- During confinement, many women chose to forgo colorings and let their white hair thrive.
- Those who responded to our call for testimonials explain this choice by the need for a “return to nature” and a “desire to become again” themselves.
- For their part, Michel Messu, author of Un Ethnologue chez le coiffure (Ed. Fayard) and Aurélie Louchart, author of Too frizzy? (Hikari Editions), evoke the weight of social construction and cultural heritage, but also a confinement that has redrawn our relationship to time.
“I see a lot of clients who have chosen to keep their hair white. Many also told me that they questioned themselves and turned to vegetable coloring. Like a need to get back to basics, to the natural. »Valérie Gouzien is the manager of the New trends show, in Etauliers, in Haute-Gironde. After May 11, she saw deconfines arriving in her living room with their hair now damp, salt and pepper, or even rather salt. Among them, Brigitte, 68, who discovered that her "white hair was not so bad after all".
Brigitte is not the only one to have given up coloring to feel "herself", to "put an end to the constraints of the hairdresser and finally swim by putting her head under water". Nearly 500 women of all generations responded to the call for testimonies launched by 20 Minutes . After weeks under the hood and without Infini'tif or C'est dans l'Hair, Yvonne has "found the freedom to no longer dye" her hair and "finally" accepts her "white locks". As for Adèle, 39, who has dyed her hair with natural henna for several years, she "decided to stop everything" and is "rather pretty today" although she is "still in a phase of transition" .
With summer, hairy freedom and holidays away from hairdressers, the trend is expected to increase further
"Trying to control time is a waste of time"
So welcome to the new “white hair team”, made up of those who say “free themselves from the gaze of others” or “finally assume their age”. "And thank you to the confinement which allowed them to take the plunge, to see that trying to control time is a waste of time, cowardly at 20 Minutes Michel Messu, sociologist and ethnologist, author of Un ethnologue chez le barber * . These women saw their image change in the mirror, very slowly. They tamed each other, took the time to love each other and, for some, to realize that this reflection was finally who they were and no longer the image they wanted to send back. "
Our readers, from Manon to Ginette, actually speak of a “return to nature” or “to become oneself again”. Julie had never dared to wait very long between two colorings. Containment forced her to. She asked the opinion of her husband, that of her children, watched videos of bloggers who had taken the plunge and "exchanged with female colleagues who were also thinking about it". “When my choice was made, I felt free from a weight,” she explains. No more monthly appointments with the hairdresser, no need to calculate when to wash my hair so as not to damage my color. I realized that I didn't like my white hair because I had never let it take its place. "I would not say that it is about a new me, but rather about the real me", still explains Adèle, our Internet user of 39 years.
Look at Edouard Philippe's beard
Michel Messu goes further in the analysis: “There was the race for eternal youth, there is that of returning to nature. Today, we are turning away from artifices and confinement has made it possible to settle conflicts with ourselves. Women have dropped the bra, like coloring. They have emerged, helped by the liberating currents of recent years. "The empowerment movements have raised the question of diversity, of" the diversification of the brand of the ages ". Proof of this is, according to the sociologist, an Edouard Philippe who does not hide his beard marked by time and trials.
“The times want us to show our difference and hair is the means of being another. They are the ideal tool to show that we are going against the grain, ”says Michel Messu. “To stop hiding your white hair is also to give the finger to a narrow definition of beauty and the feminine. It is the rejection of absurd standards which say that we would not have the right to grow old and we would only be attractive when we are young, therefore fragile and inexperienced, ”explains Aurélie Louchart, author of Too frizzy? * At 20 Minutes . *
Not false. Since among the 500 testimonies collected, many are those evoking "a new found freedom in relation to the weight of the gaze of others" or the desire to do away with "oppressive standards". “I couldn't stand putting things and things on my hair and bending to the dictates of pubs,” announces Frédérique. Containment helped me take the plunge. My hair and I are on better terms today. "" Every morning, it was brushing, counting white hair and fine lines in front of the mirror, announces Elisa, seen at the exit of the Maïandra salon in Bordeaux. I don't know what exactly happened but this confinement has helped me let go and be more indulgent with myself. I also saw that I was not the only one and as usual the group effect moved forward. Finally, naturally, I find myself just as beautiful. "
View this post on Instagram
“I found and my first gray hair at around 21 years old, but I didn't know it would become a wide and beautiful strand so I started to pluck, until my mother said," Daughter, stop, you will have a strand like mine!" (My mother always dyed her hair blonde, so I didn't know her hair.) From there on I started to grow and today everyone asks: 'What a beautiful strand! Do you do it or is it natural?! ' and I answer super proudly, 'It's mine, God gave it to me!' There are also those colleagues who call you X-Man and other cartoon characters (always evil witches). I love my lock, I feel super special and beautiful! ” @ iris.lalinha #grombre #gogrombre
A post shared by Going gray with (grohm) (bray) (@grombre) on Aug 14, 2019 at 8:58 am PDT
"At 26, you obviously shouldn't have so much white hair"
Fifty-five days, however, were not enough to deconfin all gray hair. The white hair has taken root on the side of the "bad color", that which evokes old age, "slackness", "neglect", according to our two experts. For (too?) A long time, he is the one that we do not accept because he evokes "the end". For Clémentine, the confinement will not have lasted long enough for this white person to send the judgments waltz. This "blonde with white horses" decided to put an end to her sweeping during confinement ... until she returned to work. “I got used to this new face and thought my colleagues would notice my tan more than my white hair. Big mistake. There isn't a single person who hasn't commented. At 26, you obviously shouldn't have so much white hair and I made an appointment with my hairdresser. "
Our dossier on deconfinement
Hairdressers who will quickly adapt. "They will develop their offers, create new needs, assumes Michel Messu. The natural coloring will develop while the white hair will have to be treated, maintained, styled. "The diktats are back, in a new form ... Laurence, who is pleased to have saved money thanks to her white hair cut short, has already bought" an embellisher that erases yellow reflections ".
* An ethnologist at the hairdresser , by Michel Messu (Editions Fayard, April 2013, 18 euros)
** Too kinky ?, by Aurélie Louchart, (Hikari éditions, February 2019, 16.90 euros).
Society
Coronavirus: Why more and more women are abandoning the bra
Style
Coronavirus: Irritations, pimples, redness ... How to minimize skin problems associated with wearing a mask and hydroalcoholic gel?
- Video
- Covid 19
- Deconfinement
- Confinement
- Style
- Coronavirus