Co-op News
From "Maple Street Co-op News", April/May 2008

"Women Who Refuse to Dye!"
By Lori Sturtz

Grey hair is experiencing a comeback after being hidden away for decades with hair dyes. Droves of baby boomers are going grey and doing it with style and grace. Diana Lewis Jewell is the author of Going Grey, Looking Great! The Modern Woman's Guide to Unfading Glory (Fireside, 2004). She's a former Vogue marketing director, and says that the baby boomer generation "always wanted to be ourselves." She cites a poll commissioned by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), that showed that 47 per cent of women and 94 per cent of men in America are not dyeing their hair.

Recently, I read an article called "Grey is the New Black" (Weekend Australian Magazine). It was an excerpt from a book by Anne Kreamer called Going Grey: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood and Authenticity along the Way. While doing research for the book she spoke to numerous people about grey hair. Her silver-haired friend Ellen said going grey was liberating, and she also paraphrased Sigmund Freud's idea of id, ego and superego.
Ellen said that we all have three faces: what we actually look like (id), what we think we look like (ego) and what we think others think we look like (superego). For Ellen, living authentically is an exercise in trying to exist as little as possible in the realm where we are concerned about what we think others think we look like.

Kreamer also said that for her, quitting alcohol and hair dyeing followed oddly similar paths. With both she had to face up to her fears and anxieties, and spend time seriously thinking about how she wanted to live her life. Quitting hair colouring was more public and not as hard as quitting the booze, but she said the decision to not dye her hair was much scarier.

While the number of women going back to their roots is on the rise, there is still widespread resistance from older women to give up the dye. In an article she wrote for Time magazine (31 August, 2007) Kreamer stated that many women are afraid to go grey out of fear of losing their jobs as well as their youth. She said that there are now 16 female US Senators (the most ever) and not one has visible grey hair even though they range in age from 46 to 74! According to Kreamer, professionals working in politics say this double standard is a great inequity between the sexes that remains unspoken due to the fear of seeming trivial. It's ironic that feminism has allowed women to hold powerful jobs, but at the same time many of these women feel that grey hair would result in them losing these very powerful roles.

Anne Kreamer decided to make herself a guinea pig for her book. She posted a photo of herself with grey hair on the internet dating website, Match.com, and then three months later a photo of herself with dyed brown hair. She was completely surprised at the results. Among Match.com members in New York, Chicago and (shock, horror!) Los Angeles, three times as many men wanted to date the grey-haired Anne.

Kreamer also quotes 60-year-old Emmylou Harris (grey since her 30s): "We're all enticed by the physical. That's just biology. But we all know that we are looking for someone to accept us and celebrate us for who we are. Who wants to put on an act 24 hours a day?"

The Co-op takes a stand on hair dyes While on the subject of hair dyes, Maple Street Co-op has decided to discontinue stocking our two hair dye ranges (not including our natural henna range). This decision was made after we conducted research into the chemicals contained in these dyes. The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) from Oxford University states that some of these chemicals are toxic or harmful to humans and also may cause long-term damage to the environment. We decided it would be hypocritical to be selling organic food alongside hair colours that could damage the environment.

Just a few of the listed chemicals are: 4-chlororesorcin, harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin; o-phenylenediamine, toxic if swallowed and harmful if inhaled or absorbed through the skin, very toxic to aquatic organisms and may cause long-term environmental damage. They also contain propylene glycol, which may be harmful if ingested, inhaled or if it touches the skin. These hair dyes purport to have less of these chemicals than other hair dyes, however the Co-op does not want to be responsible for any amount of such chemicals polluting our environment. Very few natural food shops will take this stand, and so we thought we needed to explain why we have. Maleny is the perfect place to go grey with grace. I am almost looking forward to my first grey hair!

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", April/May 2008; published by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au, website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]