# Graying hair versus coloring



## TX-SC (Aug 25, 2015)

I'm a 47 year old married man. Right now I have sort of salt and pepper graying in my sideburns. I realize my wife is the only one I need to impress, but in general, do women find salt and pepper graying as a major turnoff? Or, is dyeing (Just for Men, etc.) more of a turnoff?


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## tropicalbeachiwish (Jun 1, 2016)

Be natural. I like the salt and pepper look. 

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## heartbroken50 (Aug 9, 2016)

I know it's a double standard, since I color my grays, but I like the salt and pepper look on most men...it shows he's confident and experienced which is sexy.


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## peacem (Oct 25, 2014)

I genuinely love my H's greys. He has a salt and pepper beard too - hot! Step away from the dye.


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## 23cm (Dec 3, 2016)

Been dying my beard (head shaved) for a year now and it's taken 15 years off perceived age. Can't use Just for Men. Grizzly Mountain Beard Dye is all natural and looks natural--unlike Just for Men. I get it from Amazon.

My opinion: I don't feel that old so why should I look that old. BTW I'm 70.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

I love salt and pepper and also straight up silver fox white!

I don't love hair color on men.

Perhaps if I had ever seen a job done that looked good, I may think twice...but somehow it just doesn't look right, like ever.

I believe the reason is that since a man's hair is typically very short, and since the roots of our hair grows out very quickly, so say your hair is just over two inches long at the longest part, about 1/3 of this total length will be gray or white again within 2 weeks of coloring your hair. So now you've got hair that is perpetually half white and half colored. It only looks totally colored for less than a week after doing it.

This is the same problem for women, but since our hair is typically longer, we can get away with some root growth for a little bit longer as it tends to get hidden under longer hair. But within 3 weeks (I'm guessing is typical) a woman who has mostly white hair and is coloring it a dark or darkish color will have nearly an inch of new root growth, all of which is white again. And those roots glow through your longer hair eventually and you can't hide them, thus having to get a root job or full color every 3 weeks or so.

This period of time when you have white roots is much harsher on a man's hair, it just looks terrible. It doesn't look great on women's hair either, but better for a short while.

I actually have a whole bride of Frankenstein level of white streaks going on in my hair, along with a lot of steely gray. I actually like my hair in its natural gray state, but all of my friends and kids have convinced me that it just ages me so drastically that they want me to color my hair. Ok, fine, they won.

I was coloring it dark, back to my natural brunette at first...but I gave up trying to fight those stupid constant growing white roots. It was just unmanageable and too damn much work. For me it was at least weekly root jobs and frequent full color jobs. I have long hair...and you either do it yourself, which is a hassle, a huge mess, and can take 90 minutes or more, or you go to a shop and pay quite heavily for this every week and then also at least once a month. It ends up consuming your life.

So I started messing around with the color myself, and with bleach. I'm pretty good at this from experimentation in my teens with my hair and anyone else's hair who would let me try stuff on them. Eventually I ended up with pink bangs and my bride of Frankenstein side streaks are pink, too. The rest of my hair is my natural brunette color, though it is from a bottle still. My roots still grow out fast as usual, but being white next to the pink hair color, they don't tend to glow as much and are somewhat hidden. I don't have to do a root job very often.

This suits me and I love my pink hair. It does still require a heck of a lot of work, but I can do it all myself, and now I go in to a shop only when I feel like being lazy and not doing it myself. I've learned hacks for clean up and other processes when doing a non-natural hair color and now I've got a good routine down. People constantly ask me where I've had it done because it is really cool and looks like a professional job. Where I live, there are lots of people with wild colored hair so it isn't that unusual, but mine is still a rockin' fabulous job in a sea of wild colored hair.

I could appreciate a non-natural color job on a white haired guy if it was done right. But that's quite a leap and not everyone could pull it off, or ever want to.


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## Red Sonja (Sep 8, 2012)

There is a reason for all the "silver fox" sites on the internet ... just sayin'.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*That's a rather easy choice to make:

"Stay with the gray!"*


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## 225985 (Dec 29, 2015)

tropicalbeachiwish said:


> Be natural. I like the salt and pepper look.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk




My wife said that. 

I think she just wants me to look old to keep the other women away.


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## Lila (May 30, 2014)

I too like the salt and pepper hair on men. I think a stylish haircut makes a bigger impact on perceived age than the gray. I also think a clean shaven face makes men look younger. 

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## Lostme (Nov 14, 2014)

I love my H's grays, he looks distinguished.


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## lucy999 (Sep 28, 2014)

Salt n peppa all the way!!!!!!! So handsome and distinguished.


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## TX-SC (Aug 25, 2015)

Thanks everyone! All of you pretty much agree that I shouldn't mess with it. I'm going to go with that. My wife agrees.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

Constable Odo (now 52) had some grey when we first met. He is a natural auburn/blonde. His beard has gone much more grey in the last few years but now his hair is greying more. I tease that his red is disappearing, but I actually find the color changes make him quite handsome. He's asked if there is truly "no play for Mr. Grey," and I've told him several times he's not allowed to dye his hair!


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## GTdad (Aug 15, 2011)

54, and my beard is greying a lot more quickly than my hair.

I figure I've earned every grey hair I have.


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

My SO has salt and pepper hair, and a beard that is greying even faster than his hair. It was like that when we met and fell in love, so I don't really tend to notice it to be honest. That's just his hair and beard color. It's him, the him I fell in love with. I find him attractive and sexy and distinguished looking just as he is - otherwise I wouldn't have started a relationship with him. 

Honestly, from old photographs I know he was a handsome man before his hair started going grey, but I find him incredibly appealing just as he is now. I think I'd be pretty freaked out if he were to start coloring his hair or beard.


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

Just make sure the carpet matches the drapes ... :surprise:

Funny enough I have maybe one or two gray hairs on my head but my beard is littered with gray hairs everywhere.


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## notmyrealname4 (Apr 9, 2014)

My answer is that colored hair looks way better than gray hair; for men and women. Gray hair definitely makes us all look much older---no doubt about that.

But for some reason, it looks weird when men obviously dye their gray hair.


Maybe it's cultural; we're sort of conditioned to think that men shouldn't be concerned about gray hair----that it's vain, or effete in some way????


That's my two part answer. But from the other responses, it seems like most women do like gray hair.


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## heartsbeating (May 2, 2011)

My husband's hair is somewhat long for the corporate world. For a while there was a solitary long white hair. Now it's accompanied with a few others. He says 'It's good, isn't it..' He says it's all his wisdom coming to surface. I like discovering the changes in him.

For myself though, I prefer to conceal my wisdom with shades of brunette. 

Enjoy your wisdom, TX-SC.


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

I have gray at my temples and am 65 years old. It makes me look distinguished. In some countries, men and women are dying their hair grey. I used coloring at first but it was a pain to do and really did not do a good job of covering all the gray so I let it be.


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