Millennial Guys are Dyeing Their Hair Gray
Zayn Malik has dyed gray hair on the cover of ‘Billboard’. (Photo: Billboard/Miller Mobley)
The latest and most noteworthy trend among men’s hair color is going gray. On purpose, way before silver streaks would naturally hit. Singer Zayn Malik has covered two magazines since going silver, and popular models like Lucky Blue Smith and Benjamin Jarvis have gray-white hair. Since going gray and straying from their signature peroxide blonde locks, Smith has landed a Tom Ford campaign and been named the top male model of 2015, and Jarvis has become one of the top 50 male models. It pays to go gray.
Lucky Blue Smith appears in the latest Tom Ford campaign. (Photo: Tom Ford)
Were they inspired by the gracefully aging silver foxes that have us all swooning? Maybe so. Unlike the past trend of men over-dyeing their graying hair jet black, more celebrity men are embracing the salt and pepper style.
Male celebs like Richard Gere, Anderson Cooper, and George Clooney are more open to going gray lately. (Photo: Getty)
Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, who came out as gay last year on the cover of ESPN Magazine, posted an Instagram of his newly dyed gray hair this December, crediting CNN News Anchor Anderson Cooper for inspiring him to take the plunge.
Gus Kenworthy’s Anderson Cooper inspired gray hair. (Photo: Instagram)
But liking the look can’t be the only reason so many men are opting for colorful manes now more than ever. The gray style may also have evolved from the pastel hair trend, and Clairol Color Director James Corbett says it may be an effort from millennials to look more mature while still embracing experimentation. “I think it’s just a form of self expression that’s kind of refreshing,” says Corbett. “20 years ago it would have really been pigeonholed or stereotyped, and now it just is what it is.” Corbett suggests that men are more open to exploring gender boundaries lately without fear of judgment, which could contribute to the upswing in men’s hair color transformations.
As for Zayn, it seems as though the theory applies to him as well. “He first started out just dyeing his hair platinum and working with a bunch of temporary dyes as a form of self expression,” says Corbett. “I think it’s a beauty thing but I think it’s also a psychological thing with him, because it was just as he was splitting from [One Direction].” Corbett also suggests that stars with iconic looks opt to change up their hair when they want to move forward in their careers. He brought Christina Hendricks to her current strawberry blonde color after Madmen filming ended, and Malik changed his look around the same time that he dropped his new solo release Pillow Talk featuring girlfriend Gigi Hadid.
If you want to go gray, finding your perfect platinum is the first step according to Corbett. “First you need to bleach it out,” he says. “What happens when you lighten the hair is you start exposing yellow and orange pigments, and hair has a different degree of decolorization so you really need to push past the yellow-orange in order to get more of that silver gray tone that you’re looking for.”
Next, matching your hue to your skin tone is key. “You usually want to do something that is opposite or compliments your skin tone,” says Corbett. “If you have olive skin you have to really be careful of yellow. But I think in general that light canary, banana yellow just doesn’t look good on anybody. Unless you have a really dark skin tone, can you really pull it off.” Corbett sites Justin Bieber as an example of somebody who should add a bit of silver tone to his hair. “With men, it looks better if it’s cooler,” he adds. “with Zayn’s particular skin tone and those dark eyes, the grey is going to look much better on him than something that’s too yellow or too gold.” If you want to experiment but still look mature, go silver.
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