Irish Country Magazine‘s columnist has been dyeing her hair since she was a teenager but has made the swap to ‘grey blending’
Inside every issue of Irish Country Magazine, Muireann O’Connell shares witty, sharp and real commentary on the topics that intrigue her – from moving house to decision fatigue. Here, she shares her decades-long journey of dyeing her grey hair.
When I was 15 I had a bizarre experience. I was walking down a corridor in school when about six or seven of my friends pounced and pinned me to the ground.
I hadn’t a notion of what was going on. All I heard was, “Got it,” as my mate jumped off me and into the air like Rocky when he manages to run up some steps. She and the girls had come together in the pursuit of one goal. To pluck a lone grey hair out of my head that pointed to the sky as though it was a cheap replica of The Spire.
I had, of course, known that the grey hair was there. I was 15. I had spent the previous three years plucking my eyebrows into oblivion and bleaching a moustache that would have made Ted Lasso jealous. Being in a mixed school is not for the faint-hearted in the superficial stakes. I only had to see the thing when I was looking in the mirror, but for those who had to look at me, it was all they could see.
As I was getting myself up from the floor, I heard: “Pluck a grey hair and seven will grow in its place.” My friend had turned into Peig Sayers, doling out piseogs of misfortune in white-soled Dubarrys and a Lowe Alpine fleece. I’m not one for superstitions and she was totally wrong. It wasn’t seven hairs. It was more like 70,000.
I was at that point in my teenage life where if we weren’t box dyeing our hair on a Friday night, we were debating if Domestos would really do that much harm in the pursuit of Gwen Stefani’s Tragic Kingdom era hair.
I never really noticed that my hair follicles had fully decided to down tools and be done with the melanin because I hadn’t seen my real hair colour in years. By the time I realised, I was a college student who consistently only had six quid to spare at the end of every week. I ignored the situation by becoming a guinea pig for trainee hairdressers. I constantly had hair on the colour spectrum, somewhere between Barney the Dinosaur and a friendly goth. I didn’t care; it was free.
When I started working in TV, I was getting my hair done properly but sporadically. The first time I was presented with the bill for an all-over colour with hi-lites, low-lites, what-the-hell-are-lites-lites, I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach by a giant euro sign. You know that moment where you’ve forgotten to ask how much something is; you’re so taken aback by the eye-watering sum that you slap on a smile worthy of Miss Universe asking for world peace in a bikini and leave a 20 quid tip to make sure they don’t care that you’re about to cry.
Eventually, I was going to the hairdresser every nine days to cover up the grey. My head was itchy from the over-use of chemicals, my shoulders looked like you could ski off them with the dandruff and my hair had the texture of a Brillo pad. That’s when I heard the term “grey blending” and I thought it could be the answer to all my follicle problems.
Grey blending is exactly what you think – blending your grey hair with your normal hair. And sometimes you get to use the giant heat helmet that makes you feel like you’re in a soap saying, “Ta-ra duck”.
This might sound like an awful lot of effort and I can’t tell you the amount of people who say to me about embracing it and going fully grey. They are some of the exact same people who like to send me messages about how old I look when I am grey.
Having grey hair should be like having any other hair colour, but it’s not. When I let my greys fly, it’s like I’ve decided to wear a Big Bird costume to do the food shop. People try not to stare but their eyes are inevitably drawn to the top of my head.
Grey hair on men is “distinguished”. On women it’s regarded as a political, feminist statement when really, it’s just bloody hair! I’m as shallow as a puddle and if I liked how it looked on me, I would have broken up with my hairdresser years ago.
For now, I’m happy in this hybrid hair world. My one piece of advice, though, having managed the greys for as long as I have? Never trust a teenager with a tweezers. No good can come of it.
