Happier Grey Podcast

In this week's episode I'm chatting with Tina Boden, who went grey in Lockdown, and feels very at home with the grey hair. Tina is all about making midlife matter. And has done everything from entering Mrs Galaxy UK (and posting about it on LinkedIn), to creating AWWA accepting who we are, with her friend Rachel Peru.

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Michelle Smith, who coloured her hair for 40 years, before growing the colour out Lockdown. She'd always had long hair, but ended up with it very short as part of her grow out.  And it was the change in length, rather than ditching the dye which had the most reaction from her family and friends.

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Clare Downham, who's decision to ditch the dye was driven by a desire to reduce the harmful chemicals she was putting in and on her body. She feels more comfortable in her own skin now, than she has for years. And having natural hair is just a part of the person she is today.

In this week's episode I'm catching to Lizzie George, who chose to go grey during the Pandemic, when she moved into a motor home full time. Lizzie loves her short grey hair, both for how it looks, and for how easy it is to look after. Perhaps a good thing, given that continuing to use home dyes was never really going to be an option when she down-sized from a six-bedroom family home to a...

In this episode I'm chatting to Juno Quaintrell. Having dyeing her hair into her 50s in the belief that looking younger was important if she wanted to forge a new career post-divorce, she in now comfortable with her natural silver highlights. Part of Juno's current attitude to ageing was forged by interviewing women from around the World for her PhD. And seeing first hand how age celebra...

In this episode I'm chatting to Rachel Eglinton who chose to go grey while she was living in Romania. She had a short Bob at the start of her grow out, a route that she highly recommends. Rachel lives full time on a narrow boat, so low maintenance, environmentally friendly hair care is very much part of her routine.

This week's episode is a little different, because I dropped my daughter at university this week, which got me thinking about mums. And I realised that I've never invited my own silvering mother onto the show, I decided to invite her as my guest this week. She's 89, and almost certainly has fewer white hairs than I do!

In this episode I'm chatting to Aishah Iqbal, who chose to go grey during the Pandemic as the result of an International Women's Day Challenge from the company she was working for. Aishah has come a long way since that decision, creating the award-winning documentary film White Hair Don't Care, which challenges the rampant ageism in the beauty industry.

In this episode I'm chatting to Leah Dalby, who experimented with having her hair highlighted for a while. But stopped following a terrible experience at the hairdressers. She had her hair permed for 39 years, before deciding to stop 10 years ago. Now her hair is completely natural.

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Rachel Jammeh, who only tried to have her hair dyed once... and ended up in hospital following a severe allergic reaction to the dye. As a result covering her greys has never been an option for Rachel, as it could quite literally kill her. As a result, she's comfortable accepting ageing naturally, but has had both positive and negative reaction...

This week I'm chatting to Kim McClaran, who is based in the States. She originally had pale red hair, which faded to blonde, rather than having obvious white hairs. She has only ever used temporary dyes on her hair, which she started colouring at the request of her spouse, because her fading hair made him think about his own ageing.

In this episode I'm chatting the Helen Davis, who's decision to stop dyeing her hair coincided with major life changes in 2015. Helen first started dyeing her hair as a result of a comment her sister made ahead of her getting married. So, I couldn't resist asking her whether her sister still dyed her hair! 

In this episode I'm chatting to Irish artist Emma Finn, who is almost a year into her grow out. Emma's enjoyed experimenting with her hair, since she first dyed it when she was 12. At the moment, she's having fun with the effects she can create with up dos and her two-tone hair.

In this episode I'm chatting to Franca Cumbo who is 18 months into her grow out, and feels like to amount of grey she's seeing is plateauing. Like many of us she's seeing less grey than she expected. Franca experimented with highlights in the early stages of her grow out, but she didn't love the look, so she's just going cold turkey now.

This week's podcast guest is Nina Macarie who lives in Romania. She started experimenting with hair dye when she was in her teens, and has tried lots of different shades over the years. She stopped dyeing her hair in the Pandemic, following an unsuccessful home dye, while she wasn't able to get to the salon.

This week's episode is a little bit different! I've got a male guest on the for the first time.  I've heard such a variety of ways of going grey from guests in my previous episodes. Along with tales of struggles some of them have had with yellowing hair. So I thought it would be fun to get some tips from my (greying) hairdresser Liam Carr, who is Technical and Style Director at Toni...

This week's guest is Anne Marie Soulsby, who ditched the dye in Lockdown, in part driven by her deepening environmental commitment, which has seen her seek to reduce her chemical footprint. She doesn't always love the aesthetic of her grey hair, or the fact that it doesn't work well with some of the items in her wardrobe, but that is less important to her than being as sustainable a...

This week's guest Alison Taylor has an interesting hair history, ranging from rag curls and perms as child, to a love of Henna before going grey over 20 years ago. She's had her hair short for over 40 years, after finding blow dries, breast-feeding and getting to work on time a completely incompatible combination. And wisely choosing her son, over maintaining a sleek bob!

This week's guest is Tracey Tait, who is in the process of grey the last of the dye from her hair. In recent years, she's had a combination of highlights and lowlights, which quickly faded, so she decided to take the plunge and embrace her natural colour. Tracey had a difficult perimenopause, and keeping her hair dyed through that time was one of the things that helped her through it. Bu...

In this episode I'm chatting to Sarah Heaney, who chose to go grey when she was 35, following a couple of earlier attempts what ended with her going back to dyeing her hair dark. Sarah has no plans to fade into the background, and loves to wear yellow, which brings her so much joy.

In this episode I'm chatting to Joanne Bonnett, who found her first white hairs in her teens. And many years of first henna, box dyes and colouring at the salon followed. Like many of us, she choose to embrace her natural silver hair in Lockdown, and was an early adopter for grey blending.

In this episode I'm chatting with Karen Hands, who's only encounter with hair dye was with henna in her teens. Karen was horrified when she spotted her first greys, but also wanted to be taken more seriously in her scientific career, so came to the conclusion that keeping them would give her more credibility.

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Lori Alpino Holloway about her grey hair journey, including why she decided against grey hair blending, and how she often gets stopped by strangers for a chat about her hair. Lori is a former New Yorker, who now lives in Colorado. The sunny whether means she has to be extra careful with her lovely silver hair to avoid it yellowing.

This week's guest is Tanya Spencer, who finds her curls more of a challenge than her greys. Originally from the US, Tanya now lives in Denmark. Unlike most of my guests, she would like to have had a some greys when she was younger, to give her more credibility in the heavily male dominated environments in which she works.

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Jayne Shufflebotham, who didn't find her first greys until her mid-forties. She first started colouring her hair when she broke up with her first hushand, first as a bleached blonde crop, then later bright red. Her hand was forced into going grey, when her hair would no longer hold the bright red that she loved.