To Dye or Not to Dye: A 30 Year Old Guy Battles Grey Hair

It used to be that worrying about one's appearance was a strictly female enterprise. These days, the paradigm has shifted, and this has placed men in an interesting position. We are post Queer Eye and the metrosexual revolution, where gay dudes taught us that we could manscape and spend $80 for shirts, yet a little of the sagging and plumping that accompanies normal male aging is still considered distinguished, even sexy, by a certain segment of the female population.

These parallel lines of reasoning presented me with a quandary when I noticed my first grey hair earlier this year. The tipping point in favor of action came when one of my company’s interns referred to me as “sir.” Sir! While ideally she would have referred to me as the “cool guy who is going to come over later and tear through me like a tornado in a Texas trailer park,” any vulgarity or profane adjective that comes to mind would have been far preferable to sir, a designation she probably reserved for old men of her father’s generation.

My initial plan to combat the grey involved plucking them out with tweezers I bought at the local supermarket after telling the cashier a long winded story about how my girlfriend needed them because they caused her less irritation than traditional waxing. Having procured the tweezers, and befuddled the cashier, I would spend fifteen minutes every week in front of a mirror searching for and removing any grey hairs I could find. Although I did this alone, I began feeling somewhat self conscious, and mentioned this weekly ritual to my doctor. His response was, “I wouldn’t worry. My wife does that.”

After having been completely emasculated by my doctor, along with his wife, I stopped plucking and decided to explore the world of over the counter dyes. I went to the drug store with my friend “Irish” Patrick for support. Irish was 29, had a similar issue, and was considering the possibility of splitting a bottle of Just For Men. We have different hair colors, as mine is black, and his is brown, but we figured we might be able to get a shade in the middle, saving ourselves some cash in the process.

The selection we encountered was staggering. Everywhere you looked there was a box adorned with a rugged guy enjoying the freedom and confidence his newly invigorated coif provided. In spite of this initial optimism, things went downhill fairly quickly. Irish and I couldn’t agree on an intermediate shade, and then all of the products I saw for my hair color featured black guys with beards and jheri curls. Twenty minutes later we would leave the store empty handed.

So that’s where I'm at right now. On a theoretical level, I believe that human beings should age naturally, without the use of artificial means to preserve an image that is hollow and vain. On a more practical level, I like dating 21 year old girls, which means my battle against grey hair will continue.

[Just For Men] [Metrosexual] [Manscaping] [Jheri Curl] [Queer Eye] [Grey Hair] [Richard Gere]