To Dye, or Not to Dye? That Is the Question

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It began predictably enough: the first gray threads I found in my hair when I hit my thirties.  The threads soon turned to ribbons, but I had just had a baby (my second) and was in no shape to deal with it. Gray was interesting, I reasoned. Gray was subtle, intellectual and hip.  Soon enough the baby became a toddler and her older brother started kindergarten.  I woke up one morning and decided that the gray was not intellectual, not subtle and definitely not hip.  Gray was just—old.

I mounted my campaign.  First in my arsenal was a series of home treatments that took their inspiration from reruns of “I Love Lucy.” There was the Five Minute Color Solution. It worked all right; it just looked like I had looked like I dipped my head in large vat of shoe polish. I dumped it and moved on to various mousses and gels that stained the grout in my bathroom shower, more towels and pillowcases than I care to think about and left ominous drops, black as primordial ooze, on my dining room floor. Forget the do-it-yourself route. I needed professional help.