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I don't follow the crowd, thank goodness. I have a face and apparently a neck that's well suited for the short style I wear and have worn (in various styles but always short) since I was about 32. My hair is too thick for a short bob or lightbulb haircut or whatever you want to call it (plus I just look awful in any sort of bob). So it's sort of asymmetrical.
Interesting that you think all older women wear their hair short because I think many older women wear their hair a bit longer, which I think often looks terrible.
I don't follow the crowd either. I envy you Kathryn for being able to wear your hair short. I've never had a bob and never will. I don't like following trends and looking like 'everyone" else. I did get it cut 12 years ago to get all the color off. It was a cute layered style but definitely not a bob. I don't like fussing with my hair so I let it grow back to where it was before, 2-3 inches below the collarbone. Now it needs to be shorter to look good. It's a cute style, looks good and is something I feel is my best look and feel comfortable with.
Like MQ I always wanted to be an old lady with grey hair down to my waist and wear it up a lot. That's not going to happen. Blunt trimmed hair looks much better on anyone, not just older women. When I had super long hair until my 50's I always kept it blunt cut. Looks healthy and far better than stringy wispy hair which used to make me feel like carrying scissors around and asking women if I could trim their hair. Never did it, of course, but I sure fantasized about it.
Maybe it makes YOU look older but please don't say that short hair makes "them" (older women in context) look older. Some it does, some it doesn't. Depends on many factors.
^^ This ^^. I am a petite woman with a short neck and the minute I cut my hair short I look better. I had been trying to grow my hair out a bit a few years back and then just gave up and cut it into a spiky pixie. My supervisor told me I looked taller, younger & thinner! Can't ask for more than that from a haircut.
For me, it's not so much my "age" as the fact my hair at 73 has become ultra fine and thin. It also grows very slowly. I don't like to fuss with my hair, so I keep it at shoulder length, long enough to put up which I do a lot. In my younger days I always had varying lengths of long hair, which looked great up until around my 50s. By my 60s it was thinning and becoming too fine, so stopped coloring and let it go natural, which is a multicolor gray/blonde/silver mix now. Color is fine, just wish I had more hair!
I’m 76 and have short med/dark blond thinning hair. There’s a bit of grey above my ears. Sometimes I spray a bit of L’Oreal root cover on the spots, sometimes I don’t bother.
My grandmother, in the 1950’s, had long black hair. When she died at 73 she had only a few strands of grey in her hair.
Interesting thread. I'm only 42 and have been wearing my hair (generally though for about some 3 years or so had it cut in a pixie style and then for about like a year was wearing it up in a lower bun than what I have now) about the same way since like high school/college (it's hard to describe--it's worn up but the ends of the hair are frizzed out around the top; don't know how to describe it any better).
I had wondered though when I finally start to age if I'm going to change my hair style. I was thinking I'll go back to the "lower bun" style I had for a bit. But, I'm hoping I'll have another good 10 years or so until I'm like--hmm, getting kind of old for this look, maybe I'll see if something different will look better.
I’m 76 and have short med/dark blond thinning hair. There’s a bit of grey above my ears. Sometimes I spray a bit of L’Oreal root cover on the spots, sometimes I don’t bother.
My grandmother, in the 1950’s, had long black hair. When she died at 73 she had only a few strands of grey in her hair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pekemom
I’m 76 and have short med/dark blond thinning hair. There’s a bit of grey above my ears. Sometimes I spray a bit of L’Oreal root cover on the spots, sometimes I don’t bother.
My grandmother, in the 1950’s, had long black hair. When she died at 73 she had only a few strands of grey in her hair.
That's cool. Yeah, on my dad's side there's a lack of gray in the family--he doesn't have very much (at 74) nor did my grandmother on his side. I'm not showing any visible gray either (nor my brother or probably not my sister--though we don't hardly see her and she may be dying it; she pretty much keeps to herself).
It's kind of neat how there's those genes out there that where you just don't really gray that much. I hadn't thought about it much until I was visiting my family over the holiday and my mom's like--you don't have any visible gray hair and then we talked about my dad and his family--that's where we're getting it from (it's just odd that wouldn't that seem like a recessive trait, so I'm wondering how all of us children, well at least me and my brother, got it. I'd love to find out more about the "not very much gray hair" gene. Like if it were a dominant trait, wouldn't that seem to indicate that most people wouldn't have very much gray hair? I really can't recall hardly anything I learned about genes and dominance/recessive and how that shows up though. I remember vaguely about the fruit fly experiment and a capital and lower case letter for the dominant and recessive genes and that's about it).
Yes, no matter where you go, 99% of the older women have short bobs or pixies or lightbulb haircuts, whatever you want to call it. So yes, I feel it does make a woman look older. Short hair accentuates your face and neck. If you don't think it makes YOU look older, great, then wear it with confidence. But the older women I know who have these haircuts all look like cookie cutter old ladies all doing the same thing. Me--I'd rather not follow the crowd. I wear my hair a little past shoulder length. I love the length. I can pull it up in the hot weather or wear it loose. In hot weather, short hair is horrible on me. It frizzes up like Howdy Doody and I look terrible. I've seen pictures of myself with super short hair and YES, I DO look older. The short hair makes my facial wrinkles stand out (and I have very few of these). It also makes my round face look fat.
I have had short hair since I was younger. My hair is fairly straight and just looks heavy/greasy when it gets much past shoulder length. If I have it shorter, it may have a bit of wave, but otherwise it just doesn’t work. My sister has inherited the same hair and I think she also looks better with shorter hair. That said, I do like it to be long enough to put up at the gym. I haven’t seen anything with shorter hair that makes me look wrinklier or older. The shorter hair just looks better.
I'm only 42 and have been wearing my hair...about the same way since like high school/college (it's hard to describe--it's worn up but the ends of the hair are frizzed out around the top; don't know how to describe it any better...
The so-called "messy bun"? A top-knot with the ends sticking out. Or a sort of French twist with the ends cascading down over the twist?
As for genes, my father's side still had very little grey in their dark hair 70s when they (mostly all) died, whereas on my mother's side, both she and her father were almost completely grey by age 50. My sibling and I seem to be somewhere in the middle, being about half grey in our 60s. I know I'd look better and younger with my dark hair restored, but it's just too much trouble...
I started getting gray hairs in grade school. My mom says I was 8 when I started getting gray. I know that by 18 it bothered me enough that I started coloring my hair on the regular.
When I was in my late 30's, my mom convinced me to try and let it grow out. Well, what was growing out was iron gray, and I'm like 37 yrs old with kids in 1st and 3rd grade. I looked like their grandmother. So I went back to coloring my hair for years and years.
Then, about 2018 I think, my sister convinced me to let it grow out and see how I like it. So I did. And it grew in white and silver. I went to a salon and had them lighten the growing out color I still had...and voila! Now, I'm completely white and silver. And I like it. If I didn't like it, I'd still be coloring it.
The so-called "messy bun"? A top-knot with the ends sticking out. Or a sort of French twist with the ends cascading down over the twist?
As for genes, my father's side still had very little grey in their dark hair 70s when they (mostly all) died, whereas on my mother's side, both she and her father were almost completely grey by age 50. My sibling and I seem to be somewhere in the middle, being about half grey in our 60s. I know I'd look better and younger with my dark hair restored, but it's just too much trouble...
The "messy bun" sounds close to it; though I hardly see anyone ever wear it quite the way I do (I fix the messy part so that it looks a lot neater, I guess).
Hmm. That's interesting about your family. My mom's side mostly went gray at a normal age; however--now that I'm thinking about it, I do think her brother also didn't gray that much. My dad's side is the one that clearly has the "no gray" gene; it appears (not 100% sure about my sister though since we don't see her that much) that us children all inherited the "no gray" gene. So--maybe that's it: both sides of the family had the no-gray gene.
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