Grey/ Gray Hair Freedom

Hi friends, it's nicole scott from the gorgeous gray movement - and i want to thank you so much for tuning in to hear another silver sister story. We have sue here from canada. You can find her on instagram at the silver titanium life and i will put her um handle down below, so you can follow her. Thank you sue for being here. Thank you thanks for having me so take a look at her hair like hello. She is totally embracing this. This beautiful and i love the white. I love the contrast um, but we want to dive in the first question that we always love to hear is. Why did you decide to do something? That'S so radical in a world where we're supposed to cover up our grades and um and and look a certain way uh to the world. What what made you decide to just pull the trigger and say: let's ditch the die? Well, to be honest, i've been thinking about it for a few years, and i had, i would say, maybe five or six years ago had gone into the grocery store, and i saw this woman with gorgeous silver hair checking out and, of course, this is all pre-coveted. So i went right up to her and said you know, i love your hair, it's beautiful and she didn't say to me: you should do this um. The only thing she said to me is you're going to love the freedom, and that was it. That'S all. She said to me, and i was like okay great and i left and honestly that stuck with me for the next few years, while i kept going every four weeks to cover the roots, you know trying to mascara the root cover up like all the stuff. You need to use, and then, when i turned 48 so that was two years ago i had decided okay, this is it like i'm done with the maintenance, my hair was starting to thin um because i'm getting older too. I wasn't. You know. I have issues with my health, so um, i have celiac disease, so i'm always very aware of my health. Now more than ever, and i thought i need to stop dyeing my hair like this, this isn't working. So i stopped dyeing my hair in the summer of 2019 and then eight weeks later, i was leaving for australia for a work exchange for three weeks and they were going to do photos and video, and i thought oh, my gosh. I i have to dye my hair, and i did i cracked, so i dyed my hair and then i couldn't get back. I couldn't get back to to stop dying it again until coveted hit, and then i was home and i just decided. I listened to a podcast with you in it uh you were, you were in the podcast and i listened to your story and i thought this is it like. This is the time i literally came home. I was walking the dog while i listened to the podcast. Came home and said to my husband: i'm not dyeing my hair anymore and he was okay like he had known. I was thinking about it, but i literally said that's it. So i think that was the middle of may of 2020 and um. I just haven't. That'S it i haven't dyed it. I haven't put anything in it. Just cold turkey. I love it cold, turkey. I tell the women that that's so badass because i thought about going to cold turkey, but i just didn't. Have the bravery like you did so congratulations on that um! So what um have you learned in this process of allowing that beautiful natural hair color, because most women will say it becomes so much bigger than just stitching the dye? So what did you kind of learn in that unfolding and obviously you're still learning as you go out to the world because i guarantee you get looks yeah yeah, oh for sure, and i noticed i think the hardest time was those first three months when the roots Are like you know like this big and uh people are wondering like? Oh, she just isn't dyeing her hair because it's coveted um, so i could feel people looking at me now. I definitely see people looking at me with this half and half granbray look going. Oh she's really not dying her hair anymore, um, so yeah - i i don't know it's just this amazing transformation of. Why didn't i do this sooner? This feels much more like who i'm supposed to be right now and sure if my hair was still naturally brown. I'D be thrilled, i'd be happy, but it's not anymore, because that's not the person that i am anymore. I'Ve raised two children, i mean you know, they're still growing up and i you know raised two children been married for um many many years and i'm not the person i was then this is who i am now. So all these all this silver climbing out, is kind of uh a testament to this second half of my life, this new person that i'm becoming oh, i love that and when you go out to the world, did you feel the need to have to cover up For the first little bit um, no, i never did. I do love hats, so i you know luckily, in the winter in canada, you're constantly wearing a hat, so that helps but um. No, i once i decided i decided this. Is it like? If - and you know you i kind of put on a little bit of armor every time, i'd go out to think okay. If someone says this, this is what i'm going to say. Like you know, i kind of prepared myself for maybe some comments, because you think you're gon na get a lot of them and yes, people do notice, and i i do feel that people are looking. But i have yet to have someone say to me in public. Oh, you should. Why have you stopped dyeing your hair? You should dye your hair, like no one has said that to me in the past 13 months or 12 months, not one person, so i'm sure they're wondering my family's been great. Um everybody's been super supportive and i work with a lot of women um, because i i visit sites and in the beginning they would say so. Are you really doing this and i'd say yep, i'm really doing this, and then they were fine. It was just a oh okay, great, so all the negative comments. I thought that i was going to get. They never happened. Awesome you mentioned about celiac um, you know, so there was kind of like your background in like knowing that you needed to treat your body. Well, did you ever think that you would do it for the health of it um, letting like letting the gray come in, because you wanted to be either healthier or not? Put like that much chemicals on? Did you make that connection at all? I didn't in the beginning, so in the beginning it was more around the maintenance of constantly covering the roots and really saying to myself. Who am i doing this for like if i'm doing this for everybody else, this doesn't make sense and then the more listening and research that i did the more. I realized that this was really unhealthy for my body for my hair because i have celiac disease, i'm i have it's an autoimmune disorder, so i'm already at risk for a whole bunch of other things. My nails become more brittle. You know muscle pain, joint pain, even if i avoid the gluten, those things are still present. So in the last eight and a half years, i've had to really buckle down on making sure i eat as clean as possible. I'M not very good at it all the time. Nobody really can be um, but i you know, eat really well. I think this was kind of like one of the last steps of you need to let this go now, and i remember listening to you in that podcast and you were saying how you had gone gray, ditched the dye and how you felt better, and i thought I have to try this like what, if i feel better, because this time last year, i wasn't feeling great - i i didn't have the energy i didn't have stamina. There was some things that just didn't feel good and i thought i have to do this because what? If this is one of the reasons, what if this is one of the things and yes kobe's been really hard and the lockdowns have been difficult, but i feel fantastic physically. I feel fantastic sure, there's days where everybody gets down because of what's going on, but i've been exercising consistently i'm eating better. I gave up caffeine, i gave up alcohol and i feel wonderful, so wow. I love how you kind of really did the deep dive, because i mean it's a big. You know we have layers, we have layers as women and we show up the way that we think the world wants us to show up right and then, when we start to debunk that and redefine who we are, and for you like. Knowing that, like your health, was, you know a priority, i just love how you just took those steps, you know and and it's baby steps for a lot of us, like you know, for some of us like in my book i talk about, like you know, i Thought i did all these wonderful things for my health, but then you know the lumps and my breasts and like well. Where else am i avoiding it right and so, like you, i was like okay, so how about, if i get rid of the dye, how about? If i get rid of the alcohol, how about, if i bring more awareness to oh yeah, making sure i'm not drinking out of plastic, because we can get lazy me from you - know lazy of the plastics coming in from my teenagers, because they you know get these Deals on these plastic bottles and they think they're so cool from you know that brand name company and it's plastic and they're convenient and you go for a workout and you put your water. You know it's just those little things right that start to add up. So i love that you are feeling good in your body and that this was you know one of the last things, and i it typically is one of the last things um when i was interviewing the owner of the green beaver company, uh ellen and for the Last 20 years, um allen has been going around canada to all the different trade shows talking to thousands and thousands and thousands of women, and he said the the last two things that typically women are not willing to give up until it's like bam, wake-up call or Bam you know, health crisis is he's like deodorant, you know and hair dye yep and i thought wow that was really interesting. Now this one thank gosh for um, i'm going to say well kobit, because i don't think i've worn deodorant in a year. Oh, thank goodness soon you can't smell. Thank goodness, there's not like a smell button on zoom. That'S all i'm gon na say thank goodness for that um. So that's a good win for us women is. We don't need deodorant, if you're sitting in front of zoom all day right, um and then for this there's so many stories of women, just like yourself. That just said that this was the push that they needed to just try it on right, yeah. Well, i think you know the the natural deodorant thing. I went a few years back. My uh, a good friend of mine, owns a clean, kiss lifestyle and she developed natural deodorant, so i'm hooked, um and so that process started the natural products. All of that uh. You know i transitioned to this really was one of the last steps. There'S still a few more things that i want to work on with regards to you know: eating less animal protein and, like you know, just micro little steps along the way yeah, because i think, if you do it all at once, um it's a little crazy and, Yes, cold, turkey seems really drastic, but this is almost 13 months of growth, so it you know it doesn't look like this right away. You start to transition and get used to it. Yeah, and i i did say in the beginning. I was supposed to go to a wedding this month. Of course it's not happening now, so i did think, oh, maybe by april i'll blend it in then, because i'll have this wedding, and i don't know if i want to go this was a year ago. I don't know if i want to go like this um now if the wedding was happening. I would totally go like this because this is who i am like. If you don't like it, i'm really sorry, but this is me so um, but in the beginning i thought i would blend it and now i really don't feel the reason to it needs to be cut so once the salons reopen. I do need to get a good trim, but i don't think i'm going to blend the color out. I think i'm really enjoying the process. I love it. I would not touch it. I would not touch your beautiful hair and for those women that are listening going to watch this later is cold. Turkey, i know in the beginning, seems so drastic, but one you're going to save yourself a lot of money, you're going to save yourself a lot of time in the chair because take it from me, 10 months before i did full transition with help of the hairdresser. I did add it up about twenty five hundred dollars is what i spent in ten months um, because i had very dark hair like you, and if you do it all at once, you risk of losing half of your hair. I saw that video, so i was like nope not going to do that, but they said give it 10 months to keep on slowly going through the color wheel to get to a place where then we can put the you know the silver, the gray to match. You know that 10 month and that's what i did. I grew it out to about 10 months, kept on shading it shading it shading it and then matched it and guess what ladies you listen to this clearly, because i never got warned right within about a week. It didn't match okay, then it was like. Oh, i need to go back and tone it and then i need to go back and tone it and i need to go back and turn it. And at that point, when i found out that i was going to have to go back every couple weeks to tone it, i'm, like my whole point of doing this was one to get rid of the chemicals and two to stay away from the hairdresser. So i would say at 10 months then i went cold turkey. Then i was like i was done. I'M gon na i looked. I had pukey yellows and oranges and it like so don't like. Don'T do that don't go through what i did i'm glad. I went through that because i could write about it and share about it with you guys to save you money time and to look at her cool look of like that. Ombre that's going on, which is so cool. Well, when i read your book, i think you talked about that in your book and i was you know listening to that, i'm going okay, i don't think i want to do that and the whole reason. One of the reasons i also want to stop was i wanted my hair to get thicker because it was getting thinner and i thought, if i put more chemicals in it, i'm probably going to burn it further right, and it was at a point where i would Dye, my hair, and it would look great the first time the first week and then all of a sudden the ends would look all frazzled and - and i thought this - my hair is not healthy anymore - it might be brown, it's not gray, but it's it's not healthy. So now i can feel the health of it um and yeah. I'M just gon na keep letting it go and just trim it as often as i need to, and then eventually hopefully by you know the summer or fall it'll, be all all silver we'll see. That'S awesome and do you feel that your your natural hair that's coming in is, do you feel it's healthier and is it getting thicker? Oh yeah, i used to have um. I might post it one day on my page, but i had when i would put my hair in a ponytail. I would have like gaps here and they've that now have filled in with with um new growth, and i and that used to bother me too, because i put my hair in a ponytail and it would be like this reddish brown and then you'd see these like Dent like gaps in them - and i thought okay, this. What is what is happening right, i'm getting a receding hairline, which that happens, but yeah is it if it's because i'm dyeing my hair, then this makes no sense i need to. I need to really reconsider that and i i know the the worst fear is you know it's? I won't. It won't look like that on me or i'm gon na look old or if i took all my hair and put it in a hat right now, and you couldn't see my hair. My face would look exactly the same right. So this is the age that i am. This is what i look like at 49.8 um. You know this. This is me, so we get really wrapped up in that stigma. That gray means old and i work with i work with young children, so i was in the playground one day and one of the children i was in the playground. All i hear in the background is grandma grandma and i'm like. Oh no she's, not calling me and sure enough. I turn around and she's talking to me, she's going grandma and i'm like oh sweetie, like i'm, not your grandma right and i'm thinking it starts that young, where children are associating with you know, gray hair with you must be a grandma. You must be an older woman, so i mean i laughed it off because she was three like you know: she's precious. She doesn't. You know she's not trying to hurt my feelings or offend me, but i thought it starts that that early, where we associate that and i think all the silver sisters, all the women out there who are doing this are really trying to change that narrative. To say you can be in your 20s, you can be in your 30s, 40s 50s. It doesn't matter. This is who you are now embrace it. So true, and it starts, i think, with um. You know the magazines i entered um, the tangled silver um this week and so she's got the magazine out, which is, i think, the first silver magazine which is so inspiring. I'M going to be interviewing um, the maker and um filmmaker of um gray is the new blonde. I'M gon na be i'm interviewing her later this afternoon, and i it's just getting the message out. I think books we need to. Actually, you know when, when books are written in stories for kids, that the young mom in her 20s or 30s can show, with it, um even tv um, there's a film um maker, uh and she's from canada right um she's from where did she from grand prairie? I think she's north north and on the great white north, i think the great the gray, but she did great instead of great great yeah, tana, so she's an actress right um. I interviewed her so that was really cool because she's like again going into a whole new area where you know. Typically, you should look 10 years younger than what they want to cast you. She said so if you're 40, you should look 30. right, and so here she is, you know, leaning in and she's, getting rolls she's getting rolls. So i'm like this is amazing. You know what starts with this movement, and i want to thank you so much for being part of this movement and being brave of the being brave and getting your story out there. Is there any last um final words that you want to say to our amazing silver, sisterhood or women that are just sitting here going? I want to do it, i want to do it, but what should i do? Well, i think the first thing is: try it because you can always if it. If it's not going to work for you, you don't it's not a one. Try and that's it you're done right. You can always try it and if you're not ready, you don't have to continue, but if you stick with it past those first, i think three or four months you start to see what your pattern is going to look like, because i thought i would be this Silver, all over and i'm not i'm this silver like here and then it's darker in the back. So it's this very unique pattern. That'S only mine, i know there's other sisters who are similar to me. I think yours is quite similar a little bit darker in the back, but this is my salt and pepper. Look and i really started to fall in love with it, but you have to try it in order to at least get to the point where you you can you feel you can embrace it and all the negative comments you think you are going to get are Probably not going to happen, i have to dismiss internet trolls. We have to just put them into a different category because they do that for different reasons. Um, but even that i haven't had a lot of negative comments. I don't even respond to them. They'Re, a waste of my time, awesome, absolutely yeah, great advice. So, thank you so much sue for sharing your heart and your great tips and tricks uh for more of these inspiring stories. You want to make sure to tune in to the youtube channel, gorgeous gray movement and again follow suit at the silver, titanium life and uh yeah. If you are thinking about it, this is your opportunity to just follow the ones that have gone before you and uh and lean in awesome. Thanks for the interview have a great thanks so much. Thank you. You