Colm O'Regan: Will I dye another day — or embrace my 50 shades of grey?

"I understand why anyone would hang onto 'their' hair colour for as long as possible. To do the Liberace, with the hair of a 22-year-old and the face of a cliff face."

Mon, 14 Aug, 2023 - 02:00

Colm O'Regan

Columnist with the Irish Examiner.

Hanging a bathroom cabinet is rarely a moment of revelation. You’re generally not likely to gain a new perspective.

Unless... it’s a mirrored bathroom cabinet and you’re hanging it opposite another mirror and when you attach the door and it swings at a particular angle. And you are suddenly confronted with the sight of the back of your own head.

(And I wouldn’t mind, but I was quite pleased with myself for drilling successfully through tiles without cracking them: the carbide bit, the masking tape to avoid slipping, the sponge to cool the bit — I should have my own DIY YouTube channel.)

The back of my own head is a part of the world I try not to visit too often following BaldSpot-Gate. I nearly didn’t recognise it at first. Who’s the old fella examining the new bathroom cabinet with a sense of achievement?

Not even an owl can see the back of their own head they say. And for good reason. We’re not meant to.

It’s where the signs of ageing can continue in peace without us developing a neurosis.

But then all sorts of inventions happened: security cameras, changing room mirrors, the casual swinging of a bathroom cabinet door, which allowed us to see ourselves candidly as others see us.

There has been, as they say in all the best 200-page reports, a step-change and there are a number of grey areas. And, like the James Bond film, now is No Time To Dye.

But I get the impulse. It’s so cruel that we are bracketed so immediately by hair colour. Judgements are made. The grey marks you out as meaning you’re out of touch and no one thinks grey means wise these days.

I understand why anyone would hang onto 'their' hair colour for as long as possible. To do the Liberace, with the hair of a 22-year-old and the face of a cliff face.

It’s very tempting. I’m only writing this to stop myself from doing it.

It’s all very well for others to say 'Just let it go'

But hair is so personal. We don’t notice our faces so much. But we notice our hair.

Then there are the showbiz people who one day just go for it, often to the adulation or the relief of thousands of fans.

I hope he won’t mind me saying this but Marty Whelan is a classic example. My mother nearly wrote to him to congratulate him: “Well, FAIR PLAY to him for letting it go grey and it looks so DISTINGUISHED.”

It helps that he is one of the better-dressed men in the country.

Then it goes the other way. Young people dyeing their hair grey prematurely. This annoys me irrationally. Stop cosplaying my age!

Are you going to do the other stuff too? The woollen hamstrings, the two-can hangovers, the gentle grunt when exiting a chair? No, of course not.

A beard is a useful introduction to the realities of greying. Because the jaw is located largely at the front of the head, the beard lets you know good and early what time it is in your life.

I’m fascinated by the definitiveness of the pattern. Why does it always happen on the corner of the jaw, so that everyone looks like Roy Keane or Tommy Tiernan or former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after a while.

The advantage of the beard is that you can wipe years off yourself in one fell swoop by removing a mane of facial grey hair. That is short-lived though as you then look at your jawline and remember why you grew a beard in the first place.