What I learned from my first grey hair

It was in the office bathroom that I first caught sight of my impending mortality. Under the bright, overhead lights, there it was, an obnoxious shimmering strand of silver in my mane of mousy brown. Panicked, I ran my fingers through it over and over, praying it was a trick of the light. It wasn't. There, in all of its glory, was my very first grey hair - a startling visual reminder that the age I am now isn't the age I'm always going to be.

Being the mature, level headed adult that I am, I wrapped my fingers around the base of the hair and ripped it out.

The next day, staring at my reflection in my own bedroom mirror, I found another. With its drained pigments and coarse texture, it seemed to be screaming for attention. 'Look at me!' it roared. 'Look at me and remember that you're ageing! You're getting wrinkles, your waist is spreading, and you can no longer sing along to Taylor Swift's '22' with any sense of conviction!"

I quickly pulled this gobby little offender out too, but realising that if I continued to use this strategy I'd get dangerously close to resembling a boiled egg, I desperately Googled 'I've found my first grey', hoping to stumble upon some empathetic messages to soothe my self-pitying soul. Billions of results exploded onto my screen; all 30+ year old women lamenting the loss of their looks. My eyes filled with tears at the injustice of it all.

"But I'm only 23!" I wailed.

Finding a grey hair is never fun, but at my age I'd assumed my biggest problems would be budgeting for bills and figuring out how many G&Ts I could safely consume without humiliating myself in front of my colleagues. I took care of my skin, religiously hot cloth cleansing and moisturising - laying the groundwork to stop it from crumpling like crepe paper as the years went on. But it never occurred to me that the shade of my natural locks would start to desert me already. In my mind, we had a solid 10 years or so of happiness left in our relationship, and when it cruelly tried to break up with me after all that time, I'd patch us up with a box of Garnier Nutrisse like Davina did and we'd pretend the whole sordid grey affair never happened.

Distraught, I confided in my boyfriend, sticking my head directly under his unsuspecting nose and demanding 'Can you see them?! They're definitely there!' His reaction, whilst kind, was less than helpful.

"I've found loads of grey hairs," he shrugged nonchalantly. "It's no big deal. It doesn't matter."

Maybe it really didn't matter to him - or at least it mattered less. Men with salt and pepper hair are seen as handsome, even desirable. He was just starting to enter his 'Clooney' years, a time of much joy, merriment, and of course, copious amounts of sex from young, bendy ladies - they didn't invent the phrase 'silver fox' for nothing. There isn't an equivalent term for women - the nearest thing we have is 'cougar', which at best sounds mildly aggressive and at worst is positively predatory.

Delving further into the depths of the internet, I found that statistically, the forums were right - I wasn't expected to start finding greys until my mid-30s. Normally being above average is something that my competitive little heart cherishes, but in this case it just felt unfair. I spent a few weeks feeling utterly sorry for myself - pulling my hair into tight, unforgiving buns and cringing when the sun shone in case it lit me up like Blackpool Tower.

However, because of my new found obsession with grey, I soon found myself spotting it on other people. Work colleagues, friends, people on the tube - and every time I did, I realised that it didn't make them any less attractive to me, or to anyone else. There was a weirdly comforting sense of humanity to it - yes, greys are a sign of ageing, but that's something that we're all doing every single minute of every single day, and even though I tell everybody that I've decided that I'm never going to be a day over 30, in my heart I know that getting older will happen and I know that it will be okay. 

Like crinkly eyes from constant smiling and bruised knees from having too much fun, greys are evidence that your body is growing and changing, and ultimately living like it's supposed to - and over time, I've managed to convince myself that having a couple of 'natural highlights' isn't the emotional tragedy I'd initially thought it to be.

At the moment, I'm at the stage where I've only got the odd strand of grey. Aesthetically, it's the equivalent of having a couple of spots - not necessarily enjoyable or desirable, but totally concealable and not anywhere near as big of a deal to anyone else as they are to you. When it gets worse, maybe I'll dye it and maybe I won't, but either way I'll still enjoy my hair in the same way I enjoyed growing, washing, brushing and styling it for the first two decades of my life.

Grey hair can be beautiful at any age - celebs like Kelly Osbourne and Pixie Geldof even made an active choice to fly the flag for the colour without it being thrust upon them by the hands of time. And if you're in the same boat and none of this has offered you any semblance of comfort, I'd like to inform you that J-Lo went grey at 23, and anything you have in common with a woman who looks as frankly spectacular as she does can only be a good thing.