My hair has never been my crowning glory.  As a child, I mostly sported what can only be described as the ubiquitous bowl cut.  Bangs cut too short by a mom with neither the knowledge nor the time to fuss over a haircut.  We didn’t go to salons or waste money on hair products, although my older sisters had hairspray. I grew up watching them torture their own hair, teasing it into the bouffant styles so popular in the 60s and wanted to be just like them.

Luckily styles change and when I hit high school, the shag cut was au courant.  Perfect for my fine textured hair, along with miniskirts, I rocked it for several years.  It was all downhill after that.  I cringe when I look back at my coiffures through the years.  The expression, “what was I thinking???” comes to mind.

To gain some control, I have spent the last couple of decades having my hair professionally colored, more recently trying to hide the gray instead of embracing it.  With hair salons closed because of the raging pandemic, I took matters into my own hands trying over-the-counter color and was quite successful at covering up the grays.  It wasn’t long however before I saw them creeping back in and wondered as millions of women do, was it time to embrace the silver?

Since Mr. Smith and I returned to Wilkes Barre, I have been having my hair cut and colored at Shakti, an Aveda salon just over the river in Kingston.  After being closed for three months, they were reopened.  They advertised a COVID 19 Certification and sanitized and disinfected beyond the state requirements for opening.  I booked an appointment and scoured the internet for inspirational pics of women who were chic and silver.

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Just inside the front door, I answered the required COVID 19 questions, had my temperature taken and used hand sanitizer.  Everyone was wearing a mask, and in some cases, a mask and a face shield.  I stood on my designated distance spot and waited for Margie.

Hired fresh out of beauty school for the job, Margie has been a colorist for 30 years and I have been the lucky recipient of her expertise for the past year. Who better to turn myself over to for my grand experiment?  Seated in her chair, we discussed options.

I had done some research into my choices and brought along some of the photos that caught my eye.  We discussed the options and decided to go with the color correction method.  Instead of correcting it to my dyed color, she corrected it to be more like the gray shade growing in.  This process is a lot like getting highlights.  Don’t I look lovely in my foils?

The foiling process was done to perfection and it was time to move onto the glossing.  I was ushered to a chair at the shampoo bowl and had my footrest comfortably adjusted. I leaned back and let the magic continue.  It is so relaxing to let someone massage your head, all in the name of making you look marvelous. Margie applied a gloss with a silver tone to help with both the shade of my hair and its health.  It’s a fairly dramatic moment when you see a lovely shade of gray emerging.  There were several salon employees watching, oohing and aahing as my new color emerged.  The award for the most enthusiastic goes to Stephen, Stephen with a “ph” he reminded me, who declared the color to be phenomenal!

Then it was onto my stylist, Nina, to give my fine textured, thinning hair a cut.  She is terrific.  She listens to what I have to say, advises on what will work best for my hair, and does an amazing job, all while wearing a mask!

I hadn’t told Mr. Smith ahead of time that I was going to embrace my silver, but I think he’s getting used to it.  With the assistance of my colorist and stylist, I achieved what I was hoping for.  Better, not younger, and according to my biggest critic – fabulous.  But you be the judge.    

C’est la vie.