G is for Gorilla. The highly endangered gorillas of Africa are today’s Animal Alphabet entry. Gorillas live in groups which are led by an older male Silverback, which gets its name from the gray hair that grows on their back as a male ages. I too can attest to this phenomenon but it didn’t even make me the leader in my own household. So naturally a little hair dye can make those silverbacks look young again.
Time to admit something in today’s cartoon. I have male patterned baldness grayness. Yep, I have a beautiful head of hair but for some reason I started turning gray long before my much older brothers. Turning gray (or “grey” for my UK friends) doesn’t bother me except for the fact that one side of my head has a larger patch of gray than the other side. So while I didn’t want to dye it back to remove all the gray I decided to try a few things.
First up was Just for Men which was fine but it became way too dark and much more than my normal hair color. Yikes. Then I tried Touch of Gray which did a better job of keeping toward my natural hair color but it didn’t last that long. With both these products once you open the package, you pretty much can’t use the tube of color again so it really was a waste of money since I used so little in one spot. Both of these products smell like the beauty shop my grandmother used to go to but the good thing is you immediately shampoo out the excess and for the most part the smell is gone.
Most recently I turned to Grecian Formula which promises to gradually remove the gray hairs. Put it in dry hair and let it go. Problem is, just like the other products mentioned, Grecian Formula smells. Since they encourage you to keep it in rather than shampoo it out the stench stays with you. Plus I noticed that if I didn’t shampoo it out each day that it seemed to transfer to my pillow. I move a bunch in my sleep so invariably I am going to end up at some point with my face (and more importantly) lips in the pillow. So I would wake up with a horrible taste in my mouth. Not sure what I was ingesting, I looked at the ingredients to find that the active one is “Lead Acetate”. Now I am not chemist but I can recall the ban on lead paint as a kid so ingesting lead anything can’t be a good thing. While the company states it has research that Grecian Formula is safe and continues to sell in the U.S. the formulation with lead acetate, back in 2006 the ingredient was banned in Canada and the UK as it was suspected of being a carnicogen.
On the bright side if no one comes near you because of the smell, they can’t see your gray hair. I think I’ll just use a Sharpie from now on. 🙂