Do you have a question about gray hair? Ask us! Photo courtesy of goodhousekeeping.com

We love mail!

A lot of you have reached out to us about growing out gray hair, and here at the Going Gray Blog we take your courage to make this step very seriously. From here on out, we thought it would be a good idea to highlight your questions (with your permission, of course!) and open them up to our readers. Last week, we received this message:

“Hi my name is Christy, and i know that i have salt and pepper gray under my dye job. I color it a medium golden brown; I’ve been coloring it for a long time. I’m now 53yrs old and curious, but I feel I will need to go to my hairdresser to make the transition because it will be something that makes me nervous. I used to go to my hairdresser and she would do my hair a medium blonde with highlights. It was pretty but i was getting tired of doing all that so now i do it one color myself at home, and i still have never seen my gray.. do you think i should try letting it grow out some and decide from there?”

- Christy

Thank you Christy for allowing us to share your question and we hope you know there are many others just like you thinking about the same thing. Feel free to chime in, and keep those questions coming!

Thoughts, anyone?

Gray is Gorgeous. Photo courtesy of Complete Woman Blog

Wanna show off your gorgeous gray hair?

Let us give you a chance to do so! We’ve been working on a special project for a while now that’s all about the gray movement. Like we said in our previous post, gray hair is all the rage—and we’ve got proof. Here’s your chance to inspire others and get in on the fun.

We’ve been collecting stories from women of all ages who have made the choice to go gray. There has been a nice mix of stories—from one woman who had her first gray at 14, to another who decided to keep her silver locks to honor someone special, and other tales of acceptance, courage and newfound confidence.

What’s your story? Shoot us an email at goinggray.ebook@gmail.com for a chance to be published in our eBook.

We’re very excited to hear from you!

Photo Courtesy of eHow.com

Everyone has their bad hair days. Whether it’s from sleeping with your hair wet, getting a bad perm, or growing out a nasty haircut–it happens, even to the best of us.

Check out Carol Holoboff’s piece on The Western News and find out how a bad dye job made her resolve to embrace the gray. Good luck Carol, we hope you’ll send us a picture of your new gray ‘do soon!

Any bad coloring experiences out there? Do tell.

Photo Courtesy of Obrag.org

Today is an extra special day at the Going Gray Blog headquarters because… we just turned two!

Here’s an excerpt from one of our favorite 2009 posts by Claire Douglass. Remember her beautiful painting?

"Venus Deleted" by Claire Douglass

“The whole process of revealing my ‘old lady’ hair has also been interesting. The reactions of other people have not always been predictable, and I’ve had to accept my own very visible maturity.

Whenever I am confronted with issues to resolve, I make art, so I want to share this painting with the readers of this blog. Because you’ll get it.”

Read the full post here.

So it’s our birthday and you want to get us something right? Great news! All we want this year is for you to…

1. Be a fan of our blog on Facebook

2. Follow us on Twitter

3. Re-Tweet this to your friends!

Thank you, dear readers, for making this blog what it is today. Keep coming back, we’ve got BIG plans for 2010.

Happy New Year to you all!

Photo Courtesy of MSNBC

How many of you out there are thinking about saying bye to the dye in 2010? We want to hear from you!

Tell us all about your decision and get the chance to be featured on this blog.

We’re also working on a very special Q&A post with a celebrity hairstylist (cross your fingers). Ditching the dye and don’t know where to start? Need suggestions for a gray makeover? Tried and tested gray hair care tips?  Send in your questions about going gray through the comment box and we’ll get our stylist to help you out.

We hope you enjoyed the white Christmas!

Happy Holidays from the GoingGrayBlog Team

“I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.”

- Peggy Goodrich

Read the rest of Peggy’s commentary here.

Well said.

My hair is gray, but I don’t consider it a badge of honor or any kind of social statement.  Its just gray.

Once upon a time my hair was a social statement.  I was raised in the army (Canadian). No hair on your head was allowed to be more than a quarter-inch long.  In those days, you could always spot the army brats because of the lack of hair.  Nowadays, they just look like skinheads.

When I finally left home I became a non-conformist and wore my hair long, just like all the other radical individualists. For almost fifteen years, my hair flopped and blew in the breeze.  Getting a professional haircut required a trip into town.  To get a really good one required a trip to the mainland, and when we did get off-island there were usually a lot more exciting things to do than get a haircut.

The residue of this life experience is that, to this day, my hair is usually too long.  And it’s gray.

Mainly, fussing with my hair is just not something I do.  If it wasn’t so much trouble I might have tried dyeing it, but then I would have to monitor and maintain it. Way too much trouble.

I must confess that a few years ago, I had a brief experiment with Grecian Formula.  Why, I don’t recall.  My only memory of it is that the foam burned my scalp and it needed to be done every day.  Can that!

Once in a very long while, I do get tempted to try some of the temporary hair color the kids use.  This would just be for a day or two, and just for fun.  Then shampoo it out and go back to the natural gray.  I would probably choose a brown or black color, but if I was going to a young party or a concert I might consider something in a fluorescent flavor.  Go big or go home!! But that would be just for play.

Here’s the biggest, secret reason for my having gray hair, though. My lady loves it!  For years she wanted a gray-haired guy.  Now she has one.  That makes her smile.  Am I going to mess with that?

Glenn is the author of Life Around 60 where he muses about turning 60 in October.

Help our voice get louder! Do you have a post on your blog that tackles the issues of going gray or would you like to be featured as a guest blogger?  Shoot us an e-mail at goinggray@goinggrayblog.com.  We will gladly link back to your site.

grey hairs

Originally uploaded by zenia

Posted at State of Grace:

“Intentionally going grey is one of my everyday feminist actions.    It’s my way of telling the beauty industry to *&^! off.  Yeah, yeah, I hear you out there – going grey without complaint and with full intention is also within the ethics and principles of most men, the Amish, exceptionally chic French women and Barbara Bush.  My deal is that I refuse to buy into yet another beauty trap.  I’m 51 years old!  I will go grey!  That’s the way it is, dude!  (Dude = Clairol, L’Oreal, Redken, Aveda, etc.)”

Help our voice get louder! Do you have a post on your blog that tackles the issues of going gray or would you like to be featured as a guest blogger?  Shoot us an e-mail at goinggray@goinggrayblog.com.  We will gladly link back to your site.