Essay.(hair dyes)

True Colors

Changing your hair color can recapture the past a63/44or open up a future of possibility. Three writers reflect on how the decision to dye has colored their world.

Never Say Dye by Jane Hamilton

Never Say Dye

By Jane Hamilton

6[currency]6Let me tell you how it is in the heartland, far from the New York blondes and the California blondes, where what [macron]s considered a good dye job costs $71.50, including the tip. Some of us out here, those from Puritan stock, were brought up to believe that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who dye their hair and those who do not. How often my mother used to sum up the character of an acquaintance by saying brightly, [degrees]And she doesn [macron]t dye her hair! [+ or -] From that single sentence I understood the woman [macron]s essential self, and I could see, too, the aura of her life. Because of her signature lack of vanity, she would be a devoted wife and mother, she would be at ease with herself and the world, and surely she [macron]d take in the poor and teach prisoners to read. But if my mother reported, always in low tones, [degrees]She...dyes her hair, [+ or -] well then, I could be certain that the woman was frivolous, self-absorbed, a grown-up with a juvenile streak, someone who couldn [macron]t take her rightful place on the time line *the queen before her mirror, plotting to kill her raven-haired daughter.

So, you see what a moral dilemma I have been faced with as I approach 50. You will understand what a crisis it has been, to dye or not to dye. This decision is about nothing less ...