Three years ago 51-year-old Anne Kreamer decided to go natural and stop dying her hair dark-brown. What resulted was her book Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, And Everything Else That Really Matters.
The title of the book alone says Kreamer sure learned a lot. Here are some points:
Gray doesn't mean dowdy. After she posted "before" and "after" photos on Match.com, she discovered that the gray locks version received three times as many "winks" from men than her brunette version.
At bars, younger guys flirted with her. Her conclusion: tinted hair is a sign of phoniness and a gray head translates into candor and self-assurance.
HOWEVER, she admits, when it comes to the job market, gray is a big disadvantage. After interviewing Human Resource workers, Kreamer concludes that prospective bosses "definitely discriminate against gray-haired applicants." Then she connects the dots to the House of Representatives, saying, "Perhaps that explains why only six of the 67 female House members have gray hair."
Other factoids Kreamer dishes out:
At a 2005 Fortune conference for "heavy-hitting businesswomen," only 11 of 324 attendees were dye-free.
The average American woman faces "economic, romantic, and social pressure" to color her hair -- and that's why "65 percent do."
Kreamer herself had spent $65,000 over her lifetime dyeing her graying hair.
The reason she decided to go gray to begin with: After seeing a photo of herself with her daughter and an older friend, she felt her dark-brown dye job looked fraudulent.
FYI: I plan to have chemically dependent hair till I'm 80.
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