Going Grey in a World That’s Not with Silver Hair Evangelist Katie Goes Platinum
Show Snapshot:
Thinking of ditching the dye and embracing your grey? Ready to save oodles of time (and money) but worried about navigating the awkward transition? Meet silver hair evangelist, Katie Emery, creator of the popular blog, Katie Goes Platinum. After 29 years of coloring her hair, she ditched the dye and has ideas for helping you do the same. Katie shares grey hair transition resources, must-have products for shiny, silver locks, plus two ideas going grey in secret.
Mind blown!
In This Episode We Cover:
1. What made Katie decide ditch the dye after 29+ years.
2. The fear that kept Katie dying her hair year after year.
3. How did people react when Katie stepped off the hair-color treadmill?
4. How long does it take to grow out your grey?
5. Tips and tools for navigating the awkward growing-out phase.
6. Two mind-blowing methods for going grey in secret. Plus, the celebrity colorist who can make you silver in a day.
7. Must-have products for maintaining shiny, silver locks.
8. How going grey launched Katie’s blogging and YouTube career.
9. The silver sisterhood.
Quotable:
I started getting grey hairs when I was about 16 and I dyed my hair for years after that. And the last few years I was dyeing, I started to really resent it. I literally would sit in the salon chair and just fume that I was having to go through this every three weeks.
I feel liberated. It makes you think about what else in my life am I doing that I don’t want to do anymore, but feel like I have to do? And you just get rid of it. I also think that’s a side effect of turning 50. I’m not going to do things I don’t want to do anymore.
Word of Mouth. Katie recommends:
My number one favorite product is QuickSilverHair Clay. I buy that from my friend Joli at quicksilverhair.com. It’s like a kaolin clay that you mix with sulfate-free conditioner and she has a hair oil. I put that all over my hair, maybe once a month, sometimes more, and it’s like a mask. Put it on your hair, leave it on for like 40 minutes, and when I wash it out and dry my hair, my hair is sparkling. All the product build up has gone and it reduces, actually removes yellowing. It’s really the only product I know that removes yellowing.
More Resources:
When, And Why, Did Women Start Dyeing Their Grey Hair? – Elle Magazine
Middle Age, Before It Came Out of a Bottle – The New York Times
A Colorist Explains How He Created This Low-Maintenance Grey Hair Transformation
A Certain Age Pod follows these silver Instagram accounts:
Follow Katie Goes Platinum
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty (00:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud, I’m your host, Katie Fogarty.
Okay, everyone, I have a confession to make. Ready? I. Am. A. Brunette. At least I think I am. I’m not entirely sure though since I’ve been highlighting or coloring my hair since I discovered the drugstore brand Sun In back in the 8th grade. Since then, I have spent a fortune on hair color and I am not alone. The hair coloring market in the US is an astonishing 29 billion dollars. That’s billions with a B. And as we age and the grays start sprouting it not only takes oodles of money, but oodles of time to keep the gray at bay. If you’re thinking of ditching the dye and embracing your natural hair, meet silver hair evangelist, Katie Emery, of the popular blog, Katie Goes Platinum. After 29 years of coloring her hair, she ditched the dye and has ideas for helping you do the same. Welcome, Katie.
Katie Emery (01:10):
Thanks so much for having me, I’m so excited to be here.
Katie Fogarty (01:12):
I am super excited because going gray comes up constantly in my friend group. We’re all, you know, 50, 51, 52, 53. Some people are really resisting, some people are getting ready to go gray. And we are going to spend most of the show talking about this, how to navigate the awkward transition, the products, and tools that help. But I want to start really by asking you about your own story. When did you decide to stop coloring your hair and why?
Katie Emery (01:45):
Okay let’s see, well I started getting gray hairs when I was about 16 and as you said, I dyed my hair for years after that. And the last few years I was dyeing I started to really resent it. I literally would sit in the salon chair and just, fume that I was having to go through this every, it was really every 3 weeks, is how soon my grays would start showing. I had dark brunette hair and I dyed it dark brunette and those silver hairs showed up so quickly. So, I’d have to say by the time I hit 47 I started really resenting having to get my hair colored. Sometimes it still drives me a little crazy that I feel like I had to do it but you know that is something we all go through because of our culture where youth is so important, it feels like it’s not a choice, it’s just something you do as you get older. Maybe it’s something you start doing for fun, and then you start dyeing because you feel like you have to and that’s where I was. And so, anyway, I kept thinking about it, I kept not doing it. There’s this fear of looking older.
Katie Fogarty (02:45):
Sure.
Katie Emery (02:45):
That really kept me from doing it and then I worried about my job, you know, would my boss feel like he needed to get somebody younger to come in? So, all those fears of aging really played into it. But when I hit 50, I decided I’d had enough and I just said I’m done. It was almost like a smoker who decided to stop smoking their last cigarette cold turkey. I just felt like I was like, I'm done I’m not going to ever do this again, and it turned out to be a life-changing decision. So, I’m really glad I did it.
Katie Fogarty (03:14):
Sounds so liberating. So, when you did decide to go cold turkey and just stop the dye what was the reaction from people in your life? Like what did your husband think, your friends? Because I remember this when I was a new mom, people want to tell you their opinions about things. Did you have that experience with your transition to gray?
Katie Emery (03:36):
I did because I went gray before the pandemic so, I didn’t have the luxury of being at home, you know, in private.
Katie Fogarty (03:42):
And pointing at your head over Zoom and going, “COVID hair, COVID hair.” Right?
Katie Emery (03:47):
Right. I was out in public, I had to be at work every day. So, especially when you have very dark hair, it’s pretty obvious if you’re not coloring your hair, you know, within a few weeks it starts to really be obvious. So, I got some pushback from people I worked with. It wasn’t unkind, but it was more like astonishment that I would do this. [Katie laughs] Especially because I was going gray cold turkey, and that’s not a route for everyone. But my hair was so incredibly damaged after all those years of dyeing it, it was like straw, you know. And I knew that I couldn’t do any salon processes to it because I’d read some horror stories about that. If your hair is very damaged it’s not an easy thing. So, you can either cut all your hair off or you can go cold turkey, or I have some other secretive ways to go gray, which we’ll discuss later, but I didn’t know about those yet. So, I chose to go cold turkey at work and at home with all my friends. My husband was totally fine with it, he saw that I was resentful about dyeing my hair. We’ve been together since our early twenties and he’s going gray and he was very supportive.
Katie Fogarty (05:01):
Nice.
Katie Emery (05:01):
My younger son is on the autism spectrum and he had a reaction that I wasn’t expecting. Which is he became filled with fear that I was dying because I was going gray to him, overnight.
Katie Fogarty (05:14):
Sure.
Katie Emery (05:14):
He didn’t understand I’d actually been gray under the dye all those years. [Katie laughs] So, for him it was like I went from having dark hair and was rapidly aging. So, we had to have some conversations about that but now that he gets it he actually really does like it. Nobody was really too mean about it. I did have a couple of remarks from people who are, I don’t want to say this in a rude way, but very elderly people that I know and they kind of lose their filter and they came up to me and said like, “I don’t like your hair this color you need to go back to dyeing it.”
Katie Fogarty (05:44):
Okay, that’s direct.
Katie Emery (05:49):
I know! Very direct. But my mom always taught me: if somebody says something like that, you just stand up for yourself. So, I just said, “I like it.” And that always kind of was enough. Like, “Oh, well if you like it, okay, I guess I’ll be supportive.” For the most part, people were okay with it, but it was uncomfortable. You get people wanting to talk about your hair right in front of you, or maybe they’ll like it to your face but then right in front of you they’ll turn to their friend and say, “Well, I could never do it.” So, you know, it’s a little awkward at first.
Katie Fogarty (06:15):
I can imagine. Because when I was prepping for this conversation I dove in, did a little bit of research and I read that I think as much as 75% of American women dye their hair. And I did read that that number is a little bit in doubt because it came from a study financed by Clairol but, whether or not it is true or not, even if it’s close to being true, that’s an enormous percentage of the American population. So, you wind up being in a smaller group. Did you start to find community? Because I know that when I remember that when I— I’m gonna talk about being pregnant. The moment you’re pregnant it seems like everyone is pregnant. Or if you’re having an experience, you really start to find people that are going through that. Did you start to find these silver sisters? Were people coming up to you like it was a secret handshake, like, “We’re in this club, we’re doing this together?” Or not? Tell me about that.
Katie Emery (07:11):
For sure, it’s totally like that. Whats nice is, luckily for me, when I started going through this, a friend of mine on Facebook saw that I had posted a post about this, that I was going to stop dyeing and she had started like maybe 6 months before me, and so she introduced me to the online silver sisterhood, on Instagram and Facebook, you know, there are a ton of communities. And just having those online friends was really important. Because especially, most of us don’t have a lot of friends who are doing this, at least not two years ago. So, I didn’t have a lot of people in real life that I could go through this with so having those people online helped a ton.
Some of us started meeting in real life until the pandemic hit we’d have meet ups, and it was just so fun to have a group of 20 women at a restaurant, you’d know who they are because they all have gray-haired, and they’re ranging in age from maybe 20 plus, so, you know, it was really important. That’s one of my favorite things about going gray, is this big community that I’ve found, it’s lovely.
Katie Fogarty (08:16):
That’s super cool. I know those Instagram accounts that you’re talking about. I follow a couple of beautiful accounts of women posting amazing, great, transitions, like absolutely stunning shots and it really inspires you to, kind of, hit that finish line because you see the potential. That’s actually my next question. You said that you started going gray at 16, you stopped dyeing your hair at 50. I think any woman listening to the show who is thinking, “Hmm I could be interested in this,” definitely wants to know, how long did it take?
Katie Emery (08:49):
Okay. [both laugh] This always scares people when I tell them this. Let me just preface by saying, I wanted to have long hair, I didn’t want to have short hair because of the way my face is shaped, I just never felt like short hair is flattering on me. And as a little kid, I wasn’t allowed to have long hair because I think it was just too much work you know. My mom was busy and she had other kids and I was very messy so, to have long hair was just a pain you know. So, as an adult, I like to have hair that’s at least shoulder length most of the time. And I was willing to cut it a little when I was doing the gray grow out because I wanted to get rid of some of the damaged ends so I cut it to like a long lob, where it’s shorter in the back, a little longer in the front. But my goal was to get my hair down to my shoulders. So, to get my grow out of my gray hair down to my shoulders with no dye left took me two and a half years. And my hair grows faster than average. So, my hair grows about three-quarters of an inch per month and I think the average is about half an inch a month.
Katie Fogarty (0:09:50.6):
So, this is a big commitment. That’s a big commitment.
Katie Emery (09:53):
It is. it is, that’s why it’s nice that there are these two other methods I mentioned that can help you go through it without cutting your hair.
Katie Fogarty (10:03):
You did mention you have a secret method. We are going to take a quick break, but when we come back I want to hear about that secret method.
[Ad break]
Katie Fogarty (11:35):
Okay, Katie. We’re back. We’re all on pins and needles. What is the secret method that you can use to, kind of, go gray more quickly and not have to go through a long hair grow out?
Katie Emery (11:48):
Okay. The first method I’m gonna tell you about is the dye strip technique. That is ingenious and I’d never heard of it and I think it could really work well for a lot of people.
Katie Fogarty (11:59):
I’ve never heard of it, tell us.
Katie Emery (12:02):
It’s amazing. One of my silver sisters, @silveristhenewblack on Instagram, Diana. I interviewed her for my blog so you can find her interview there, but I also have her post which is a dye hair transition technique, going gray in secret. So, she told me about it. What she did was she didn’t want to cut her hair and she didn’t want her cold turkey to grow out to show in public.
So, what you do is you take a strip of hair, like right along your root, and this works best if you have longer hair and you have side-swept bangs. If you have very short bangs or curly hair it gets a little more difficult. But if you have hair that’s at least past your chin, and hopefully side-swept, what you do is you take about an inch or two on either side of the roots, where you part I mean, you pull it back, and you only dye that strip of hair and you leave the rest of it gray. So, it’s kind of going gray underneath. Because when you let go of that dyed part, it lays over your gray hair and nobody can see it.
So, it’s hard to explain, you really need to go on my YouTube channel and see the video because then you can see the pictures of how Diana and other people have done this. But it really is ingenious. And she grew her hair out over a period of two years but it was all going gray underneath this dyed hair. If the gray ever does peak through, it just looks like silver highlights, it doesn’t look like a stark demarkation line, which is what a lot of people want to avoid.
Katie Fogarty (13:33):
Right, like a salt and peppering almost, which you know, just feels more natural. That’s how people go gray naturally. We don’t start out with a big strip, we kind of salt and pepper. That’s a cool idea.
Katie Emery (13:44):
It’s a great way to do it. It’s nice too, even if you don’t want to dye your hair anymore because of the chemicals, at least you’re using fewer chemicals you know, you’re just doing it for that one strip. So, that’s a great option.
Another option, if you’re allergic to dye, which happened to Tarla, who I also interviewed on my YouTube channel. She did not want to cut her hair, and she did not want to go gray in public because she’s a marketing consultant and she does a lot of videos online so, she didn’t want to have that demarcation line but she was so allergic to the dye that she was getting blisters and rashes, it was terrible. She actually invested in some really high-quality wigs of different colors, and she literally just went gray under her wig. So, while she was out in public, on video, or whatever, you thought she had like beautiful, one week it was like beautiful blonde hair, the next week it might be beautiful dark brunette hair. She kind of had fun with it. But the whole time she’s going gray under her wig and when she was ready to reveal it to the public, her hair was completely gray and gorgeous. So, that’s a nice solution if you don’t want to cut your hair and you don’t want to go gray in public.
Katie Fogarty (14:51):
Okay, that sounds slightly confusing. [laughs] Your explanation was crystal clear but maybe confusing to her workmates. But I guess you could probably in theory doing that same idea by buying like one wig and just wearing that underneath.
Katie Emery (15:08):
That’s true.
Katie Fogarty (15:09):
So, those are the two secret ways of doing it. And one of the things that I think that everyone listening to this show who is curious about this needs to do, is to go look at your website. Because you have a lot of before and after pictures, you have a lot of transition pictures. So, you can see how people are navigating this. And I didn’t realize you had a YouTube channel.
So, I actually want to take a minute now and talk about that. How did you go from being somebody who is 50 and just said, “I’m sick of dyeing my hair, I resent the time, I resent the money,” to being somebody that has a very popular blog and a YouTube channel about this process?
Katie Emery (15:49):
It’s kind of a crazy thing, I’ve always wanted to have something of my own that I was doing. I’ve always worked for other people. And it kind of happened because I was at a crossroads in my life where, unfortunately, my husband lost his job and my older son got very ill so it was kind of a scary time and I got depressed as you can imagine.
Katie Fogarty (16:10):
Sure.
Katie Emery (16:11):
And as I got closer to 50 I wondered, “What am I doing next?” You know, you start to wonder like, is this it or is there more? I read this book called, You are a Badass at Making Money, by Jen Sincero.
Katie Fogarty (16:23):
I’ve read that book, it’s great.
Katie Emery (16:25):
I loved that book. I really actually do feel like that book changed my life. It’s not the kind of money book some people want, where it’s like graphs and numbers and charts and analytical, it’s more emotional. And that was what I needed. So, she basically said here’s another way to make money, and one of them was blogging. I kept trying to think about what to blog about and I just started going gray around that time. I just thought, “Well, I’ll blog about this.” Because I couldn’t find a lot of the answers to my questions online, or a lot of the pages I was finding at the time, a lot of the posts about gray hair were more negative. Either how to hide it or how not to freak out that you’re going gray, or that people felt old or ugly. I wanted to say, I’m actually enjoying this. It can be fun and liberating, it doesn’t have to be scary. So, that’s why I started it, to empower people to feel good about it.
Katie Fogarty (17:15):
So, tell our listeners a little bit, I know everyone is gonna be heading there in a minute, click-clacking over there to Katie Goes Platinum but what can people find on it? There are before and after pictures, but you offer, what else? Resources, tools, tips.
Katie Emery (17:32):
I do. I have a lot of things on there and I actually need to be writing more this year but I’ve kind of been slowing down because I have a shoulder injury. But I have a ‘Start Here’ page that is the best place to go when they get to my site because it tells you why you might want to go gray, it links you to an article about that. How to go gray, if you have a question about which method is best for you, which is often confusing. So, it’s really good to stop and think about which method you want to use before you do it. It’s just nice to kind of have it mapped out. I have a directory of salons who are either supportive of gray hair or actually help women transition to gray hair, kind of like the Jack Martin Salon, you’ve probably seen his work on Facebook.
Katie Fogarty (18:18):
I haven’t.
Katie Emery (18:18):
He’s one of these celebrity salon people who use chemical processes to transition people to gray hair immediately. Obviously, it’s not for everybody, you probably have to have healthy hair to start out with.
Katie Fogarty (18:31):
It also sounds expensive, it sounds very expensive. [laughs]
Katie Emery (18:35):
Yeah, it can be very expensive. But a lot of us find that when we go gray a lot of us have to break up with our hair stylists because there are a lot of hair stylists, unfortunately, who aren’t supportive of the idea of going gray, they sometimes have a negative reaction. My hair stylist told me I would look old and she refused to even discuss it with me.
Katie Fogarty (18:55):
Okay, that’s insane. That sounds like she’s like, you know, that’s a little bit above her pay grade or whatever that expression is. How could that be her decision? When you have a stylist relationship there’s a lot of intimacy, and there’s a lot of…yeah, intimacy. But it seems strange that you weren’t getting supported. So, how smart to have a list of salons that actually do care and that actually will work with women who want that.
Katie Emery (19:24):
Yeah, I just felt like that was important. That’s one of the number one things. If you don’t have a stylist who is on board or makes you feel bad about your decision then it’s really hard to move forward. For me, I did that thing that women do, when you hear that women stay with a bad boyfriend for a long time and you wonder, why are they doing that? I stayed with my stylist for probably another 6 months or a year after she made me feel that way because it’s hard to break up with your stylist, you know, you have a relationship. And every time I came in she made me feel kinda bad about it, but I kept going back. So, now I have a stylist that supports me and I want everybody to be able to find one like that. They’re out there. So, the salon directory is another resource.
I just started gray hair confidence coaching where people can either ask me a question and get a quick video response if they just need a little support or they can actually book a Zoom call with me and we can actually talk about it. It’s actually a really emotional process to decide to go gray. It brings up a lot of —
Katie Fogarty (20:22):
I can imagine.
Katie Emery (20:24):
Yeah, you can imagine. So, I want to be there for people.
Katie Fogarty (20:27):
It’s so interesting because I was joking at the beginning. I view myself sort of as a blonde but I feel like I might have tricked myself into believing that because I did, anyone who is listening who remembers Sun In, you put essentially a shower cap on and you would take like a knitting needle and you would hook your hair through the holes in the shower cap and then you would dump chemicals on your head, and then of course, you looked insane. But ultimately, I was kind of blonde-ish when I was younger, and then I just started turning into somebody who is going to the salons and highlights. And you really start to lose track of what your hair color is, but you begin to see yourself a certain way. The notion of shifting how you see yourself and seeing yourself in a way that society is not really there for. There’s so much ageism.
What was the ultimate reaction at work? You said that was one of your concerns. Did people get on board once you’d fully made the transition or have you transitioned your own business life into the full-time blog and YouTube?
Katie Emery (21:39):
I’m still working at my job, but I’m hoping to eventually be able to do that. I’m getting close, so we’ll see. But the reaction at work at first, like I said, it was mainly women, told me they could never do it but they thought it was cool that I was doing it. Nobody was too negative. Once it was all silver, which is kind of the preferred term for gray hair among us, people loved it. I didn’t see a lot of other women at work deciding to go for it, but I’ve gotten nothing but great reactions about it.
In my personal life, I’ve had a lot of people who I didn’t even know I was influencing who’ve decided to go gray because they saw me doing it and they decided to move forward. So, I would never tell somebody that they should do this. I think it’s a personal decision but if they decide to and they like it then I’m happy.
Katie Fogarty (22:26):
Absolutely. And thank you for letting me know that silver, by the way, I’m going to be using silver from now on because I want to make sure I’m using the right term of art. And I also love the phrase “silver sisters”.
So, did you have to make other changes once you went silver? Did you have to learn to recolor your makeup did you start wearing different things? Different types of clothing look, you know, the color affects how our face looks and our hair. Did that change as well, was that part of your transition?
Katie Emery (22:57):
It definitely did. What’s funny is when you said you’re so used to being a blonde you can’t remember what it was like before. I kind of forgot what my natural hair color was like. For years I would dye it dark brunette, but if you let it fade a little it gets those reddish, brassy tones, you know what I mean? So I would wear beige and other colors that looked good with that warm, reddish-brown hair that I had. Now that my hair is growing in, it’s actually silver on top, and the underneath is almost black. And it’s interesting to me because now it really makes sense. I thought my skin might look bad if I went silver because I’m so pale but it actually kind of makes my skin glow, and the colors that looked good on me before, when I was younger, look better on me than the other ones. So, I can’t wear beige anymore, it’s too warm for my skin tone. But if I wear like, the deep sapphire blue or hot pink, or a dark blue-red, it really makes my silver hair pop and it’s really flattering. So, I’ve gotten rid of all the beige or brown in my closet. But obviously, you can wear whatever you’d like. But if you really want to have fun with color, it’s kind of fun to experiment and try new things.
Same thing with makeup. I am such a darn, really super pale person. Bronzer or stuff like that does not look normal on me. So, I’m kind of back to the basics which is like pale foundation with a pink, maybe a little blush. Blues and greens and stuff for eye shadow. I’m actually finding, to my surprise, I wear less makeup now. I thought I would wear more because my hair was so pale, but actually, I find I don’t need as much makeup. My skin kind of glows because it’s like reflecting my hair. I don’t know, it’s weird.
Katie Fogarty (24:44):
No, I don’t think it’s weird at all. I probably follow no fewer than 30 silver accounts on Instagram and some of them are people’s personal transitions through Instagram. They’re sort of documenting it. Some are more curating sites, where it’s a site that maybe features lots of different women. Women who have made that transition, or maybe are almost white, or kind of silver and black, everyone’s skin looks amazing, and their eyes are really popping. And I think it’s because you’re actually, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be, you’re yourself. If that makes any sense. So, your skin and your eyes are like working with your hair versus if sometimes you see people who clearly have dark dye, it almost drains the color from your face because there’s a disconnect. It’s like, too stark a contrast. Whereas when you’re silver, it’s working. Your silver hair works with what your body is doing. I don’t know if that’s maybe just the way I feel. But I’ve seen so many gorgeous women so, I agree with you that there’s this sort of glow that you get when people are fully, fully gray.
So, how do you care for it? I’m talking about beautiful silver hair that I'm seeing but sometimes you do see people in the grocery store, moving around, and silver hair can turn a little bit yellow or turns purple. How do you guard against some of those mishaps?
Katie Emery (26:14):
Okay, well the number one thing is that yellowing can definitely happen to silver hair for a variety of reasons. One is from medication, from smoking, from overuse of products, too much product buildup can cause yellowing. And the number one culprit is using too many hot tools or too much sun exposure. So, what I do is I use, I only use heat tools maybe once every other time I wash my hair. Me, I wash my hair twice a week. So, I use heat tools once, the second time I just let it air dry. If you do use a heat tool, it’s best to spray your hair with a thermal protectant because you really want to protect your hair while you’re using the heat tool. I prefer to use the Revlon One-Step Blow Dryer brush and that gets super hot so, I use the heat protectant and I also use it on low.
If you are out in the sun, its a good idea to wear a hat on your silver hair, and if you can’t wear a hat, you can use something like Aveda has an SPF spray. I spray my hair all over with that and that seems to help.
And if you’ve got yellowing and you can’t get rid of it, my number one favorite product is QuickSilverHair Clay. I buy that from my friend Joli, she has a great website called quicksilverhair.com. It’s like a kaolin clay that you mix with sulfate-free conditioner and she has a hair oil. I put that all over my hair, maybe once a month, sometimes more, and it’s like a mask. Put it on your hair, leave it on for like 40 minutes, and when I wash it out and dry my hair, my hair is like, sparkling, all the product build-up has gone and that reduces, actually removes yellowing. It’s really the only product I know that removes yellowing. If you just want to reduce yellowing you can use purple shampoo. But if you overuse it, it can actually turn your hair purple so, I wouldn’t recommend using it more than about once a week. So, that’s my number one consideration.
Katie Fogarty (28:13):
That clay mask sounds divine. So, the purpling of the hair is caused by the overuse of the shampoo. So, you avoid that by not using that purple toner, is that correct?
Katie Emery (28:25):
Yes, I actually really prefer the clay mask over everything. It doesn’t leave any kind of coloration on your hair. But the purple shampoo is a great option, it’s just, you just don’t want to overdo it. It can also be very drying. So, when I use the purple shampoo, like I said, not more than once a week. For me, I use it more like once a month. Then I use a deep hydrating conditioning such as the Joico K-Pak, you really need to deep condition your hair. Because that purple shampoo deposits the purple which reduces the yellow but it can really dry out your hair.
Katie Fogarty (28:58):
Okay. And all of these wonderful resources are on Katie's website, that I’m gonna link to and I’m also gonna put them in the show notes. Katie before I let you go and wrap up I do want to take a minute to ask you about an article I saw on your website which is titled something like, “7 Weird Things That Happen When You Go Gray.” I loved the headline because I thought, I want to know what those are. We may not be able to talk about all seven, but can you talk about a couple of weird and surprising things that happened to you since you went silver?
Katie Emery (29:33):
Sure. Well, the number one thing is I didn’t expect to find it so fun to watch. Letting your hair go gray cold turkey, it’s like. a science experiment happening on your head. One of those seven weird things is you end up taking tons of selfies on your hair. Every woman I know who has gone gray has said the same thing. If people looked at my phone they’d think I was the worst narcissist because it’s all pictures of my hair. It’s just insane. I guess one of the other big weird things, and it was surprising to me because this is not what we’re told, is that men find it attractive. It turns out there’s a lot of men out there that really love gray hair. If you’re on Instagram you probably get unwanted messages from them, more than you ever expected.
Katie Fogarty (30:15):
Interesting, interesting. [laughs]
Katie Emery (30:21):
Not expected. So, that was it. And then, I guess if you’re kind of a private person, I’m an extrovert but I’m private when I’m not amongst my friends. It’s weird for your hair to become the topic of conversation because it’s totally the topic of conversation when you walk into a room and that’s always a little, it kinda takes you aback, especially when you’re growing it out. Once you’re all gray, not as much, but in the process. So, those just struck me funny one day. These are some weird things, not what I expected.
Katie Fogarty (30:47):
Those are weird things. What’s the number one best thing that’s been an outcome from this?
Katie Emery (30:53):
I think the number one best thing is I kind of reclaimed that sense of being rebellious that I had when I was in my twenties. I never thought I’d become the kind of person who would feel like I had to do anything. And then I was kind of surprised to discover when I turned 50 like I still felt like I had to dye my hair. And then I felt a little rebellious, like, “I’m not gonna do that, I don’t have to do that”. It’s really been one of the best things, is just the emotional liberation. I just feel liberated. It makes you think about what else in my life am I doing that I don’t feel like I want to do anymore, but I feel like I had to do? And you just get rid of it. I also think that’s a side effect of turning 50. I’m not gonna do things I don’t want to do anymore.
Katie Fogarty (31:33):
I one hundred percent agree. So Katie, how old are you now?
Katie Emery (31:38):
I’m 53, I’ll be 54 next week.
Katie Fogarty (31:40):
Okay. And so, you had said earlier in the show that your first grays came at 16. So, do you think you could have done this at 16, or did it have to take you until you were older and sort of felt more confident and just more frustrated that you’re putting up with some of this nonsense and sort of a slave to your hair? Could you have done it younger or did it happen at the right time?
Katie Emery (32:02):
I think it happened at the right time for me. I think when I was younger I definitely wasn’t confident enough. You want to fit in, I mean I was rebellious in my own ways, but letting my hair go gray at that time probably wasn’t one of them. Now, I feel like it’s the right time. When I do see these women in their twenties and thirties, I think if I’d had that kind of role models I definitely would have considered it. At the time I didn’t. I didn’t even think of it as an option because we didn’t see that. Nobody in my family, none of the women in my family over 20 let their hair go gray. So, it’s nice. I think it's good for the younger kids today to see that this is an option. Having gray hair, it doesn’t mean you’re old, it’s a hair color, and for some of us, it starts as young as 5. I’ve women who started going gray at 5. It has nothing to do with age except that it's more likely to see on older people. But we’ve lived — I don’t want to say we’ve lived a lie — but we’ve lived through several generations of people who hid their hair color so, we don’t really know what's normal anymore. I feel glad to be part of this transformation.
Katie Fogarty (33:00):
I love that so much. One of the articles that I mentioned earlier when I read about Clairol, I read a whole history about the history of dyeing and when we really embrace it as a society. It really happened in the 1950s when the hair care industry really shifted the way we feel about gray and demonized it and then turned an entire generation, multiple generations, of American women onto hair dye. So, I’m going to put that article in the show notes too because I think it’s just an interesting historical perspective on this. I love that you are being a silver hair evangelist and a role model for women who want to embrace this and be rebellious and recognize that going gray is a power move, right.
Katie Emery (33:47):
Definitely.
Katie Fogarty (33:47):
This has been so much fun, Katie. How can our listeners keep following you and your work?
Katie Emery (33:52):
Thanks. The best way for them to follow me is to go onto my website, katiegoesplatinum.com. I have a weekly newsletter and if they go to my home page they’ll see the sign up right there. In the newsletter I get a little more personal, share more stories, and they can also join my Facebook group that I co-admin, it’s called Silver Revolution and I’m on there every day so, I’d love to answer questions or be there for people. It’s definitely a process and it's a fun process but it can be scary too so, it’s nice to have a community.
Katie Fogarty (34:23):
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Katie.
Katie Emery (34:25):
Thank you for having me. I had a great time.
Katie Fogarty (34:23):
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. This also wraps our April shows and our month-long theme of “Out Loud” talking midlife topics that don’t get enough air time. We kicked off the month with former real simple editor Kristin van Ogtrop who talks midlife indignities and how to survive them in episode one. Episode two Dr. Angelish Kumar covers all things bladder and vaginal health from bladder leaks to painful sex, she can fix your irksome issues. Professional truth-teller and say-it-out-louder, comic, Carole Montgomery, came on in episode three to talk about midlife funny moments. And Katie Emery came and gave us a pep talk and tools for ditching the dye and rocking our silver.
Join me next week as we kick off May. We’re exploring relationships and how they evolve in midlife. See you next time, and until then: age boldly, beauties.