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Are You Brave Enough To Go Gray?

Going natural has been one of my best decisions!

Carol Labuzzetta, MS
4 min readJan 28, 2023
Pretty woman with dark hair, smiling and holding her chin in contemplation.
Image by Nika Akin from Pixabay

Three years ago in February, I made the decision to stop coloring my hair. My natural color is a very dark brown, almost black. I was coloring it every six weeks to keep from getting a gray stripe on my part. I used to be able to go every other cut before I got it colored but it soon became necessary to color it almost every time. It was either that or not look my best.

Yes, I guess there’s some vanity here. But, for the last three years, I let my hair proceed with its natural signs of aging. That’s not being vain — as some days or months — it really didn’t look good.

As the gray came and proceeded to infest my darkly colored locks, there were times I looked haggard. I know this. But by then, I had retired, and I didn’t have anywhere to be that required me to look like I had my act together, so I let it go.

But let me be clear, this was a conscious decision to go gray. I thought about it a lot before I did it. My mom — now 85 — colored her hair up until she was hospitalized in the fall of 2021. By then I was well into the gray zone. In fact, I think I inspired her to stop.

All in all, it was not a hard thing to do. I did keep regular haircut appointments with my stylist who was very encouraging and did not…

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Carol Labuzzetta, MS
Carol Labuzzetta, MS

Written by Carol Labuzzetta, MS

I write about the environment, education, nature, and travel. Having two master's degrees, in nursing and environmental education, I am a teacher at heart.

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