When 2022 tastemaker Julia Fox attended the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards earlier this month, for once it wasn’t the barely there dress that grabbed the headlines. Instead, it was her hair, which was dyed an unmistakable shade of oyster gray.
Fox commented on the look of the event. “This is a love letter to getting old,” she said. The actor and model is 32 years old.
Fox is not the only young woman to adopt this hair color. Ariana Grande experimented with the hue in 2018 when she was 27, while Zosia Mamet (34), Jade Thirlwall (29) and Winnie Harlow (28) have also been seen sporting the gray look. Men have also gotten involved, with US defender Sergiño Dest sporting gray hair in Qatar during this year’s World Cup.
“I think the term ‘gray hair’ still connotes aging,” says Jacqueline Kilikita, assistant beauty director at Refinery29. “But words like ‘oyster,’ ‘pearl blonde,’ etc., are taking what is essentially gray hair and giving it a flashy new name. Perhaps these names are making gray hairs colder or more accepted.”
It’s a trend that’s taking off beyond celebs, specifically, as Kilikita says, in this shade of oyster gray (sometimes also called silver gray). The hashtag #silvergreyhair has 1.9 million views on TikTok, with much of the content geared towards younger creators. Salons like Rush, Blue Tit, and Bleach are also reporting an increase in requests for the color.
Why do the younger generations adopt a hair color so associated with age? The contrast between a youthful face and gray hair could be seen as a visual trick or a bit of swagger, or it could be that your goal is to “speed up” the aging process so it’s less noticeable later on. Or, perhaps, we could actually be at the beginning of a shift in social norms around the symbolism of gray hair.
“As winter quickly approaches, the trend will become even more popular,” predicts Seung Ki Baek, a member of Rush’s art team. “We started noticing this trend in the summer season, but as the weather gets colder, many of us are looking to cool down our hair color.”
The singer Ariana Grande takes care of her silvery gray hair. Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
As Ki Baek implies, gray hair for this younger demographic is an aesthetic choice, rather than an inevitability to accept or cover up, and a departure from previous conversations around gray hair. When actors like Helen Mirren (77) and Andie McDowell (64) appeared on the red carpet with gray hair earlier this year, it was seen as empowering older women, who reject the idea that to be beautiful you also have to be. young man. McDowell called the look “badass,” echoing the sentiment of the social media hashtag #greyhairdontcare.
To some extent, the movement of older women embracing gray hair has also pushed back on comments from Fox and a TikTok where she complained about anti-aging labels on beauty products, proclaiming: “Getting old is fucking attractive. It’s hot. Carol McGiffin, host of Loose Women, said: “It started off good because she said it was about the product, and then she just said, ‘Getting old is cool, getting old is hot.’ Has 30 years! Tell me that when you’re 62, love.”
Actor and model Ocean Navarro views color as an aesthetic choice. The 26-year-old prefers an oyster gray shade and dyed her hair for the first time this color in 2018. “I love how it brings out my features, and it’s such a chic color that goes well with my skin tone,” she says. Navarro says that he grew up wanting gray or silver hair. In fact, he says, “I’m genuinely excited for the day I’m like my dad, who’s all white and grey.”
Oyster gray, done right, has a different, almost otherworldly quality that feels a far cry from ordinary or garden gray. “It flashes bright silver tones, like an oyster shell, and it’s really mesmerizing,” says Ki Baek.
Seniors who accept gray hair are encouraged to use treatments and masks to ensure their hair looks its best. But achieving this color with dye is an even more time-consuming and high-maintenance process, especially for those with naturally dark locks, who will sometimes need to lighten their hair multiple times before applying the gray color.
Ki Baek says that gray balayage styles, where the oyster gray color is painted into sections of hair and blended into the natural color, are also popular with those who are just starting to go gray. “It’s the perfect color that allows you to blend or embrace your natural gray hair,” agrees Kilikita.
Ki Baek believes that the combination of younger generations experimenting with oyster gray and older people embracing natural shades can only be a good thing for an age-diverse idea of beauty. “Grey hair is now considered trendy and cool,” she says. “Older men and women sporting this hair color are no longer seen as ‘old.’ Instead, they are seen as elegant.”
Source: news.google.com