Happier Grey with Jacqueline Carson

Helen: Hello and thanks for joining me, Helen Johnson, for the Happier Grey podcast. I'm pro-ageing and love my grey hair, but I know it can be quite intimidating to take the plunge, so each week I'll be chatting to other women who've chosen to embrace the grey in the hope of inspiring and supporting you, whether you already have silver hair, in the process of going grey, or just considering ditching the dye.

Today I'm joined by Jacqueline Carson. She lives in the North of England, and following a 2014 breast cancer diagnosis, she's given her lifestyle a complete overhaul, and now she uses her experience to help women create a sustainable healthy lifestyle. Hello Jacqueline, how are you?

Jacqueline: Hello, I'm really well, Helen, really well, really pleased to be talking to you today.

Helen: Cool. I'm actually going to take you back a long way to start with. So, when did you find your first grey hair? 

Jacqueline: It was a long time, 21. I was 21 and I found, a single grey and I was absolutely mortified. I couldn't believe that at only 21 years old I had a grey hair. It was just shocking, absolutely shocking at the time.

Helen: So, what did you do about it? Did you cover it up? 

Jacqueline: Well, I did, but maybe not straight away, I think I waited until I had two or maybe three strands. Once I could see them, and I thought, no, we can't have that, I'm far too young to go grey. I can't remember when I did it first, but I certainly did start, dyeing my hair from being in my twenties.

 I used, L'Oreal Excellence. I used to do it, at home myself, a permanent hair dye. And it was just like a dark brown. I wasn't very adventurous.

And I think because. My hair was very naturally dark anyway, that any, attempt to cover it with any of the bonnie colours and things, or even to go blonde, was never an option because you know, it was just so dark. So, I just used a natural dark brown just to cover the grey basically. 

I did that for years, years and years and maybe with the occasional visit to the, to the hairdresser, you know, if I had, a cut and a colour, maybe just very occasionally, but mostly I did it myself, and I did it for a long while. 

I was in my early forties and I remember it really quite well. When I had a reaction, and I didn't know what it was. I was going to a funeral of a family member and it was some distance away from home. So, we were traveling, and on the morning and I was driving, and on the morning I got this little like itchy spot on my finger. It was like a little tiny little wart type thing, you know, but it was itchy and I was scratching and scratching and then the next thing, I'm getting another one and I'm driving and scratching my fingers.

And then before I knew it. My whole body was covered in, like wheals, you know, great big swellings. And I was scratching all over, and then my face blew up, and my lips and everything. It's funny when I think back now, but can you remember the cabbage patch dolls?

Helen: Yeah. 

Jacqueline: I looked like that. My face was unrecognizable. I had no idea what it was. And I was married at the time and my husband said, it would be that hair dye. And I said, don't be stupid, I've used it for years. And I was so poorly, I had to be hospitalized. 

I think I had about six months off work, I couldn't go to work. It was in my head. Big, huge kind of lumps and swellings that ended up being scabs, you know, and just all over my body. I was writhing on the floor. I remember just lying on the floor and really trying to scratch my back on the floor. My hands were burning and I'd hold them under the cold tap just to get some relief.

I had tests. The sad thing for me was that, by the time they found out what it was, again, it took months. I had lots of hospital tests. I've got patches, you know, dis-colourations on my back, from where they put all of the different things on. 

But sadly, because it was a permanent hair dye, it stays in your hair for months and months. So, every time I washed my hair, I got a recurrence. And I was poorly for a long time. All in all, it took about two years to get out of my system.

So, I'm allergic to PPD, it stands for P phenyledamine. I think I've said that right. And it's the chemical that makes the colour stick. So, you tend not to get it in like blonde hair dyes and very light hair dyes, but you will get it always in the darker ones because that's what makes it stick to your hair.

And, it had just happened. It literally just came out of nowhere. And they said, I couldn't have anything like henna, or like a tattoo or, anything like that. And that dye and the PPD is in things like, printer ink, mascara, all kinds of products that you wouldn't necessarily think about. And it was weird because I remember I'd moved house quite a few times, and when you're wrapping up your stuff, and I was wrapping things up in newspaper, my hands would get red and itchy.

I never really thought anything of it other than, you know, they were feeling grubby because I was packing and maybe dust and things like that. But when I look back, it was probably the ink from the newspaper.

Helen: Yeah, you were starting to get a reaction.

Jacqueline: yeah.

Helen: Before it got really severe.

Jacqueline: Yeah, but I think the fact that with the hair dye, and because it's getting into your follicles, and it's actually getting into your bloodstream, and because of the time that it takes for your hair to grow out, and for the dye to grow out, it took a good couple of years, and it was, awful.

I can't describe how uncomfortable it was. There was no relief. And because of the swelling and everything, you know, my throat swelled up and, it was really scary. It was horrible. 

Helen: Sounds horrific. Wow. I had no idea. Presumably at that point you stopped dyeing your hair immediately?

Jacqueline: Well, yes and no. I searched high and low for any kind of hair dye that would cover my grey hair, because by this time I was getting more grey, , and they didn't have the chemical in. And I searched high and low, and I even experimented with, trying to make my own, you know, from vegetable dyes, like with red cabbage and things. And I would get a strand of my grey hair and try and dye it in, my homemade dye.

I found a product, that was temporary hair dye, that didn't have the PPD in. It had lots of other chemicals in, which when I think now, I should never have used it. But because it didn't have the PPD in, I tried that and it gave a little bit of temporary relief. Obviously, the reason that it didn't have the PPD and it wasn't a permanent dye, so the colour didn't stick.

When I say I got a temporary relief, I think I might've got, depending on how many times I washed my hair, it might've lasted two weeks. But then when you washed it out. It gave this almost kind of blue rinse kind of colour. It almost looked like sort of purpley blue in, the light.

Which I wasn't enamoured with, to be honest, but it was better than the grey at the time. And then I think after a couple of years of doing that, and after going swimming and seeing the dye dripping out, you know, with my hair getting wet, or going to the beach and I've got black drips or dark blue drips running down my back, you know., 

I just thought, this is ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. So, I did just stop. I stopped, I thought, right that's it. It was actually getting harder to find that temporary die without the PPD, and I think it's been completely discontinued now. Yeah, so I just thought, that's it. And I just grew it out.

And then I was shocked to find how grey it really was. I've just had to learn to live with it. Some days I think, yeah, it looks quite nice, I really like it. Especially if I've got a tan.

And then other days, if I've got it tied up off my face or something and, the middle of winter, and I think, gosh, I look so old and, you know, drawn which I don't like very much. I think I do like the colour. It's fairly even and symmetrical, you know, and I think because my hair is long, you get these kind of almost different shades of your hair. 

I was once stopped in a queue at an airport by somebody who said, I think your hair looks gorgeous. What colour have you got on it? And I said, none, it's completely natural. And the person who'd stopped me was a hairdresser, it was a man. And he said, I think it's amazing. And literally there hasn't you know, been any dye on my hair for years now. So, it, does look really quite nice.

Yeah, quite like it.

Helen: I'm glad you've come to terms with it. So, I just wanted to go back to, when did this all happen? 

Jacqueline: I was in my late 30s, early 40s. I'm trying to think exactly when. I think I was probably 38 or 39, around that time. Because I remember when I had my 40th birthday, I think it had happened then. Yeah, so I was probably around 38, I think. And I'd been dying since probably my mid 20s, at least 10 years, maybe 10 to 15 using the same product.

They just said you can become allergic to anything at any time. Your body can just decide to have a reaction to it. They did say to me, It is possible for it to reverse and you're not allergic to it, but the risk is too high to even try.

I couldn't go through that again. I mean, it was just horrendous. And I don't think I would want to now, because I think that we know, don't we, that skin tone and everything changes as we get older. And I think to be as dark as I was then. Even though sometimes I look at photographs and I can reminisce about that and think, oh, that looks really nice.

I'm not sure it would look really nice on me now, you know you see some ladies, don't you? Sometimes, older, ladies who are almost like black, and it's harsh. It's, very harsh I think sometimes on an older skin. 

I think, you do kind of adjust to it. You do, get used to it is kind of, I don't want to put it like that as if to say it's something not very nice that happens to you that you need to get used to. I think it changes, doesn't it? It's just different. 

Helen: I think for you as well, it was kind of a little bit forced on you, because you maybe weren't ready psychologically to go grey, but you literally for health reasons had no choice because it was just going to make you so ill to try and do anything else.

Jacqueline: Yeah, and I do think, you know, now, because now I'm very, and after getting the breast cancer, I'm very anti chemicals. You know, I went through my own transformation, stopping drinking, stopping smoking and all of those things. And, you know, going plant based and everything. I try really hard now to avoid any chemicals in cosmetics, toiletries, cleaning products in the house.

And when I think back and when you look on the packet of hair dye, the chemicals that is in them. Now, I'd be quite shocked. I would never entertain putting that on my hair ever. But you, learn through life, don't you? And through your own experiences.

I do sometimes wonder whether putting all of those chemicals into my body, for all of those years would have contributed you know. Because I'm sure the drinking did. I'm sure the smoking did. I'm sure the stress did. You know, and maybe things that I ate and all of that. So, I suppose it's only logical really, that a lot of, maybe those chemicals contributed to the cancer as well.

Helen: Okay, so after the cancer, obviously you had treatment, did keep your hair during the treatment? Did you lose your hair?

Jacqueline: Ah, well, you say, obviously I had treatment. I think I wouldn't if I did it again. Knowing what I know now. So, it was breast cancer, I had a lumpectomy, so I had, surgery to remove the tumour. Then I had radiotherapy after that. So, I didn't have chemotherapy, I had radiotherapy. Which was brutal. 

Then I had for a very temporary period, some oral treatment that they gave me, but I didn't continue to take that. So, I didn't lose my hair. No. What I would say is that because of the treatment, and because of the effects of radiotherapy, and probably some of the oral treatment that I had, most likely did affect my hair.

Radiotherapy affects a lot of things, including your vocal cords. There's a lot of side effects to it. And one of those side effects is your hair, and you can actually lose your hair. With radiotherapy and, you know, and there's some chemos that you don't lose your hair with, you know, but yeah, I would say it was definitely affected.

And I think the grey is very different as well too, you know, the texture is very different to what it used to be when it had the natural colour in it. And yeah, I think, all of the things that we put in our body will affect the hair. It's more willful than it ever was. It's so fly away. 

And now, this never used to happen when I was younger and I wished it did, but when it gets wet, or if I wash it and don't blow dry it, I get really quite natural beach hair. And I would have killed for that when I was young. 

I've always had quite thick hair, but what I've found now is that each hair strand is very much kind of separated from the other. So, it more or less gives the appearance of being thicker or maybe, I don't want to use the word bushier, but sometimes it feels quite bushy. You know, kind of untamed sort of thing. I need to take more care of it now, than I ever did, because otherwise I would just look like Wurzel Gummidge I think. 

Helen: I'm quite interested about that from a care point of view. Obviously with your stance on chemicals, what sort of shampoos and conditioners are you using?

Jacqueline: One thing I do is I don't wash it often. I wash it a lot less than I used to. So, at most, I would wash it once a week. And generally, that's on a Friday because I go out on a Friday evening. And if I don't go out the following Friday evening, I might not even wash it until the next week because it's just, too dry. 

I really like coconut. So, products with coconut in it. And sometimes I will put a coconut oil on it. But I have this app on my phone that I use to scan all of the products.

And I was using a shampoo that I thought was okay. Until I scanned it one day and then realized it did have all of these horrendous chemicals in it, so I stopped using that. So, I've found one now which is not a popular brand, I've never seen it before and I actually bought it from a fairly cheap shop, but I scanned it, and it came up really good and it's a coconut-based shampoo.

I think a lot of the more well-known brands and the, bigger products and things, they're the ones really that have all of the nasties in, because that's how they control your hair and they get all the bonds tight, in your hair.

I scan everything to make sure that, they're not full of nasty things, you know, that are going to harm us. But it is a challenge, I'm very conscious of the planet and everything has to be plant based for me as well. So, I'm looking out for lots of things when I buy products. 

I was once gifted, you know, those, they're like bars, aren't they? Like soap bars. 

Helen: Yep.

Jacqueline: Yeah. And I tried those and they didn't work for me. I found they were really quite abrasive to use. I didn't get any lather with them or anything, and they left my hair feeling quite dry and brittle. They weren't very good. 

I do need a really good conditioner. Just, you know, keep it all smooth. But it has been a challenge, you know, to find some things.

Helen: I'm gonna ask you one last question. If somebody came to you and said I'm thinking about going grey. What advice would you give them?

Jacqueline: Ooh, I would tell them to go for it. But what I would say to them is be consistent. Don't give in. You know, go with it. It's that transition phase that everybody's really scared of. Just kind of letting it happen and then, you know, half your hair is coloured and half isn't.

And I think you've just got to trust that it's going to come out of the other side. And you will look beautiful when it when it does.

Helen: Well, your hair does look beautiful.

Jacqueline:  Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I’m pretty much used to it now, I pretty like it now, yeah, I do.

Helen: Good. Well, thanks so much for joining me. It's been really interesting hearing your story. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. 

Jacqueline: thank you very much Helen

Helen: Thanks so much for joining me for this week's show. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. I'll be back again next week, but in the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram at happier.grey. Have a great week.