Review: Silver Hair: Say Goodbye to the Dye and Let Your Natural Light Shine: A Handbook

Silver Hair: Say Goodbye to the Dye and Let Your Natural Light Shine: A Handbook by Lorraine Massey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

As a long time Curly Girl fan, I jumped at the chance to review Lorraine Massey's new book. I got it and am reviewing it less than 48 hours after having first seen it on Net Galley! First of all, what she's talking about in this book is the exact situation I find myself in at this point time. After years of coloring away the gray (and no, I'm not afraid to call it gray), it's become so overwhelming in the past year, since the stress of my mother's death and its aftermath, that I'm at the point of taking the "grow-it" out plunge myself. This book seemed to just hit a sweet spot for me.

Massey's book is packed with good advice and fascinating photos that lets those of us considering letting our silver hair grow out know what to expect. The time lapsed photos of clients that have started letting the gray grow are helpful because they give us a sense of how long it takes, what it looks like and what we can do to make it attractive. Whether we let it grow out and mingle with fading dyed hair, or get our colorist to match the emerging gray, she offers a ton of advice on how to care for our new silver hair, and how to bring out its best. She also offers general fashion and makeup style advice because for many women, going silver is going to change the color range that will flatter them.

What I liked less about the book was the large number of personal stories of women going gray, which seemed, after a while, a bit repetitive. I get her goal, mind you. Massey seems very driven to convince us that it's okay to go gray or silver. (I would equally add that, to me, it's okay not since many women may find themselves in professional situations where they may not feel this is a good choice right now.) To be sure, I know a lot of people receive pressure to continue to color their hair. She offers sound advice on how to push back on that idea, with the ultimate reward being healthier hair and being released from the salon cycle. The large number of photos of women with spectacular silver hair is enough to convince anyone that it's possible to have silver hair and be very attractive and fashionable.

My other problem is with some of the recipes for hair treatment she offers up in the book. I live in a major metropolitan area, and I'm not even sure where I'd go looking for Indian gooseberry juice. Another recipe, Blue Dew Toning hair bath, calls for at least four of different blue/purple flowers and berries like betony, hollyhocks, iris, indigo, woad, cornflower, elderberry or blackberry. Even if you can acquire these things, while natural colors are great and all, I can tell you as a chemist that your results may vary based on the pH of your water (hard vs. soft) and the pH of whatever you put on your hair after using the toner. Natural pigments can have sharp changes in color based on how hard your water is. (You should see the pretty green color I can make from a juice-based dye extracted from red pomegranate arils, after rinsing a magenta pink-tinged fabric in Miami's hard water!) So I'd approach some of these with caution. And for heaven's sake, don't use blueberries unless you want a greenish gray tinge.

This is still a very enjoyable book and one I'll buy when it releases in February. By then, I'll have some major silver going on!

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