It pays to be Grey

It Pays to be Grey
Natasha Silva-Jelly

Glamorous ... Dame Helen Mirren is known for her natural beauty.

Embracing silver locks can be emotionally and financially liberating, writes Natasha Silva-Jelly.

Banishing grey hair is a time-consuming and very costly exercise faced by most women once they hit their late 30s. The average salon cover-up job in New Zealand will set you back anywhere between $100 and $250 every six weeks; for some, it's an even shorter time between visits. That's an annual spend of between $860 and $2150. A backlash has begun.

In a new book Frugal Duchess: How to Live Well and Save Money, author Sharon Harvey Rosenberg tells of how she may have lost the battle but has won the financial war by accepting the onslaught of silver streaks in her hair. Her yearly income boost from embracing her inner Helen Mirren - the British actress noted for her ultra-glamorous silver locks - has been reallocated to more important things in life, like holidays, family entertainment and university saving plans.

In the book, Harvey Rosenberg also talks about her disastrous grey-covering attempts over the years. Like the time she spent eight hours mixing coffee and henna potions in a bid to cover up. It worked - her silver turned a brassy orange.
Also tired of being a slave to the hair-colour industry, blogger Michele Meyer calculates she spent $52,000 in two decades disguising her premature greys and 693 hours in the salon chair, on her website goinggraylookinggreat.com. The website also explores potential health risks critics believe are associated with hair dyes - chemicals, such as ammonia and peroxide. According to the Cancer Council of Australia, in 2009 the International Agency on Cancer Research (IARC) classified occupational exposure to hair dyes a "probable carcinogen" (probably capable of causing cancer) for hairdressers and barbers. The jury is still out on the possible risk to consumers. So what is the answer?










Forty-six-year-old 1990s supermodel Kristen McMenamy - who walked for Viktor & Rolf, above, and Calvin Klein in February this year - stopped dyeing her hair six years ago.

"You've got to keep moving forward," she told British Vogue after the CK show. "You can get older and still be rock'n'roll. I thought all that grey hair would make a beautiful picture.