Wash that grey

I’m gonna wash that grey right out of my hair. Well, that’s the plan, anyway, and so far, it seems to be working. It’s still a little early to tell, though.

Back in February, I wrote about the difficulties I was having with dying my hair. Basically, while grey hair is difficult to colour, beard hair is even harder, and I was seriously thinking about just giving up.

Then, I started using my beard dye the same way I (rarely) used hair dye on my beard. Then, I put the hair dye on my whiskers, waited a couple minutes, then put it on my head hair, and then waited the usual five minutes. This gave my whiskers and extra couple minutes, and the dye usually “took” reasonably well.

So, I started putting the beard dye on the most resistant whiskers first, waiting a minute or two, and then putting it one the rest of my whiskers. This improved things, but there were still white whiskers left, so clearly this new plan wasn’t perfect.

So, I decided to try ControlGX, a shampoo-in hair product from Just For Men, the same brand as the hair and beard dye I’ve used for years. The video above is a commercial for the product, which explains it in most basic terms.

Uncharacteristically, I haven’t bothered to look into how it works, or what’s in it, so for all I know it could be highly toxic. But, since at this point it’s just an experiment, I’ll worry about those details later on if it works and I decide to keep using it.

And, so far, it does seem to be working: My whiskers are becoming dark grey, with those problem white whiskers now a light grey. I’m perfectly okay with it if my whiskers remain dark grey—it’s the white I don’t like, especially because some of my whiskers are still more or less my natural colour, which makes my whisker colour all patchy. Worse, my cheeks are mostly white, around my mouth mostly dark, so I kind of look like I have the moustache of the leather daddy in The Village People, which isn’t quite the look I’m going for.

One of the reasons I don’t object to dark grey is because it matches my eyebrows, which were always that colour. My eyebrows haven’t changed colour yet, but some hairs are starting to grow longer all the sudden, and all I need is for them to turn white and I’d have old man eyebrows—well, almost. I need to learn how to trim them.

Today I trimmed my beard for the first time since I started this, something I’d held off on doing because I was concerned the hairs underneath would be too white, since that’s the way it works with hair and beard dye. However, the colour was mostly consistent with the tips of the hairs, as it should have been. So, it’s passed that test.

I’ve been using the stuff for nearly two weeks, and I haven’t been taking photos of the progress because, to be honest, I didn’t think it would work at all. I have a few photos of me during the time, though, so at the end of this experiment I’ll try to put something together.

Part of the reason I talk about all this, among other age-related issues, is that other men around my age may be curious about solutions to the same problems I face as I get older, and younger men may want a heads up, so to speak, about what lies ahead. Doing this also helps me document things I’m doing, which can help me remember later, which is helpful by itself.

And, because of my age, when I first saw the ad for shampooing away men’s grey hair, the FIRST thing I thought of was the old Clairol TV commercial that borrowed a song from the musical South Pacific and changed it to “I’m gonna wash that grey right out of my hair.” A video of one version of the commercial is below.

Yes, I’m gonna wash that grey right out of my hair. Well, that’s the plan, anyway, and so far, it seems to be working.



Update: There's an update to this post (first item).