Grey Vixen writes - Silver foxes in sheep's clothing - men who dye their hair

Silver Foxes in Sheep’s Clothing

By Sabine Reichel

What does Grey Vixen think of men who dye their hair?

Women always kind of loved them; the older grey-haired gents with the twinkly eyes who were so damn authentic and sexy, manly and carefree - who didn't give a hoot about their fading youth. It used to be just us women, whose existential desire for gorgeous hair is legendary, who eagerly covered up any treacherous grey roots as fast as we could. Men were smiling at such folly – and we kind of envied them for their coolness and self-confidence, didn't we? 

How times have changed!

Does he or doesn't he? 

'Does she or doesn't she?' asked Clairol in the famous American hair colour advert. of the sixties. The she has now become a he. And yes, he does! As much as he can. This hair-colour frenzy is a terrible trend. All around us we see peculiar browns and blacks on what would otherwise be heads in many shades of grey – and some men who insist that the glorious mahogany hair is a generous gift from Mother Nature and not from L’Oreal, Paris. 

But why are men delusional enough to believe that they can fool nature and the people around them with hair that practically begs for attention? 'Look at me, I’m NOT grey!' Yes, Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais and Liam Neeson – we are talking about you, too!

My personal favourite is the two-toned Mafia-style hair that has become a trademark of older businessmen and politicians who have seen better days (think Mitt Romney, if anybody remembers). It’s the kind of teaser-hair that says, 'I’ll give you my suave grey sideburns to drool over, but I'm not ready yet to go all the way!'

Naturally, the world of entertainment is still the place for baffling hair colour. Elvis was the first unabashed fan of the blue-ish black dye previously reserved for Snow White, ravens, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. But that was the fifties and the heyday of Technicolor that brought out a wild love affair with everything garish. Today, the gentleman who dyes is more sloppy and adventurous in his choice of hues and colours.

The list of shame is long and varied. Whatever happened to the chic pepper-and-salt-hair of actor Benicio del Toro? He now looks like he’s wearing a cheap black fur hat. Sure, Sean Penn is busy, and we salute him for his humanitarian efforts, but does that mean he must scare people with a strange reddish hue on his greying head? And look at Ricky Gervais, a really funny man with much too much dark colour all over his hair and beard, all of which only distracts from his perversely biting jokes.

Ricky Gervais - image The Guardian

Good news come from Al Pacino, who used to be in the hands of fanatical hair colourists who who dyed his hair, beard and eyebrows a colour so dark that he looked like a caricature of an old fashioned magician drawn in black coal. A recent photo of Al shows him in his natural grey, as is appropriate for a 73 old man. Maybe it’ll inspire Liam Neeson who, ironically, played the lead in the blockbuster The Grey, except that HE wasn't  As it is often with men who have a less than glorious head of hair, they overcompensate with an extra dash of bad colour.

And here we must have a quick word about the male hair colour palette, because it seems to be inspired by the animal kingdom. There’s the classic horse and Bambi brown, followed by Dachshund, Irish setter and red fox. This is all nice and natural and looks fabulous on our four- legged friends! But on Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John and Italy’s Bad Berlusconi, who have both hair implants andfake colour, that reddish hue looks ghastly.

Men who dye their hair are usually stubborn. Asked why they dye their hair – actually nobody admits it – but let’s say they would, they’d come up with the two most unconvincing arguments even the most naive and colour blind onlooker can’t be fooled by. 1. It looks totally natural. 2. It makes them look younger! 

No, it doesn't. On both accounts. So why do even “younger” men like Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. succumb to the pressure to be frozen in time? Couldn't one be proud of a shock of silvery hair and wear it with style and aplomb? Sure, it isn't easy being old(er) in this youth-obsessed society, but men don’t even NEED to colour their hair because society values grey temples on men so much more than on women, and sees them as a sexy sign for experience and worldliness. Why not be old-fashioned and trendsetting and be proud of your roots?

The only problem I can see in being grey for the regular men these days is the big challenge when it comes to competition. It’s near to impossible to look as debonair as the Glamour-Greyhounds Cary Grant and George Clooney or as imperial as Richard Gere and Sean Connery.  But it’s worth a try! So let’s salute the men who dare to show off their silver in a casual, confident manner like Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Jay Leno, David Lynch, Bill Clinton. Is there any older man sexier than Jeff Bridges with his glorious mane of greyish locks? 

Jeff Bridges in GO 2010

British men, may be less vain and more self-assured than their American counterparts, fare real well on the grey fox front – Ian McKellen, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Laurie, Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis - all look fantastic. On the other hand, Ian McShane’s hair is a bit black, isn’t it? Gary Oldman looks a touch refreshed at the roots, so does Colin Firth, and Jason Isaacs looks like a fearless hair colour aficionado.

I'm a grey-haired rock-chick, so it is comforting to see that most ageing rock stars doesn't embarrass themselves and therefore me and my generation. They are the proud carriers of natural hair – from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Neil Young to Ringo, Leonard Cohen, Charlie Watts, David Byrne, Bob Dylan and even old tousel-hair Keith Richards. But Paul McCartney lives in the past. For a while now, Sir Paul dons a very unfortunate reddish brown on his boyish haircut (where is Stella McCartney, talking some sense into Daddy’s artificially darkened head?) and if anybody could tell me what happened to poor Ray Davis’ hair...

So, dear Gentlemen of the card-carrying dye-hard-party, let’s be grown-up about this and sing together with Paul the new song of freedom called “Let it be!”