Going Gray

The latest trend from the runway and bohemian sets? Gray highlights for twenty-somethings and even teens. That's right, instead of streaks of fire engine red or chartreuse, gray and Andy Warhol white are in vogue. Some New York models are sporting the look, while teenagers and other trendsetters experiment with looking like Cruella Deville or Gloria Steinem. Meanwhile, the rest of us pay a small fortune to keep restoring our original shade or, the most popular tint of all time, blonde.

This fashion statement is not for the timid; you have to be out there to pull it off and wear it with authority, especially if you're in high school. Many girls I knew at that age ironed their hair. Or rolled it up in orange juice cans and actually slept on them. My sister and I went through a phase of creating our own version of dreadlocks. Using wet hair, we anchored miniature braids with tiny rubber bands all over our heads, then waited a whole day for them to dry and set. Once undone, viola: perfect frizzy manes with lots of body. A sort of Afro for white girls.

I remember my first perm. Unable to afford an upscale, hip salon, I went to a local beauty parlor and came out with a little old lady permanent. The end result looked as if death-grip pincurls had been fastened, then welded to my scalp. It took a week for the screaming strands to settle down. I looked like a cross between Shirley Temple and Annette Funicello. The chemicals smelled as powerful as anything an embalmer might use. Visions of old Toni home perm commercials danced in my doused brain. I didn't even color my hair until I was 30, when an artistic director insisted my stage character should be a redhead.

Once I reached the age when vanity trumps good judgment, I began dyeing on a semi-regular basis. When I come home with a new shade, the lingering stench makes me wish I could apply leeches to my head to suck the nasty peroxide out of it. Suffice it to say, if anyone had approached me at twenty-three, peddling a method of turning me into Susan Sontag, I would have respectfully declined. For now, I'd love to have Jamie Lee Curtis' gig: getting paid to be the pleasant, pale-streaked matron slurping Activa.