Drastic dye: making the decision to go grey

There’s a silver lining in choosing to go grey, discovers Ralph Jones
Ralph Jones6 June 2019

‘What you’re doing is really extreme,’ says Josh Wood, hair colourist to the stars, as he surveys my bleached head.

Correct. I’ve never done anything remotely interesting with my hair but today I’m having all the brown stripped out and turning it grey.

My wife and I are about to have our first baby, so I thought that before the stress of fatherhood turns me grey, I would get in there and do it myself. We’re also on the cusp of buying a house and I’m two months off 30; soon to become a boring grown-up, in other words. What better moment to do something reckless and potentially regrettable?

More women seem to be dying their hair silver, and I’ve always thought the colour looked great on them. But Wood, who was grey by the age of 30, says that in the UK there is something of a taboo around men’s hair colour. ‘We only ever really talk about it when it’s gone wrong,’ he says. ‘It has stopped men from experimenting and trying things.’

At Wood’s salon, which counts Amal Clooney among its clientele, I’m looked after by Mads and Saffy. The longest I’ve ever been at a hairdresser’s is about an hour; I’m about to be here for more than four. ‘How are you with pain?’ Mads asks. Not great, I think. ‘Not bad,’ I say as they begin applying the bleach, which burns a bit. I’d describe this stage as Probably Too Late To Turn Back.

Ralph awaits his transformation

The pair stand either side of me and cover my head in strips of foil, using them to help incubate the first layer of bleach with which they are coating the ends of my hair. I’m then left for 30 minutes under a hooded dryer to eat a warm muffin and read Tatler. The dryer opens the cuticles and enables the bleach to take to the hair more quickly. My first glimpse of my hair, 50 per cent bleach blonde but still dark brown in the middle, is an interesting experience. I look like someone who auditioned for a boy band but was told he looked a bit too strange. My hair is then shampooed and conditioned, dried, coated again in bleach and left for five minutes. At this point it is unequivocally blonde and I look like a drawing of Draco Malfoy done by someone who can’t quite remember what Draco Malfoy looks like.

Then it’s time for the grey. Mads and Saffy apply the colour using a darker shade at the root. The colour is a graphite grey, ‘grey that’s got darkness in it’, in Wood’s words. One darker application, another dry and I’m ready for my close-up. It’s a shock. Obviously. And my hair makes me look like I’m in shock. But once I’ve run my hands through it, I realise I love it. It looks good and my wife decides she likes it as well. I’m six months younger than her but now look 35 years older.

I’m a little nervous about revealing it in all-male environments but, as Wood says, times are changing: men are starting to experiment with hair dye and consequently less likely to take the piss. When I see some friends at a comedy show, one is transfixed by it. He loves it, but it’s a confused love, as though he’s just clapped eyes on a unicorn on a bicycle. The next day I visit my neighbour so that she can witness a signature. It takes her a moment to realise who I am, at which point she says, ‘Oh my God,’ as though I am her long-lost son back from the war.

I’ve loved going grey; it’s taught me to be less afraid of change. Let’s hope the baby isn’t terrified by it. If it’s a glimpse into my future, I don’t mind it at all. Move aside, Phillip Schofield. There’s a new silver fox in town.

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