Let's All Freak Out About Kate Middleton's Errant Gray Hair

By Tracy Moore  |  November 9, 2013 | 8:00pm
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No one has gray hair on purpose, k? Gray hair is only something old people or weird early agers have or people who don’t know better. Something people have who’ve decided to not “fix” the problem everyone else can see plain as day. But Kate Middleton left her house recently with gray hairs and didn’t plan in advance for something she had to have known would happen: The zooming in of cameras onto a “little cluster of gray roots all too visible around the new centre-parting,” noted the Daily Beast. All too visible is right. Why would she do this to herself (or us)?

Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast says:

For amidst all the excitement about Kate’s mumzy new hair-do as revealed on yesterday’s London poppy-day walkabout, complete with a Farrah Fawcettish 70s wave, an (admittedly uncharitable) zoom-in on her new hair-do reveals the shocking truth; a little cluster of gray roots all too visible around the new centre-parting.
Somebody send that colorist to the tower.

Shocking indeed: I’m always shocked by any signs of aging, no matter how undetectable by the human eye. And yes, a zoom-in IS uncharitable. We are not supposed to look at things up close. It’s ok for Science but not for People. Even though writing about celebrity kind of IS a soft science about a kind of people, and long lens cameras kind of ARE microscopes, and the whole thing about writing and talking about celebrities kind of IS to examine them, but, you know. Uncharitable.

Is the joke about the colorist and the tower supposed to imply that Kate Middleton might not know she has gray hair or something? Like she got royally fucked? Heh. In what world does Kate Middleton not know about those hairs and say, to hell with it?

This story makes it seem like someone pulled a gotcha move with a camera and “revealed” her embarrassing gray hair, that shocking, uncharitable truth that is now all-too visible to everyone but her. That will be immediately dealt with now that We’ve Let Her Know That We Know.

Tell me something: Is there actually a world where Kate Middleton hasn’t already “zoomed-in” on all her parts already before ever taking so much as one step into a room with an open window? Isn’t that called “getting ready” when you’re a royal/famous person? Isn’t she out in front of every errant hair or exposed dry elbow as a matter of course?

Tom Sykes gets to have it both ways in this story. He gets to be sympathetic to Kate Middleton’s possibly inadvertent gray hair while also sorry for her possibly inadvertent gray hair, as if she’s been caught with her gray hair right there in broad daylight unawares and should be pitied like a commoner while reassuring her that it’s not too late to T-1000 back into a REAL royal.

He’s her critic and her best friend. He’s also just like her!

Personally I started going gray within about two days of having my first child, a fact that is now all–too visible without the benefit of high definition zoom lenses followign me every time I went outside and journalists enlarging photos of me, so I do feel for the girl. As a man, I couldn’t even blame it on the hormones. But I do know there’s nothing like that first sign of mortality to really ruin your week.

Good point: Having to look like a real (old) person must really be bumming her out right now (to say nothing of what will happen to the colorist — I hope it’s not like, her cousin or something).

Scrolling through the story, as the subsequent pictures of Kate Middleton’s unfortunate truth grow larger, more senior, and more horrifying for everyone involved, we learn that hair colorists, generally speaking, are in a vicious battle over whether or not such hair tragedies are because of this one thing or this other thing:

Hair colorists remain divided as to whether it is hormonal changes during pregnancy or stress which causes hair to go gray following pregnancy, however, the sudden onset of post-partum gray hair is far from unusual. In fact, a woman’s hair can undergo a whole range of changes during and after pregnancy.

If it’s stress, I bet colorists know to offer a green tea when they start the tinting process. If it’s hormonal, well, that’s when they recommend the Michelle Duggar look.

Whatever the changes to your hair postpartum, Sykes adds, you’re basically fucked.

While most are related to color (blond to brown, brown to gray) it can also be the texture which changes – and sadly most people don’t find their hair changing from coarse curly strands to the fine and downy straight stuff their daughters sport, if you know what I mean.

Oh indeed we do know what you mean Tom Sykes. This happens to most people, but not to Kate Middleton, not yet, not like this.

Luckily, a stylist steps in to solve it:

“Kate’s grey hairs are probably caused by a hormonal change, which happens to a lot of people after they get pregnant. She only has a few gray hairs and they could be covered easily by a tint.”

Burn. Trouble is, little (old) Kate Middleton doesn’t know anyone who can administer a proper tint these days.

Next, there is a photo of Kate Middleton’s face from an all-too far way distance where she still seems almost young, beside a shot of a prosthetic of an old lady forehead the closest (oldest) shot yet of her offending new travesty against all our expectations of what a rich, beautiful, royal person should look like on her second visit out since giving birth while being beautiful.

Finally, we learn that it’s possible — because other people with vaginas have been known to do it — to speculate from this hideous monstrosity of follicle folly that other women avoid hair coloring while breastfeeding, so maybe Kate Middleton doesn’t want to dose the royal baby with a bunch of shit chemicals because looking good isn’t more important to her than her baby’s health.

Whew. That would be OK, wouldn’t it? We could live with that, couldn’t we? Because if that’s not the reason she did this to us, what would it be? That she’s doing it on purpose? That she’s fuckin’ with us? I think she hates us.

Tom Sykes says:

Many women do also try and avoid or at least reduce the frequency with which they dye their hair during pregnancy and when they are breast-feeding, so this may also go some way to explaining the appearance of a few silvery strands in Kate’s otherwise perfect silken locks.

She’s still. So. Very. Close. To. Perfect.

Silken.

Locks.

Marred.

By.

A.

Few.

Silvery.

Strands.

Still, insists Tom Sykes, as we look around for something, anything, with which to steady ourselves and our sense that the world is still beautiful and sublime, She still looks way better than she has any right to.

…Better than she has any right to, better than she has any right to…

It echoes in the brain like the trailed-off end of a dream conversation as you awake to a startlingly real conclusion. Hey, she doesn’t have the right to look this good! Fuck Kate Middleton! Let’s say it all together! Fuck her!

Next you’re going to tell me I have to get out there and try to look like this hag.

Absolutely not, says Tom Sykes.

But we feel sure this is one look that won’t be benefiting from the famous ‘Kate effect’.

Whew, no shit. Jolly right you are there, old sport. Imagine! If women everywhere simply looked in the mirror, ignored the all-too visible flaws apparent to everyone but them and left them there, uncorrected. Why, what on earth would you do instead? Simply exist as you are, gathering your things and marching out into the daylight, bracing yourself for another day?

Image via Getty.

 
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