye & 3 Reasons To Ditch It .

Now... my mother, my best friend and most of you color your hair. So believe me, I get it. The barrage of age-appropriate hair behaviors we ascribe to is a tough nut to crack, and no one wants to find themselves on a hairdresser’s hit list.

Speaking of hairdressers…

I chuckled reading about the flap on the other side of the pond between Sarah Harris, the feature fashion director at British Vogue, and Nicky Clark, “UK’s leading celebrity hairdresser.” Silver-haired Sarah responds with just the right fervor to Nicky’s urging the Duchess of Cambridge to cover her gray roots -- or else -- it will be a “disaster.”

Nicky: “Until you’re really old, you can’t be seen to have any gray hairs”

Sarah: “To cast such trite aspersions is like saying that women can’t have long hair the other side of 40, or that a 57-year-old man can’t have a blond, flowing, tinged (?), highlighted (?), backcombed (!) bouffant, whether they’re a celebrity hairdresser or otherwise."

A Change.

As we get older, women can defy the notion that we need surgical procedures to disguise ourselves into looking youthful. But when roadblocks present a picture to younger women that they better do something quick or else the ravages of time will surely take their toll, I am reminded of this,

“Each person must live their life as a model for others.” ~Rosa Parks

And that is why I wrote a rapid response to the recent TIME cover article, Nip. Tuck. Or Else: Why You’ll be Getting Cosmetic Procedures Even If You Don’t Really Want To? Here's my take on this trend:

Nip, Tuck…and What?

There’s a sea change in the way we see ourselves and are seen. While it may seem like we live in a culture that prizes youth above all, in the miles ahead we can renounce those who tell women to tuck up, cover up or shut up -- and become living proof that with age we are stronger, smarter, better.