Some things in nature just shouldn’t be tinkered with. You only have to look
at the faces of Sharon Osbourne and Heidi Montag to realise that.
And it’s a lesson that Professor Mayumi Ito would do well to heed.
Professor who, you ask? Well, Prof Ito is standing on the cusp of being
responsible for what could be, in my opinion, one of the most catastrophic
events in modern-day follicle-ology: the eradication of grey hair.
Earlier this year, the US-based boffin worked out a way to genetically restore
hair colour in greying mice. Which may be great news if you’re an insecure
rodent with a mid-life crisis, but a disaster if, like me, you are a
self-confessed silver-fox fetishist.
You only have to look at this smorgasbord of salt and pepper sexiness to see
why – George Lamb, George Clooney, Matt LeBlanc, Sean Connery, Gandalf, even
Santa (c’mon, he’s cute and he brings pressies).
This is not even a recent thing with me.
Since I was a teenager, I’ve fantasised about being with a man with a mop of
silver hair. The kind of man who sits on Chesterfield armchairs with his
legs crossed reading important books and spouting random sentences of great
intelligence. The type of man who can make my knees tremble with just a
quizzical raised eyebrow.
The silver hair is pivotal to the fantasy. Without it, he is just a man on a
sofa. The silver glows with experience and intelligence… And, for some
reason that I am not quite sure how to articulate, just totally turns me on.
Give me a mature silver fox over a brunette or blond any day. I have no
interest in a head of youthful locks on a guy. I like it grey, silver or
white, and lots of it.
Not so long ago I noticed the mousy-brown curls on my boyfriend’s (Bridesmaids’
Chris O’Dowd) head starting to turn to the light side, and the process is
thrilling.
I am slightly obsessed with it, often wondering if I should stand over him
while he sleeps and do a pigment death dance, willing the colour to die and
for him to wake the next morning with a head as white as a snow-capped
mountain.
I find his insecurities on the matter quite baffling. No matter how much I
drool at each new white flash on his temple, he presumes my excitement is
just ego-massaging – similar to his replies when I ask, “Am I getting fat?”
“I wouldn’t care if you put on weight, I love you for you, not how you look,”
he says, without being able to look me in the eye. But when I say: “I
wouldn’t care if you went grey”, what I really mean, with every part of my
being, is I want him to go grey.
The truth is, men come into their own when their hair goes grey – it’s
ageing’s silver lining. Men who fight it are making a big mistake. There is
nothing worse than that green tinge they get when they take a chance on a
bottle of Just For Men.
When men go grey and accept it, they exude suave, debonair confidence. Most of
us girls would never have the guts to let ageing do its work. We do
everything we can to cover it up and hold it at bay. But the men who accept
nature’s Tippex job show a lack of self-obsession and vanity which
ultimately can only make them hot.
So, put your away your chemistry set Prof Ito and stop fiddling with
perfection. Or, if you really want to make the world a better (looking)
place, invent a dye that actually turns men’s hair grey. Now that would be
exciting…
- Silver Foxes by Dawn Porter (Virgin, £7.99) is out now
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