In the center of our beige sofa sits a dark patch where my big noggin rests. The crime scene outline of a scalp, it is the exact color my natural hair would be if it still had any. And it is impervious to any and all cleaning products known to mankind.
Beige sofas are supposed to be neutral, forgiving, the Switzerland of upholstery. Mine has chosen sides, documenting the truth. It is a forensic archive of my vanity.
Every two months—I even set a calendar reminder—I carefully cover my shower walls in clear curtains, like Dexter preparing to exact retribution, to prevent my cranium shoe polish from permanently staining the plastic tub any more than it already has.
This is a kill room for my dignity.
I can tell you, a perfect stranger, yet I must lie to my friends about how not gray I’m going.
Gray hair is a notification from the manufacturer. It reads: “Your warranty is expiring soon.” When I found my first one at age 32, I Googled, “life expectancy for someone with gray hair.” (OK, I Yahooed it.)
Gray hair is the final evolutionary step before: 1. Telling the same story twice; 2. Commenting on how much gas costs; 3. Forgetting why you brought a ladder up from the garage and 4. Clapping when the plane lands.
My temples caved first, then the front, then everywhere until I found myself judging how old I looked in every reflective surface—windows, car mirrors, the microwave door.
The Steven Seagal Mistake
My hair color ambition began modestly: keep things realistic. Tone down the gray, maintain the illusion of continuity from 10 years ago. Like it says on the dye box.
But there is no “slightly” in the hair-coloring game. Once you commit, there is only escalation or surrender. I’m afraid I am now barreling down the express lane toward the old man face beneath the young man mop … the uncanny valley of male grooming … the Steven Seagal mistake.
Yet I can’t stop. Nowadays, if I go any longer than eight weeks without dyeing my hair, I’m wearing a white yarmulke.
People pretend not to notice the anachronism of my Just For Men medium-brown hair. They are kind, polite. They say things like, “You look rested” or, “Did you get a haircut?” These are the male grooming equivalent of “thoughts and prayers.”
Dye Hard
There is a moment every eight weeks when I consider stopping. When I imagine letting the gray come in, embracing the salt and pepper like a man who has made peace with time. I picture myself looking wise, distinguished, maybe even rugged.
OK, never rugged.
At the 2021 Golden Globes, Ben Stiller became my idol. He walked out onstage with a full, sudden head of old.
“Finally got around to dyeing my hair gray,” he joked.
I wish I had the luxury of Stiller’s career—and his money—to be that comfortable with my unaltered physical appearance. But as a struggling freelance writer, I must compete for story assignments with people young enough to have actual favorite Ice Spice songs and no idea who Ben Stiller is.
I tried the most popular anti-grey supplement called catalase. It claimed to break down the hydrogen peroxide that is the sole cause of gray hair. And marketing materials never lie.
It worked beautifully … to remove $30 a month from my bank account for two years. According to actual science, oral catalase is broken down in digestion, and no clinical trials show it either reaching hair follicles or reversing gray.
Hair color, I learned, comes from tiny overworked painters called melanocytes, tucked inside each follicle. They coat every strand with two pigments: eumelanin (brown-to-black) and pheomelanin (red-yellow). When those melanocytes start dying off, the pigment supply dwindles.
A little melanin left? You get gray. Bottom of melanin tank? A snow bank. And once a melanocyte dies, it’s about as likely to come back as your 2008 waistline.
What determines your melanocyte situation? Stress gets blamed a lot—cue the presidential election before and after photos—but the science is mixed. Stress might speed things up, or it might just make you notice the grays you already had.
The real heavyweight champion is genetics. If your parents grayed early, your follicles probably filed the same paperwork.
Color Me Hopeful
Maybe one day I’ll stop all this dyeing and live. Maybe one day I’ll let the gray win. Maybe one day I’ll sit on that sofa and leave no mark at all. But today is not that day.
Today, the dye is mixed, the sheeting is hung, and the kill room will endure another round.
The sofa will just have to deal.
