Embracing your gray hair isn't always easy. We tend to want to color it, because it's also a way of telling ourselves we're still young. Nevertheless, a community has decided to reveal the beauty of salt and pepper hair. Welcome to the grombre style!
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More and more women are opting for a return to natural beauty. Lighter makeup (even if our latest makeup article suggests the opposite 😇), skin-friendly treatments, plant-based hair dyes... Speaking of hair coloring, some choose to banish them completely from their routines.
But before explaining why, let's review the basics...
Why does hair turn gray?
Graying hair is not due to chance; there's always a reason behind it.
Most of the time, it's obviously aging. With age, hair loses its pigment, a phenomenon known as canities. To understand this, we need to look at hair biology: throughout our lives, hair follicles in our scalp generate and transfer melanin pigments to the hair shaft (the visible part of the hair). But as years pass, hair follicles become exhausted. Not to mention their simultaneous production of oxidizing molecules... These two factors lead to the death of melanocytes, the melanin-generating cells.
However, aging is not the only cause. Daily stress, exposure to UV rays, and environmental pollution can accelerate this production shutdown. Thus, the more the hair grows, the less melanin it contains, until it turns white.
The first gray and white hairs theoretically appear around 34 years old, but for some people, they show up quite early. Indeed, certain autoimmune diseases cause loss of color, such as vitiligo or alopecia areata. On the dietary side, a copper deficiency can also lead to premature hair whitening.
Being Grombre is OK!
Some women got tired of constantly battling their salt-and-pepper shades. They said stop to hair coloring and other covering methods. Instead of suffering, they decided to face it! This is how the term "grombre" found its place online.
Literally a portmanteau of "grey" and "ombre", grombre celebrates gray and white hair.
Grombre isn't new! In reality, this trend dates back to 2016! It was initiated by a young American woman, Martha Truslow Smith.
At 24 years old at the time, the young woman decided overnight to abandon dyeing and embrace her gray hair. To help her in her own transition, she then created an Instagram account, @grombre.
More than just an introspective journal-like account, @grombre became a true source of inspiration for others. In just a few years, Martha unwittingly succeeded in questioning beauty standards, cultural perceptions, and the power of self-acceptance. In one word: positivity.
Today, Martha's account has 239,271 followers. It's a real global movement. The young blogger gradually faded away to make room for testimonials from her community, with this motto as their guiding principle: Grombre is so much more than just hair.
Do you want to celebrate gray hair, or simply find the motivation to go "all natural" with grombre? We recommend checking out this Instagram account and also the website Grombre.com. 😉
Spoiler alert: you won't only find grandmas there! There are also very young women; some were 22 at the time of their story.
5 good reasons to adopt grombre!
- No more spending money on hair dyes, save some cash!
- Gray is trendy!
- It boosts confidence, and that's good for morale!
- With hair dye, you'll be tempted to lie about your age, but with natural hair, you play it straight!
- Dyeing damages gray hair more, which is already naturally finer and more brittle.
Bonus: Even Sharon Stone and more recently Kristin Scott Thomas are embracing their salt and pepper!
Source: Voici
If you want to support the grombre movement but your scalp doesn't offer any gray hairs yet, check out our article "How to get gray hair?" to learn all about this technical but delightful hair transformation! 👩🏻🦳
