Fair warning: 15 min read on what’s stopping you from looking more youthful

Humans are creatures of habit. Some are more adaptable than others. This is why not every middle-aged woman realizes or accepts the fact that with her changing hair, her hair care habits need to adapt as well.

The novelty of white hair can be wavy, curly, coarse or all of the above, so to speak. The bottom line is our hair is not what it used to be. We need to adjust and transition to a different hair care regimen that will shed a few years of our appearance with every hairdresser’s visit. Otherwise, our crowning glory turns into an avid aging agent.

The biggest changes we see are, obviously,
1. the hair colour – caused by the reduced level of melanin (the colour pigment in our hair)
2. texture – dryness – caused by, obviously, the lack of moisture. The hair is dry to touch, hard to style, and brittle. While the common culprit may be sun exposure, (excessive) heat styling (without heat protector), smoking, you may also shampoo your hair too often, which doesn’t give your hair enough time to produce natural oils for your follicles to nurture them so hair may very well be starving due to too much care, so to speak.
or coarseness – caused by dryness
3. density – caused by poor nutrition, too much stress, lack of sleep, and, in part, DNA

Before we go into listing the mistakes and correcting them, let’s be clear on this: there is nothing wrong with the aging process and all signs that come with it. Not every woman gets a chance to even reach a hair graying age. The purpose of this blog post is to help those seeking solid advice on how NOT to look older than you are – hair edition.

(I myself used to make 3 of these 5 mistakes below so I empathize more that it may seem. I wrote every single line with love – and tongue in cheek.)

I know that your hair is a big part of your (visual) identity. Your form an attachment to it. The longer it is, the prouder you wear it but here is the truth: verticality in your face plays against younger looks. In addition, long hair takes away people’s focus from your face. They literally have to work their way up from your chest or your abdomen to your eyes, which doesn’t really help, especially in a professional environment. While it may work wonders in a dating/mating one, the question is: Where do you want people to look at first when they meet you?

Thinking that hair length automatically equal youthfulness is when the real middle-age hair trouble starts. Many women in their late 40s, 50s, even 60s, let their hair grow thinking that it will make them look younger, like it was in their thrilling days of yesteryear. The trouble is that the recent past was actually 10, 20, or 30 years ago. You don’t have the exact same face shape (Hello jowls!), the same facial features (Hello hooded eyelids!), the same eyebrows (Hello disappearing eyebrow hair!), you certainly do not have the same glowy-dewy skin, and you have more wrinkles, that are, coincidently, far more noticeable with very long hair.

However, there is no general rule about the correct hair length that applies to every middle-aged woman. Quite a few hair-lucky women maintain their silver mane well into their 60s. (Maintain being a key word.) Here is why: their hair follicles (sort of anchors in our skin that are responsible for hair colour, hair texture, and hair growth, among other hairy things) are still very strong thanks to the combination of their DNA, a balanced diet, low stress, instagram lifestyle etc.

Long thin hair ages you because it has less density. If you try to grow it long while perusing your yearbook, feeling inspired by your 17 year self, I would strongly suggest you to stop. It’s in the past. What is present is looking at you in the mirror right now. The present is reality. Face it, consult the most patient, experienced, and skilled hairdresser in town and pay them a visit. You won’t regret it.

The solution is simple: an even line where the hair is the thickest/strongest will turn you from frumpy to fabulous before you say bob. Just choose the right kind for you, because there are many different kinds of bob.

Long thick hair can add years to your appearance as well because everything on your face is going south – your eyebrows, your eyelids, your smile line, smile creases. A well cut chic bob, a pixie or a layered long hair can suddenly lift everything up and add volume to your face where it’s needed the most.

In truth, having just long hair has very little to do with you looking young-er once you reach middle age. A perfect flattering haircut that frames your face nicely does. Here is why:

Hair length determines the layering. If your hair is too long, the bottom layer will be too thin. As you already know, thin hair ages you. Conversely, the layers you may be currently sporting on your long hair are too short or imbalanced – too short layer(s) on the top and too long on the bottom. Let’s put the 80s behind us for good. It wasn’t the best decade for women’s hair.

When your hair length is passed your chest area, it is virtually impossible to create a flattering haircut, not to mention the one that would make you look youthful.

My husband, like many men (of his age) loves the idea of me being a woman with long hair. Men, too, find long hair more youthful, more attractive, or more feminine. However, men, unless they are hairdressers, have absolutely no idea about the upkeep of woman’s hair. They don’t see the knowledge, skill and labour required. They only see the minute hand move clockwise slowly on their left wrist in an already started car after they say: “Take as long as you need, honey.”

If you have such a partner at home, do what I did. I semi-secretly spent hours on Pinterest searching for what I like, what I dislike, what I would like on me, took about 56 screenshots and consulted an expert hairdresser for about an hour (she had a last minute cancellation, so she didn’t mind). I described my vision, she described hers, and together we agreed on something super sophisticated. We could safely say that I wanted a change and she told me which of my ideas were possible and would look splendid on me.

Suffice to say that she was right.

So one day I came home with a razor sharp bob and my husband was shocked. And then he liked it. And then he took 896 pictures of me.

I learned this one first. I used to be a wash-n-go kind of gal all my life. No conditioner, no volumizers, no styling products, no heat protector… I am not particularly proud of it but I had no proper hair care education and I used to visit a hairdresser – any hairdresser – whoever was close, cheap, or both – about once a year, for decades. I had long hair with no haircut, no style, a dull colour and an increasingly frizzy texture that came in my mid 40s and never left. Little did I know that the right conditioner could help me with both frizziness and dryness.
My hair has always been fine but in my youth, I had about twice as much of it as I have now. What I needed then, is what you may need now: hair products that combat and control dryness/frizziness and coarseness and create volume:

1. shampoo for your hair type
2. conditioner for your hair type – to give your hair nourishment and lock-in the moisture
3. volumizing mousse/gel/spray/powder – if you have fine or thin hair
4. heat protector for wet/dry hair – to use before you style your hair with hot tools

Just like your breasts naturally moved from the upper floor of a two story house to a ground level bungalow, your hair needs help. Products will do for your hair what a perfectly fitting bra does for your chest.

Two things are certain
1. there is not one specific colour for all middle-aged women across the planet that will make each of them all look 10 years younger. All of us are different, ergo; each of us will look resplendent in a different hair dye cocktail. For simplicity’s sake, just look at your natural colouring – your skin tone, skin colour, and your eye colour – and try to imagine what hair colour would flatter you the most. There are many more factors at play but your colouring is certainly a leading one.

2. there is at least one perfect colour for everyone. The colour that will make you glow the moment you see yourself in the mirror while sitting in a master hairdresser/colourist’s chair. Just like with everything else, there is no rule on which colour will suit everyone to outbalance the years in your face. It may be auburn for one, chestnut for another, strawberry blond or platinum for another etc.

Despite or because I am a colour connoisseur, I cannot give you a quick colour tip without seeing you and talking to you. What I can do is to guide you out of a colour tragedy that would cost you many tears and about $400 (first $200 for the wrong hair colour and the second $200 on the correction of it).

Get your temperature right.

What?

Yes, your colour temperature. Ever heard of warm and cool colours? That kind of a temperature.

If your natural colouring is on the cooler side, forget about Rust, Mahogany, Honey, and other yellow-based colours. They will make you look washed out.
If your natural colouring is on the warmer side, forget about platinum blond, silver, dark cherry red and other blue-based colours. They will make you look like you don’t know your natural colouring temperature.
If you don’t know your colours (and want to), book a paid consultation with me here, and I will explain everything, create a customized color palette for you and guide you for two additional months to make sure you make us both proud.

Unless you have a naturally curly hair, in which case, congratulations, you have to learn the difference between a curl and a bent hair. Curls can easily add 5 years and 10 kgs, while gently bent ends can shed the same amount off you instantly. Besides, bending is easier, faster and looks more youthful.

Yeah, bend it!

From the list of food and drinks you should avoid, sugar takes first place. Especially the refined kinds and/or any chemically produced ‘sugars’, hidden under various exotic names that cause immense harm to our organism on a cellular level. Second place proudly occupies refined carbs group like breakfast cereal and white flour. Third place belongs to carbonated drinks and alcohol.

Not only should you consume food with the nutrition your hair needs to have a shiny, healthy looking, and luscious hair, but you should also sleep at least 8 hours every night, avoid smoking, and minimize stress.

To be honest, I was hoping this blog post would be shorter with only five myths to be debunked but here we are, 7 pages, 2200 words and 10,500 characters (without spaces). My apologies. Hope it helped.​ If so, let me know in the comments, which mistake you were unknowingly guilty of. Mine were 1, 2, and 4.