- These portraits of South African drum majorettes by photographer Alice Mann are just wonderful. (The Cut)
- I also very much liked these portraits of women who chose not to have children. (NY Times)
- This footage of star gymnast Simone Biles in slow-motion is pretty hypnotic. (Kottke)
- And this trailer for the Anthony Bourdain doc, Roadrunner, is rather poignant. (Eater)
- These pictures of some of the wild hats people wore to the Royal Ascot are fun. (CNN)
- I watched this Bo Burnham special a few days ago and it blew my mind. (Netflix)
- Did you listen yet to this week’s episode of Everything is Fine, with the entirely rad activist and educator Heather Corinna? It’s all about menopause and perimenopause, and is as amusing as it is educational. (Apple Podcasts)
- And speaking of Everything is Fine, check out these fantastic portraits of women who went grey during Covid, by former EIF guest Elinor Carucci. (New Yorker)
- This is a rather fascinating story about how, during the Cold War, people made forbidden Soviet record albums from used X-ray film. (Kottke)
- Relatedly, here is what a world’s fair looked like from behind the iron curtain. (Messy Nessy Chic)
- This guy recreates airline meals for fun. (BBC News)
I went grey during Covid, moving from almost black to white. Wore a cap all last summer while I looked like a skunk. Couldn’t be happier — with the look AND the freedom from the chore. I feel every bit as attractive, and perhaps more, to my surprise. Washed out? Wear a bit brighter blush or lipstick. I’m also re- assessing clothing colors as I come back into the world. Cannot recommend highly enough. I’m 57, if that matters.
Going gray is complicated. While it can be a source of empowerment, the truth is that it doesn’t suit everyone. Women who previously had dark hair tend to look great with silver hair, but blondes just look washed out. Not everyone who continues to color their hair are trying to look younger. (that’s a lost cause, anyway!)
I don’t have any experience being blonde, so this is from the bleachers, but while I agree with MaryAlice that results of going gray can vary, I tend to think that “washed out” is more of an invitation to look more closely. Big contrasts aren’t always necessary, I think. … … … The other thing I think is, we don’t see ourselves as others do. Unless someone you trust is telling you you look washed out, maybe you don’t? (Or maybe you do? Are we in Safe Space mode, or Problem Solving mode?… enquriring minds … someone tell me before I p*ss everyone off…)
Something I try to keep in mind is that gray may not suit all men, and yet, for the most part, they’re allowed to exist just as they are.
Safe space vs. problem solving – I literally laughed out loud as this is basically the cause of and solution to most comment sections. 🙂
Gray hair is the most radical color you can have, more than if you dyed your hair pink, purple, or green. I’ve never seen an article about women over 45 who color their hair pink, but there are scads about women whose natural hair is, gasp, gray and yet those women actually go out in public and let people SEE that!! Stop the presses!
(ps.I don’t color, I’m mostly all gray and if these articles convince more women to stop coloring, then yay. (and if you’re sticking to brown, greige, blonde or pink, yay to you too.)
Oh, heavens no! No one who is close to me would ever say that, and if someone who WASN’T close to me told me that I would melt their face!
I am comfortable and confident in what works for me and what doesn’t…I have fair skin with yellow undertones and my natural hair color is on the golden side, and I have put on gray wigs for costumes and I looked sickly…suddenly, I had shadows under my eyes and my skin looked fish belly white. Same thing happens when I try to wear purple! 🙂
Truem big contrasts aren’t always necessary, but where black or dark brown hair turns an attractive pure silver, blonde hair just seems to fade…
I dunno, I started going gray at 17 and was almost entirely gray/white by my mid-30’s. My original color was a dark reddish-blonde and I’m super pale, so for awhile I kept coloring it because I thought I had to. My hairdresser convinced me to stop. It was easily the best decision I’ve ever made regarding my appearance – I get a LOT of compliments, which I had not anticipated would happen at all. Young women, older women, even men sometimes will actually stop me on the sidewalk and say super nice things (as someone who was bullied and called ugly a lot as a teen, I’m still kind of shocked when this happens and never take it for granted). My husband low-key brags about this to people sometimes, including his mother. Now you can call me some sort of outlier if you want, maybe I am, but I maintain that nobody knows how they’ll look or feel with gray hair until they try it. There are no rules about who it will or won’t work for (and boy do we ever love our rules!). Viajara is right – we don’t always see ourselves the way others do, and sometimes the way others see us can be revelatory. Of course what any women chooses to do with her hair is 100% her business, but I’m just saying. There’s a lot of value in challenging our assumptions, about ourselves and others.
I was inspired to let my gray come out after episode 9 of EIF. And weirdly, my hair is growing out a kind of bronzish-gray mix. It’s weird and I love it. It’s still quite a way from being completely grown out, but I’m amazed at what’s happening.
Bird hat at Ascot, and the young band members above, for that hat wins. (I want the white boots too.)
It was just the same with Surya Bonalie, the french figure skater who did a back flip on ice. She was forbidden to do it because … it’s unfair. Also really dangerous. Not to be recommended. Just think of the children. In short: really very awesome.
I liked the Messy Nessy Chic story about the Leipzig World Fair and “Ostalgie” (Nostalgia for the GDR) – what people usually forget is the reason why most eastern German products vanished after reunification: because they were a) often not available, b) really bad and c) people really didn’t want them anymore. Why drink “Vita Cola” when you can get the real stuff? Why wait for 18 years to drive a Trabant, when you could get a VW now?
I’m German and my grandmother send packages once a year (you weren’t allowed to send stuff more often) to a friend in the GDR, and occasionally something would arrive in the West, which usually was … full of love, I’m sure, but the chocolate was horrible (I was a child and very probably quite horrible, too). Plus a long list which mostly made it through censure with things she’d like to have next. And now consider that the neighbours and your friends and your relatives were watching you and reporting to the Stasi and the warm glow of Ostalgie vanishes quickly.
Simone Biles is AMAZING! What about the Bo Burnham special made it mind-blowing? I’ve been tempted, but I need a good reason to watch. Love the links to the photos. Can’t wait for the Anthony Bourdain doc. Still makes me so sad.
I can’t stop singing the songs from the Bo Burnham special, especially White Woman’s Instagram.
Also, Simone Biles deserves all the wins. It blows my mind that she gets shit from the judges because they think it’s unfair she can do what others can’t, and that they don’t want other gymnasts injuring themselves trying to attempt the same maneuvers. Ummmm…what????
In my morning reading, I came across a description of graying hair that I thought was wonderful. It’s a stanza of a poem by Tada Chimako, translated by Jeffrey Angles. The poem, “After Half a Century”, was written late in the most excellent Tada’s life. Sometimes, you don’t know when you’ve fallen in love with a poet. But, I knew I had fallen in love with Tada when I read this stanza: “By the time I realized what was happening, I was clinging to the earth/ So I would not be shaken off as it spun with even greater speed/ My hair, dyed in two parts with night and day, had come loose/ (Yet still I toyed with dice in one hand)”