Happier Grey Podcast with Lisa Newport

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 Lisa Newport. She works with women who have a wardrobe full of clothes but still feel like they have nothing to wear. She supports them to find and express their authentic selves and dress for joy so that they can look good and feel fab. Hello Lisa, how are you?

Lisa: Hi Helen, I'm fine, thank you so much for inviting me onto your podcast to talk to you. I'm looking forward to our chat.

Helen: Cool. So, the first thing that I'm going to ask you is, can you remember when you found your first grey?

Lisa: I don't think I can remember a specific grey hair because I used to always dye my hair, but I remember having what felt like a halo of white or it felt white at the time around the front and in my parting that I didn't like. 

Helen: Do you know why you didn't like it?

Lisa: I think because my hair was so dark, so I'd got very dark brown hair, naturally. And then from, I don't know, my early twenties, I started messing around with colour. I might've even been before then. I started off with henna back in the eighties. When henna was all the thing, we all used to buy henna at the market, do our hair when we were students.

I've been blonde twice as well. So, I'd always had colour on my hair ‘cause I thought that my natural colour was a bit boring. It felt a bit dull. So, I'd always sort of enhanced it, shall we say. 

Helen: You remember what age you were when you first started noticing the whites then?

 Lisa: I must be in my forties when I got conscious of the whiteness. Actually, you've just reminded me, I remember when I thought, I was going grey and I've got this parting, I'd actually grown my hair, it was in a bob.

And I asked my hairdresser to put some blonde highlights in it to sort of soften the edge, because it was quite a sharp bob and to just soften where the parting was, and I asked him to put some blonde highlights in. And he misunderstood me and I ended up with completely blonde hair. Which was a nightmare to keep up. So, when it was blonde, then I realised it wasn't as grey as I thought it was because the roots were very dark. 

Helen: When did you decide to grow the colour out then and embrace the grey?

Lisa: So, it was a gradual thing, I went from using permanent colour to using semi-permanent colour, which faded rather than grew out, because like I said, I didn't like the harsh sort of badger, you know, the harsh lines. So, I started using semi-permanent colour, and then that went from more sort of traditional, I suppose, colours then to more experimental colours.

So, I had very vivid magenta hair or purple or blue. So, that upkeep to keep it vibrant and to keep it bright was then again, it was getting quite tiresome. In terms of the upkeep of it, which I needed to do every two or three weeks to keep it vibrant. 

And then it was my mum was ill. My mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was terminally ill and I was spending time looking after her. And there was this one time when my hair had faded, you can see it's sort of a lot lighter around the front. And it's still quite dark at the back, and it had faded around the front. So, I'd been looking after my mum and it was time for me to come back and I'd got this networking meeting and I was thinking, you know, I just don't have the energy to top it up. 

Normally I wouldn't go to, you know, presenting myself in terms of my business, with my hair, how it was. And I just thought, I'm going to have to just do it. I haven't got the energy. And I went to this meeting and everyone was like, oh, I really like your hair, that colour. Oh, have you got it like that? And everybody thought that I'd had it highlighted with grey and silver. So, it was kind of like, Oh, maybe it's not too bad then.

And since then, so I'm going back to, this was 2016. So, eight years, the last eight years. I've been, sometimes I'm pink, sometimes I'm blue, sometimes I'm purple, sometimes I'm grey. Most of the time I'm grey because it's just easier not to do it than it is to do it. I still play around with it sometimes if the mood takes me.

But yeah, so eight years is probably the answer to that question.

Helen: Okay. Which is quite a long time because obviously there was a big wave of people who chose to go grey during COVID.

Lisa: Yes,

Helen: You were ahead of that curve.

What sort of reaction did you get when you first went grey?

Lisa: Like I say, I've had people stopping me in the street and people stopping me in the supermarket. Complimenting me on it.

And I think a lot of it is to do with the fact. So, my haircut is something that I religiously have in my diary every six weeks without fail. I've been seeing my hairdresser for 26, 27 years, and everything works. Nothing comes in the way of that haircut. So, I keep on top of my haircut and I've always had it in a cut in a way that is sort of a bit different. Like, you know, it's not

Helen: Yeah, it looks quite asymmetric.

Lisa: It is, and people compliment me on the fact of, I think they're like the cut. I think the fact that the cut is quite sort of unusual. So, it's not so much about the colour, but the cut, if that makes sense. 

I must admit, my hairdresser, he prefers it if I've got colour on my hair. He'll say, oh, I wish you'd do it purple again, or I wish you'd do it again. And I'm like, well, I do sometimes, you know, see how I feel. 

So, I've been with my husband 10 years. When I first met him, I'd got my magenta hair, and he's never sort of commented either way. I think he likes the colour of hair, but he doesn't mind either way.

So, it's not been a negative experience for me in any way, other than sometimes I look in the mirror, and I see my mum looking back at me. She had short hair and she had grey hair when she was in her forties. She didn't like it because it was grey. She went blonde and she had a hair colour blonde until the day she died. 

I like the lighter grey that's around the front. Not so much the darker grey. If it was the darker grey around the back and that was all the same around the front, I'd probably still be colouring it now.

Helen: See, I think all of us dream of the day that we're fully white. The back of my head, you can see, is still quite brown.

Lisa: Yours is quite blonde though, isn't it?

Helen: Yeah, my hair's quite blonde. So, mine basically looks a bit like I've got highlights a lot of the time. so I do feel a little bit of a fraud in the grey hair space, but then it is a transition for everybody.

And if you decide to grow out from young, then you only ever going to have a scattering of grey hairs and they'll gradually increase. So.

Lisa: A lot of my clients decided to go grey during the COVID period and found it easier because they weren't going out and about. If you've got long hair and, you have been colouring it, and you get that line that moves down. I think when you've got short hair, it's easier because you get it cut more regularly and it's chopped up quickly Isn't it?

Helen: Yeah, the lady I was speaking to last week, she basically said three to six months and she was done.

Lisa: Yeah.

Helen: Whereas I was like two years. And then I had it in like a jaw length bob with some layers and now it's way, way longer than that.

Lisa: I think the way I did it as well, using the semi-permanent dye is a more gradual process. So, it's not as dramatic because it fades.

Helen: A quick question about, do you do anything special to look after your hair now that it's great?

Lisa: I use the shampoo that has a bit of purple. in it, to stop it from going yellow. So, the purple offsets the yellow, because it's complementary colour on the colour wheel. Which is fine for me because I've got very cool undertones to my skin. Obviously, my work is all around colour.

So, for some people I've seen when they've got warm undertones to the skin, and they overdo it with the purple, and it takes on the purple tinge to the hair and then the hair's sort of fighting with skin. 

Because your natural hair colour is always going to suit you, whatever your natural hair colour is. It suits you. It doesn't matter whether you've gone grey and used to be dark, whatever. 

If you still dye your hair to how you did when you were much younger, you know you're in your 50s, and you're dyeing it to the same depth the level of contrast that you had when you were in your 20s, it can sometimes look a bit disconnected from your skin and your eyes. Because your skin and your eyes have also lost pigment, but we just don't notice it in the same way as we do with hair. So, you can end up looking a bit like you've got a wig on. 

So, yeah, that's all I do. I use one that's a darker pigment once a week and then the rest of the time I use a shampoo that is for grey hair but it doesn't add a colour, doesn't add any purple to it but other than that, no.

Helen: Okay.

Lisa: Quite lazy.

Helen: I don't do anything. I just use an organic shampoo, which I've used for years. And yeah, maybe I should. I keep thinking, is it going to go yellow? Should I do something, but it never happens. 

So, the next thing I just want to probe a little bit more on what you've just talked about, because obviously we were all very conscious about our hair changing colour. But maybe not so conscious, probably conscious of this texture of our skin changing with wrinkles and sagging and stuff like that, but not so much the colour. Does the. pigmentation in your skin tend to follow what's happening in your hair, do you think?

Lisa: It does, your skin and your eyes do lose the vibrancy that they had when you were younger. the reason why, it's because your skin's going thinner as you get older, and it's going softer, and you've not got that plumpness that you had when you were younger.

That doesn't help in terms of the sort of pigments. So, you do get pigment changes. It's just really obvious in your hair, but you don't notice it as much in your eyes. But you know, really, really old people, their eyes have that sort of watery look about them. If you know what I mean. That's where you're heading kind of thing.

So, you do lose, the level of contrast that you had and the vibrancy. It's like, when we have the old black and white tellies, and the colour tellies, and you could turn the colour up and down. It’s sort of like as if the colours just very, very gradually being slowly turned down on us.

Helen: Okay, so then in terms of colours, for those of us who had our colours done when we were in our 20s and 30s, is it likely to be different for us when we're in our 50s and 60s?

Lisa: Yes, is the shorthand answer. Depending the colour system that you had was it the spring, summer, autumn, winter system that you were done? 

Helen: I had two different ones done

 House of Colour and something else.

Lisa: Colour Me Beautiful?

Helen: Yeah, both of them.

Lisa: Colour Me Beautiful used to be spring, summer, autumn, winter. House of Colour is still spring, summer, autumn, winter. Then Colour Me Beautiful changed and they ended up with six sort of dominant categories. So, you were light, deep, soft, clear, cool, warm, and they put you a combination together. 

Essentially what you're doing with colour analysis, you're looking at the colour of your skin, whether you've got warm or cool undertones, your hair also, and then the contrast levels between your hair, your eyes and your skin. 

So, the easiest way for anybody who's listening, who hasn't had it done is if you take a photograph of yourself and turn it black and white. You know, on your phone, you can sort of edit photographs into a black and white. And you can see then whether your eyes are really standing out or your hair standing out or you know, where the things are all very similar in tone. 

When you're younger, you tend to have more contrast if you've got dark hair. So, you've got very dark hair. If you're Caucasian, you'd have pale skin, and then your eyes might be dark, depending on the colour of them, so you've got more contrast.

If you go grey from having very dark hair, If we imagine a photograph of you now, and you take the specs off, your hair and your skin are going to be very similar in tone, your eyes are still quite dark. I can see that your eyes are still quite, so that determines the level of softness, if you like, of the colours that you're wearing.

So, when you were younger, if you had very dark hair, you probably were given quite bright colours, quite dark. Deep colours, quite sort of contrasty colours. As you get older, it's sort of like softening them, as if you add a bit of white or a bit of grey to them. You know, if you were mixing them when you were at school, you were doing the colour wheel.

You've got colours around the edges of a colour wheel if you ever see one, and then you know when you go into B and Q or whatever and you've got all the paint charts and they go from light to dark. That's the tonal thing that I'm talking about. So, when you're younger, you're probably at the top end where it's the bright colours, and then losing colour in your hair, your eyes, and your skin, you start moving down those paint charts. 

So, you're sort of in the middle, your contrast is not as vibrant. You're looking at, technically, tints, tones, and shades. And tints, tones, and shades are where you've added white, or you've added black, to soften things and make them greyer, and softer, more muted.

So that's the short answer.

Helen: Okay. I find it quite interesting because I was a Light Summer when I had mine done.

Lisa: Alright, okay.

Helen: My colouring was already quite pale.

Lisa: Okay,

Helen: And the one thing for me is I could never wear black.

Lisa: No.

Helen: It just completely made me look like I died. Now that my hair is white, I can actually get away with a bit of black, which is a major shock to my system.

Lisa: Well, that's because you've got the contrast, if you go to platinum then you get more contrast back. Your hair's then lighter than your skin and you get more contrast back. So that'll be why. 

But it's interesting that you use the term get away with. We can all get away with colours. There are ways around if people, you know, are told, cause that's what happens a lot of people like, oh no, black's not one of your colours. And they're like, oh no, half my wardrobe is black. There are ways you can work around it.

I always say to people to do the blink test, around colours. To do that, you've got your colour, your black, whatever, you stand in front of the mirror, hold it across your chest, close your eyes, open your eyes quickly, what do you see first?

Do you see the colour? Do you see your face? Do you see the whole lot? You see the whole lot, then that's a big thumbs up. If you see yourself and whatever you're wearing all at the same time, and you get like a circle of going round, you know, your eyes sort of following round your whole portrait area. That's great. 

If you see the colour first then that’s probably you need to do something to get away with it. And that's when wearing a bold lipstick, or wearing a pair of glasses that draws the attention back up to your face, you know. So, if you wear glasses that have got a darker frame, that kind of thing, that might be why you can get away with black.

There are lots of tricks and tips around wearing colours that don't technically suit you or that might be too strong for you. But as a general, as a general guide, I'm not saying we all need to be wandering around in pastel colours.

You don't need to start wearing beige and dressing from head to toe in beige. But as a general guide, anything that's near your face is going to reflect upon you. That's how colour analysis works. 

So, remember, did you ever put a buttercup under your chin when you were a kid?

Helen: Yeah. Yeah,

Lisa: And it was like reflected up and used to say, oh, you like butter. And it's essentially, that's what's happening with colour analysis. So dark colours will reflect up and create shadows. And if you don't have cool undertones to your skin, and if your overall feeling isn't cool.

Yours would have been if you were classed as summer, then it would create shadows and make you look like death warmed up. You need some bronzer or lipstick or whatever to get away with it. Whereas.

Helen: Well, the reason I say get away with it, is because when I was at work, the assumption was you would wear black. Everyone would wear black. And I never did because I knew it was so bad for me. I just literally just looked like I'd died. So, whereas now I wouldn't wear a black polar neck,

Lisa: No.

Helen: But I'd happily wear a black vest top.

Lisa: Yeah, and that's, the thing, so because you then have skin.

Helen: Yeah.

Lisa: not right near your face. So, this is one of the tricks. It's kind of like you can wear a colour that is dark, if it's a scoop neck, cause it's a vest top, you've got a lot of skin between your face and where the top starts. So that's better, than wearing a scarf, wearing a polar neck, it's right near your face. 

But yeah, as a general guide, it's softening the colours that you wear unless you go back round, full circle and go back to that platinum white and very clear, the warm and the cool is a determining factor. So, you'll either be one or the other, or somewhere along the spectrum from warm and cool. 

Then we've got light and dark. So again, that's another sliding scale where you are, and then you've got the, contrast that this sort of the clarity. So, if you imagine like Snow White, very clear, distinct. 

Helen: Yeah

Lisa: Then, if you think about, Cinderella, she's soft and very sort of pale, and light hair and light eyes. So, it's kind of like, where are you on that spectrum? 

And they're the three things that are taken into consideration to then work out whereabouts you land in terms of the colour analysis, whichever system you end up doing really.

There's a lot of contradictory people you know, you go online and even the colour analysis people can't agree . At the end of the day, it's what makes you feel good. And if you feel good in a colour, does it matter if it technically doesn't suit you or not?

I can give you all the reasons why it doesn't suit you and your inverted commas shouldn't wear it. But if it makes you feel good, what does it matter? Because that's what it's all about. Anything to do with how you look, you know, whether it's colour analysis, whether it's styling, whether it's, you know, wearing this dress shape, rather than that, if it makes you feel good, it doesn't really matter what the rules say.

Because that's ultimately why you're doing it, because you want to feel good in what you're wearing. That's my caveat. 

Helen: A lot of people I've spoken to kind of moved away from all black, like they used to wear, and maybe bringing in bits of pinks and bits of greys. Some of them like red lipstick. Some of them don't wear it and have just gone very natural. So, it's quite interesting that people are doing different things, but it's also interesting that they're aware that maybe as the hair changes, the style and colouring they're going for probably should change too.

Lisa: The key thing, Helen, is, everything is determined by your style personality. So, there are archetypes, and regardless of the colours that you wear, it's about how you wear them. So, if you're, for example, a dramatic style personality type, who's then given a palette of colours that is very soft and muted, because, you know, that's what colours suit you.

It's about how you then use those colours to make them dramatic. So, there are ways, how you can put colours together, you know, when things are opposite on the colour wheel, for example, they're going to be more clashy, than they are if they're next to each other. 

So, the people who are wearing the red lipstick have probably always had a dramatic element to the style personality and feel that might be missing somewhat now that they've, lost the colour in the hair. A way to ramp up the drama is to wear a bright red lipstick. 

But the style personality overrides everything. And when you understand what your style personality is and what it actually means, that then gives you the answers to why you've got all those clothes in your wardrobe that you never wear. The 20 percent that you’re wearing, the 80 percent that's in your wardrobe that you never wear, most of the time it's because they don't fit your innate style personality, if they still fit you. 

When I work with people, I really love picking apart their sort of style recipe and helping them create, what their style recipe is, then they've got something to go away with, a checklist. And all of a sudden, it's like, Oh God, I feel really comfortable in my own skin and I feel like me and I'm dressing my identity. 

It's a really exciting thing to unlock so that you actually, you know, dressing for joy and really embracing who you are and especially when you get to 50 and beyond, cause we turn into that invisible bit of society, don't we?

Helen: Well, we might have done in the past, but we're fighting it now.

Lisa: I just love helping people find those bits of themselves that might've got lost along the way.

Helen: I'm going to ask you one last question. If someone came to you and said, I'm thinking about going grey, what would you say to them?

Lisa: Go for it. Go for it. I would say go for it because it will save you a lot of time and a lot of money and who doesn't want more time and more money?

Helen: Cool.

Lisa: For me, it was quite liberating. And I think there's a lot of fear around being seen as being old. I think the grey hair, it's not so much about the colour of the hair. It's about the style and you still keep it, if you've always gone to the hairdressers, carry on going to the hairdressers. 

Still take the same amount of care of it that you've always done, you know, I still have my hair cut every six weeks, whether it's grey or whatever colour it is. I wouldn't not do that just because I'd gone grey because then I'd feel like I wouldn't be me, I wouldn't let myself go. So, it's kind of, if you've always gone to the hairdressers and had a blow dry once a week, then still carry on doing it.

It doesn't matter what colour your hair is. It's about how you perceive yourself. Just because you've gone grey, it doesn't mean that you've disappeared into the background. It's sort of, you're still you

Helen: My hair is really long now, much longer than it was before I went grey.

Lisa: So, what made you grow it then? 

Helen: My hair was bleached blonde. So, a yellow tone, which is obviously really, really bad for me. So, by the time it got to about jaw length when it was bleached, it just used to make my face look really drawn. And it made me look older. And now that I'm no longer dyeing it, obviously the colour of it suits me.

So, I can have it longer. I would have had it longer before, other than obviously it maybe looked not great. And also, the condition was terrible because it was bleached. So, it was very dry. Whereas the condition is much better now.

Lisa: That's it. And I think shiny, long grey hair looks absolutely glorious. But it's if you don't look after it, because it can get with menopause and all kinds of things, it can get quite wiry and stuff and the texture can change, but it's about managing it and looking after it. 

So, I think, you know, you just need to take care of it to keep it looking nice, I suppose is the thing, rather than just giving up. Which is what some people like to do when they go grey, it's like, oh, I've given up. But they probably weren't that bothered.

Helen: Yeah.

Lisa: It probably wasn't a thing for them in the first place, that much, you know,

Helen: Okay. Well, I am going to end it there. So, thanks so much for coming on. You've been a great guest, really interesting and I'll wish you well for the rest of your day.

Lisa: Thank you very much. 

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.