I’ve written a few uplifting/poignant/maudlin posts over the past few weeks. Now I have to let out the snark because it’s been backing up on me and seeping out of my pores in a most unsavory manner.
Today’s rant is about this product:
You’ve no doubt seen commercials or ads for this stuff. Men can use this dye to get rid of most of the grey (I prefer this spelling, I don’t care how it’s spelled on the package) in their hair, to give them that distinguished look. Because if you get rid of all the grey, you might not be taken seriously. And if you have too much grey, you probably won’t get a lot of hot young tail. Touch of Gray gives you that happy medium—the look that says, “I’ve been around the block a few times but I’m not too old for another few laps, if you know what I’m saying.”
You’ve also no doubt noticed that there’s no Touch of Gray for women. That will never fly. They’d have to call it a Touch of Hag. Maybe they could market it to women who are tired of getting hit on all the time or who want to be taken more seriously at their jobs.
Because grey isn’t usually considered hot on chicks. You don’t hear a lot of women say they don’t mind the greys around their temples. Sure, there are women who have no qualms about letting their greys show—some even flaunt them. But they’re the exceptions that prove the rule.
Yours truly has been going grey since she was 18. If I don’t touch up my roots regularly, I get that white/grey halo effect that really isn’t attractive on anyone who hasn’t been beatified by the Catholic church. If I went all grey, I’d probably look something like this:
On the other hand, men who are all grey fare much better. Look at these smokin’ hot Silver Foxes:
One might argue that I’ve bought into society’s beliefs about what’s attractive/not attractive on women. It’s true, I probably have. I’ll probably keep coloring my hair until I’m too lazy or just don’t care anymore.
Maybe that’s when Touch of Hag would come in handy: when you want to look like you’ve been flying on the broomstick for a while but aren’t too old for a few more rides. If you know what I’m saying.
Fear No Weebles 
I seriously thought I was going bald one day then I realized I’m just so grey it looks that way when my roots are growing in. Hahahaha!
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I’ve had that experience too—unnerving, isn’t it?
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You know, I get very upset about some of the hypocrisy and double-standards in today’s world. Curiously, however, I have no problem with the grey women = old/ grey dudes = distinguished double standards. Seems fine to me.
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You’re an honest guy, Smak. It’s oddly refreshing. And refreshingly odd.
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Haha! Funny post, Weebs. I’d be fully grey if not for my monthly dye jobs. Touch of Hag might be a nice transitioning tool for those of us who have a few more broomstick rides in us! haha!
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That’s what I was thinking too, Grippy—a nice transition tool for when you’re not quite ready to throw in the towel. 😉
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My laughter fills up the comment box!
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Was that you? I thought I heard laughing. Mystery solved!
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I’d like to comment on my good fortune to not have found any gray hairs yet, but as soon as I say that, I’ll sprout one. And we all know what comes after the gray head hairs: gray eyebrows, gray chin hair, gray…
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Ah, so you’re one of Them. Good thing I like you. Although if it’s any consolation, my experience has been that everything else doesn’t grey quite as quickly. I still have my natural eyebrow color, etc.
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Well, that’s good to know. What I lack for in gray hairs I make up for in morning creakiness.
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My genes = gray beginning in early 30s. I definitely color my hair. But I keep it to a shade very close to my pre-gray days. Yes, it’s a double standard, and I hate buying into those. But when I see women my age who don’t cover the gray, the reality is—they look a lot older than I do. And I’m not ready for that. I don’t feel it. I don’t want to look it. But no nips or tucks for vanity’s sake!
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I feel you, JM. Very few women I’ve met can get away with grey without looking a little old and washed out. I hate that I’ve bought into it too, but there it is. So I’m not ready for the natural look either. Just had my roots touched up this week, in fact.
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There must be something in the atmosphere – snark and “grey” hair were very much on my mind recently 😉
I recall when my mom retired and decided that she could no longer afford the salon version of beauty. The grow-off period took FOREVER and she looked like Pepe La Pew. I decided then and there that I would not ever toy with the stuff…although there are times when looking like Mark Harman’s (BTW my husband bares an uncanny likeness to, particularly the hair) older sister does have me staring at “that” aisle in Target 😦
Sometimes the pressure of built up snark just NEEDS to be released…glad you using it for good and not evil 😉
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Your hub looks like Mark Harmon? Lucky you!
I would imagine the growing-out phase of going from dyed to grey would be pretty horrific unless you did it by going increasingly lighter first before stopping the color. That’s a lot of effort. I guess it’s worth it if you don’t want to look like Pepe le Pew, though. 🙂
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This is so funny, MW and sooooo true. Touch of Hag. It’ll be a relief to get there I guess (stop the touching up the roots thing — its really exhausting, you know)? Few women can pull it off — you see a few though — entirely grey or platinum and it looks good. I don’t get it. I like your snarky, it’s very funny and I do know what you’re saying. 😉
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I guess it depends on the color of your grey/white as well as the color of your skin. if you have just the right combo, it works really nicely. I’m pretty fair skinned as it is, so if I went entirely grey I’d probably just look like I lost several pints of blood.
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my genetics started the gray around my 25th birthday. and it came in quickly. by the time i was 30? it was taking over. i sort of liked it in my long, dark brown hair, and since it was heaviest up front, i sort of had skunk stripes… but by 35? it was too much. so i had my hair stylist start doing a ‘reverse frost’. cost more than a box of chemicals at the drug store would cost to do it, but she kept some of the gray in, and kept the skunk stripe up front…
when i hit forty? “Fuck it. Cover this shit up.”
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You had skunk stripes? Could you be any cooler?
But I can see how they’d require some serious maintenance. I’d probably have just said “Fuck it” too.
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I’ve never understood these commercials, especially the one with the cop. “This isn’t you……..it’s an older guy!!!” No….you’re an idiot. I started going grey around 24 and just turned 30 this year. I was in the habit of using Just for Men on my beard, cause the grey in it kicked it into overdrive a couple of years ago. I’ve decided no more.
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Good for you, Brother Jon. The grey works on guys. Own it!
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Touch of Hag. I like it. It kind of has a “don’t mess with me because I’m old and crazy” ring to it, which is the message I want to send to the world on the day before I get my period. =)
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You speak the truth, sister. Amen and hallelujah.
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I look like touch of hag until I get tired of it and colour my hair which is one of my least favourite things in the world – someday I am going to cut off all my hair and just see what happens
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God speed, homefront—I don’t think I could ever be that brave. But coloring my hair is one of my least favorite things too (and I don’t even do it myself!) so I completely understand.
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I like the Touch Of Hag joke… and I will tell you I am sporting almost a full head of silver hair and I am not that old. I said feck it and did not color . I am too lazy to keep up with it. I cannot even begin to tell you the freaking comments I get— “oh but your face is so young” OHHHH you are so BRAVE not to color your hair” I even had some old bag ask me what tramatic event in my life caused my hair and my husbands hair to go so white so young??? and then she asked me if I had offspring and if they were horrifed at their fate??
Anyways… I am more salt than pepper and fecking proud of it. and sadly my husband looks alot sexier than me with it. ha ha
Come on ladies be brave and be bold.. screw the color
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Rock it, unfettered! You’re my new heroine. Even though I’m still not crazy about your baseball allegiance, you’re my new heroine.
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well the yankees are kicking butt and the Sox are sucking it up big time….
Let your hair go.. free yourself :0) My family call me the snow miser.. that is what my hair looks like– wild and free baby
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NICE.
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Touch of Hag is both snarky and true M. Weebles. I’ve been so broke lately, I cannot afford to see my colorist until next month, a point in time when I’ll be upgraded to the deluxe edition of ToH, Hammered with Hag. When it comes to coloring my tresses I’m a weenie that would rather expose my gray roots than travel down the DIY dye job road. Possibly my fear is irrational, but sporting roots that look like some strange brown stripe circling my head is even more mortifying than revealing my crown of gray. If shaving my head would not give the impression that I’m a cancer patient, I’d seriously consider that option.
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You’re so funny, LA, you really are. I’ve done the DIY thing and it’s not awful, but it does make an unholy mess of the bathroom. I’ve seriously considered just wearing a doo-rag when my roots are showing but it’s just too freaking hot right now.
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When I was young and a real blonde, I still bleached my hair because I didn’t think it was blonde enough. The roots touch-ups were bad, but the real fiery pain from the bleach was what finally made me decide to stop coloring my hair. It was the only time I said the rosary straight through..and very loudly. So now I’m in my 60s and the blonde is almost all gone and the silver has come in. I’m lucky, it’s not gray, it’s silver and it looks good. I figure I deserve this, since I also have chin hair and a wattle and wings on my upper arms…hmmm, and there might be the title of my next blog;-)
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So you’re a Silver Fox! I envy you. Yes, bleach can really do a number on your scalp, I remember those days too. Before I had a lot of visible grey, I used to bleach just the front of my hair (it was the 80s, don’t judge) and once I left it on too long. That wasn’t fun.
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Silver, yes. Fox? Not quite. Not even in the running anymore. And almost too old to care;-)
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Thanx for stopping by my site and buying a ticket for a ride on the silly train. I’ve seen your comments here and there, most noticably to WLITH, but have not before, visited your site, a soon-to-be-rectified oversight. At 68 I have the totally silver male double-standard. Like you, at least I don’t frighten small children.
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Welcome! And thank you for stopping by—it’s always nice to have a visit from a Silver Fox. Yeah, I don’t usually frighten kids—unless I really want to, that is.
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Great post. I think you are right that it would probably have to be called a ‘touch of hag’. Like you I started going grey at an early age….. a few years ago I let my inner grey hag come out and have her way with my hair for a good 6 months or so. I’ve returned now to dying it again after being stunned by the amount of people who assumed that I must have been going through some sort of mid-life crisis to allow myself to go grey. Yet if I were a guy it wouldn’t have mattered in the least. No one would have assumed anything about my hair going grey other than the fact that I’m aging. What a sad and silly sexist world we still live in.
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Good to see you, seventhvoice! I admire you for letting out the inner hag at all—I haven’t had the guts to do it even though sometimes it’s tempting. It really is a shame that guys can get away with going grey while we just look haggard. Not fair.
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I would totally buy Touch of Hag, just to screw with people and because (mostly – I say mostly because I do bathe and get dressed properly before leaving the house) I don’t care what people think of how I look. Oddly enough, that picture you have is of my great, great, great grandmother, so I’ve no doubt it’s what I’d look like if I let the grey take over.
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What say you and I go grey together and go on outings to scare people, meizac?
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That sounds like a wonderful plan.
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I’ve been finding white hairs since I was twenty-four years old. (Actually, my older sister noticed first and couldn’t wait to point them out.) Most of the time I pretend the hairs are blonde. Sometimes I color it. I can’t seem to decide. I’ve pretty much stopped wearing the color grey though since wearing grey seems to emphasize it. 😦
I also want to be a guy so that I can stop shaving my legs without the expense of going through laser. 😦 Men always say they like natural beauty, and they do until it’s hairy, grey, and wobbly. Sigh.
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I know, Lovely, it sucks. This is why I think that if there is some sort of God or Supreme Being, it’s male. Also, no female deity would have invented panty hose.
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But there again, if the place was created by some male Supreme Being toilet seats would naturally fall to the “up” position.
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I suppose that’s a good point. So I guess the Supreme Being is out to thwart us all equally.
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Or its neither male nor female?
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That’s the most likely scenario, yes. If you want to be all practical about it.
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Right there with you. You’re hilarious by the way.
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Why thank you, La La. You are too, you know.
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Backed up snark sounds painful…so glad you let ‘er rip! When I first discovered grey on my head, I was horrified, and for about a year I covered it. Then I realized that it was no fun to worry about roots – my hair grows FAST – so I decided to let it go back to natural before I had the halo effect to deal with. Now I just don’t notice it, and I figure if I don’t see it neither does anyone else! There was no “Touch of Hag” back then, so I had to just do it! Thanks for the chuckles – don’t let that snark back-up again! Just let it out! xoM
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And I feel so much better now, Margarita! My hair grows really fast too, but I’m just too vain to let it all hang out naturally. I salute you, ma’am!
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And I salute you right back for having the fortitude to persevere in assuaging your vanity! I just don’t have the patience! xoM
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I know I can always count on you for a good scientific explanation of things, Nigel.
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I find myself so offended by those commercials, not to mention all the hair dye and skin cream commercials for women. People need to get over it and grow old gracefully.
That said, I’m getting highlights on my next trip to the hairdresser, although it’s more to combat boring than grey.
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Purple, I completely agree–it would be very nice if I could just go grey gracefully and not worry about how it’s perceived. But I bought into it, so I’m paying the price too. I envy you being able to color your hair recreationally, rather than out of “necessity”!
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I’ve been lucky enough not to have to make the dye decision yet – I’m just starting a “blonde” streak at the front and the rest of the grey is sprinkled evenly enough that it’s not too noticeable.
Which is probably a good thing because I’m too lazy to do anything about it… or so I say now. But hey, I might consider a touch-up if it got me a ride on the right broomstick. If you know what I’m saying…
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LOL on your broomstick comment!
You’re lucky to have a “blonde” streak—I wish mine had grown in more artfully but instead it was just giant globs of grey all over the place. Meh.
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Touch of Hag – that was too funny, Weebles! My husband used the touch of grey one time on his mustache and scraggly chin hair (man can’t grow a beard) He came outta the bathroom and it was BLUE-black! It was soo dark it looked like he’d been wallowing around in some perm. black pen ink or something. We went to the swimming pool and I had to mess with him..I said, “psst…hey, baby, you know the chemicals in the chlorine will turn your mustache green, right?” I never seen the man get out of the pool so quick. Every time somebody would say…”hhmmm.. you look kinda different today..” I would bust out laughing. He came home and shaved it off and threw the box in the trash.
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Now THAT must have been fun, messing with the hub on that one! Poor guy. He learned his lesson well, didn’t he!
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you crack me up. After a week at the beach I think my grey highlights are more prevalent than usual. I guess this and getting to pee standing up are two pretty sweet things about being a dude.
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Sure, rub it in, Simon. But welcome back anyway.
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I am so glad to hear that I am not the only one who started sporting the gray hag look at an early age (27). I tell my mom that I have greys and she will have absolutely none of it, which I guess I can’t blame her for. Nothing makes you feel older than knowing that your CHILD has grey hair.
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Hi there, Waiting, and welcome!! I’m very happy to have you here! I feel your pain about the early greying. It’s not fair. My mother didn’t have the same reaction as yours did, but that’s probably because I inherited the premature greying from her. So I come from a long line of women who color their hair at a very early age. Meanwhile your hair looks lovely in your Gravatar photo. 🙂
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I don’t think Roger Stirling needs a touch of grey. I had never noticed the difference in the spelling of Grey / Gray before, and I have lived in the US for over two years now. Me pointing out that Americans cannot spell doesn’t go down well.
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No, Roger is doing quite well in the hair department as is. I only noticed the difference in spelling when I lived in England and I saw that it was always spelled with an “e” there. And likewise, I discovered that pointing out that English people put unnecessary “u”s in words didn’t go down well either…
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What can I say my hair really does say “I’ve been around the block a few times but I’m not too old for another few laps, if you know what I’m saying.”
Or is that my tattoo?
I think I may have to photoshop a picture/logo of “Touch of Hag” and paste it on my sister’s favorite hair touch up. I should probably book my flight first… 🙂
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If it’s your tattoo that says that, I hope it’s in shorthand because that’s one heck of a lot of words.
That’s an awesome idea, doing some photoshopping for your sister’s hair color. That’s good humor there.
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I hope she agrees 🙂
I have that tattoo on my lower back – for when I have to crawl under the sink to do plumbing while wearing low risers 😀
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That’s good. I like to have something to read while I’m staring.
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🙂
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hmmm and I thought it was for putting gray in…
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It does sound like that’s what the product should be used for, based on the name, doesn’t it, Carla? Also, welcome! 🙂
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A friend of mine convinced me to stop dying my hair a year ago. He said he liked the gray in my hair. AND then proceeded to tell me one day that the glare from the gray was keeping the mosquitoes away…. the fucking jerk.
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Karma will pay him back big time, mark my words.
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eh…. he’s been bald since he was 20, I don’t think it will be the Hair Karma Fairy that gets him. 😉
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My first gray hair was at sixteen, I have dyed my hair for many years with a short one year stint where I started to go natural but was not ready for white, This year at 64 I am going natural forever- kind of like quitting smoking that last time. Fortunately I live in a town where many woman my age and younger have gone natural – female silver foxes live and thrive.
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You go, mountainmae! When I get too tired of coloring my hair, I’m moving to your town. 🙂
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I have grey/white hair, and I am a strong advocate for a women’s right to go grey and look older without being scorned by those who look at her. Women will be saddled with the double standard of ‘men look hot’ ‘women do not’ if they don’t break the mindset that surrounds women and grey hair. Wouldn’t you think that if women really wanted to be equal to men, they would quit demeaning themselves because their hair is getting grey or they look older?
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You’re right, Margie, and kudos to you. But I must confess that I’m not quite ready for going natural myself, as much as I dislike the double standard. I realize I’m helping to perpetuate the problem, but I also know that it will take a LOT to break that mindset because it’s wrapped up in so much. There are too many things that women are judged on in a different way than men are—hair color, age, weight, grooming habits, etc. Real-life experience doesn’t seem to be making much of a dent in those beliefs just yet. For instance, most women aren’t model thin—far from it. Yet the belief persists that thin is the only thing that’s attractive, even though as individuals we know that’s not true. So it’s complicated, and I admire you for your stand.
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Recognizing the issues is an important first step. The next step comes to those who choose to be free and equal. Not every women will dare to take that step, which is fine too.
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True, it all has to start somewhere. Although women have dared to let their skin age without plastic surgery, gain weight, etc, for years, and that hasn’t reduced the amount of prejudice against them. So we have a long way to go in many areas.
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HAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh my, I have tears in my eyes… Brilliant!
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Thanks SSG!! 😀
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Laughing too hard to comment rationally.
I am *rushing* towards ‘hag-touched’ myself… and it’s wonderful.
You crack me up!
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Garsh, thank you, andi! 🙂
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Seriously – it’s such a double standard! I don’t know if it was always this way, but the hair is such a crazy huge mark of femininity and it just bugs me because I’m too lazy to bother most of the time. I stick to weaves because my afro attracts jokes (which is my bad for bowing into the pressure) but I’ve been seriously thinking of going for a buzz cut. Balls to it!
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I hear you. I always wanted an afro when I was a kid, but that never happened because I was (and still am) a pasty white girl. I’m not sure why they would attract jokes because I think they’re awesome, but I can see why it would be safer just to stick with the weaves. Men have NO IDEA what us chicks go through.
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Thank you very much!! I’m not sure whether I’m this funny in real life. I’m pretty funny, but you’d really have to ask my husband (known here as Mr. Weebles), since he’s the poor bastard who has to endure me in 3D…
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The product under consideration frequently reduces the adults of our house to gales of laughter; the ads make it clear that they’re not quite sure how to flog something aimed at extremely vain men who are deeply insecure in their own masculinity, and that that’s EXACTLY who they’re aiming at.
Which does nothing about the cosmic unfairness of how the silvery strands of experience are viewed between one gender and the other.
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Cosmic unfairness indeed. Mr. Weebles and I both have many silvery strands of experience (I love that phrase, by the way). And yet mine aren’t treasured by society in quite the same way that his are.
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Oh, Madame that is so funny! What a great (and very true!) post!
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Hi Z&G! I’m so glad you liked it! 🙂
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Try going bald, then you really WOULD have something to worry about. Grey hair isn’t a problem for anyone.
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So what you’re saying is, the humor was kind of lost on you here.
Also, Mr. Weebles would disagree with your assessment of baldness. He’s balding, utterly unconcerned about it, and I think it makes him look hot as hell. So there.
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