It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night and I’m leaning over the tub, my head coated in brown-green goop.   The henna smells earthy and vegetative, like wet grass.  It stains the white tub with mahogany grit when I wash it out, and makes my hair dry as a husk of corn.

Guess whose hair is natural?

But it’s all worth it.  For $7.99, I can cover my grays, those insidious little markers of aging.

Some women are content to go au naturel, transforming with grace into silver foxes.  I admire their Earth Goddess poise, but my vanity won’t let me abandon my youthful mane just yet.  When it comes to my hair, I’m going to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  If this means bimonthly henna treatments, so be it.

Does having kids make you go gray earlier, or is it purely genetic?  “It’s the sleep deprivation,” says one friend, a working mother of three, “It turns your hair white.”

Another friend protests that while parenting may make your body age faster, having kids keeps your mind younger– more playful, imaginative, sharp.  I’m not sure if I believe this theory, because I already lose my glasses and confuse my kids’ names.  But I do know that my child-free friends are, without a doubt, more youthful looking.  They also have better clothes and social lives.

Some science supports the claim that stress (whether child-induced or otherwise) speeds up the hair-graying process.  In a study published in the June, 2009 issue of Cell, researchers found that “genotoxic stress” damages DNA, depleting the specialized “melanocyte stem cells” in the hair follicles that are responsible for producing pigment.  When pigment cells in the follicle gradually die off, the hair strand doesn’t contain as much color, and hence, we get grays.

“It’s all about the hair,” says one dear friend, a 60-year-old knock-out with a yoga body, well-cut clothes, and glossy chestnut mane.  She exudes a confident intelligence that makes heads turn.   I can only hope my hair looks as good as hers in two decades.My girls have yet to watch my home hair-coloring performance, since for sheer convenience, I do it after bedtime.  But they observe my other beauty rituals, from make-up application to leg-shaving.  Back in college, I owned a single cobalt-blue eyeliner and stopped shaving my legs as a feminist statement.  Eighteen years and two kids later, I understand the power of good mascara.  I often hit up my savvy little sister for the latest under-eye concealer.  I enjoy sporting smooth gams, but find it hard to keep up with all the grooming.

“Who wants to play Beauty Shop!?” I shout to my girls on a Friday night.

We get out the Mermaid-Princess bath toys and Mommy’s good shampoo, then all pile into the tub.  They’re so busy lathering up their dolls that I’m free to loofah and shave.  They seem not to notice I’m there until I nick my calf and the soapy water turns pink with blood.

“Mommy, WHY did you do that!?” asks A, age 4 and 3/4.

“It was an accident, honey,” I say.  “Sometimes it happens when people shave.  It doesn’t hurt and it’ll stop bleeding soon.”

“But WHY do people shave?”

This is a question I’ve heard before, for which I have no good answer.  I fall back on:  “Because they like it.”

For now, A is satisfied, but I wonder if I’m modeling for her the tyranny of the female beauty industry.  I want her to know she is free to make her own choices about her appearance.  But are any of us truly free?

My daughters already torment each other by saying “YOU don’t look beautiful!”  In our house, the word “beautiful” now means wearing a fancy party dress.  My earnest attempts to correct the definition go unheeded:   “You girls are always beautiful, no matter what you wear-dresses, pants, mud, naked.”  But I’m not sure my words sink in.

I remember playing “Charlie’s Angels” with my best friend in 4^th grade, Abby Greenberg.  We were sitting at her mother’s lighted vanity table, brushing our hair and studying ourselves in the mirror.  “You’re pretty, but I’m beautiful,” Abby told me.  With that quote, she seemed to sum up our entire identities.

Before I try to de-tangle the snare of feminine self-esteem, I remember my daughters’ favorite Max and Ruby book, “Ruby’s Beauty Shop.” Ruby’s pal Louise shows up with her Deluxe Beauty Kit, complete with wigs, makeup and stick-on nails.  The girls give Max a blonde wig and lots of mousse, then Max dyes his fur Lizard Green.  Author Rosemary Wells knows that playing with beauty stuff is FUN–  a messy mix of art and fantasy.  “Hello, Beauty Shop Hotline!” Ruby answers the phone.

So I wont get too huffy and feminist about my rituals.  I often think of Nora Ephron’s witty memoir about aging, “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” in which she chronicles her life over sixty and the “maintenance” required to look youthful.  With a keen sense of humor, she laments the inevitable downward pull of gravity.  “If I’d known what was going to happen, I would have walked around in a bikini ALL DAY when I was 35,” she writes.  Well, it’s summertime– let’s us moms lighten up and break out the bathing suits!

Tags:   beauty · hair-color · henna · Max and Ruby1 Comment