Happier Grey with Jo Pringle

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 Jo Pringle. She's married with two teenage girls and an amazing Labrador. And since the age of 50, she's worked for herself doing a job that she loves. Good morning, Jo. How are you?

Jo: I'm very well, thanks Helen.

Helen: So glad you can join me. I'm gonna start by asking you a question about your hair and when you found your first grey hair?

Jo: It wasn't really a hair, we'd gone to White House Farm for Charlotte, that's my eldest, for a birthday party. I think it was her first birthday party, and they've got slides and all sorts of things there. So, I was coming down the slide and my husband had taken a photograph, and there was basically a huge Mallen Streak of grey hair. 

I hadn't dyed my hair for years before I had the children, I’d just stopped doing it because it was expensive. And I quite like the colour of my hair in the summer, it used to go like a goldy blonde colour. 

But then this photograph of me coming down the slide with a huge, massive streak in my fringe hairline, of grey, that I hadn't noticed before, and I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before.

That was, oh gosh, I would be maybe 41 or 42. So, I started, back again, dyeing my hair blonde, because of that.

Helen: Were you just self-conscious about it?

Jo: I was and all of my friends were sort of 10 or 11 or 12 years younger than me. You know, when you go to school, or when you go to nursery and you start making a different group of friends. Because all of my friends previous to that, were a similar age to me, they had teenage children or older than teenage children because I didn't have my first child until I was 38. When you go to the school gates and the nurseries at that time, all of the parents were so much younger.

So, my friendship group became around the people that my children knew really, and they didn't have grey hair. I've never really been that self-conscious, but I obviously was. And I just decided to get more streaks of blonde in. 

And then from there you end up just going blonde. And it's a dreadful cycle, and your hair goes really brittle as well. It's not even a necessarily a good look. And you try all different colours. And I just kept going down that line, and then something hit me. About three years ago. It was just getting stupid.

So, I dyed my hair bright pink at the bottom. I didn't dye. I went to the hairdressers and said to the hairdresser, what can we do? And so, the bottom of my hair was completely dyed pink for Christmas.

Helen: Cool.

Jo: And it just basically went from there. And then I thought, this is ridiculous.

Not all of my hair was grey. I just said to the hairdresser, well, can't you just dye my hair grey? And then I'll see what it looks like, and then we'll just keep cutting out the bits that have been dyed blonde until it's all my grey.

Helen: Yeah.

Jo: So that's, what we did, and that's why I've now got my own grey hair.

Helen: There's a few things there that I can really echo with. I didn't have my daughter till I was 41. 

And when I was in the playground dropping her off, there was mums, but there were also grandmas and you didn't really want to be mistaken for one of the grandmas.

Jo: Yes, yes. 

Helen: I'm really fascinated by the story of how you grew your hair out. So, the pink, was the pink a permanent colour or semi-permanent colour?

Jo: It was semi-permanent. So, I had pink and I had red. Red was at Christmas. 

Helen: Yep.

Jo: It started off, I had the whole of my hair dyed a very, light shade of pink. Almost like, can you remember grannies having blue rinses?

Helen: Yeah.

Jo: It was like that, but it was a pink rinse.

Helen: Okay. 

Jo: That was the first one. 

Then we went dyed my hair grey, but did a massive stripe of fluorescent pink round the bottom. And then, Christmas time we did bright red, like Christmas red, round the bottom. But when I look back at those photographs, I just think, oh my God, what on earth were you doing? I thought I looked amazing, but I didn't. 

Once I'd gone through that, my hair was so long that I decided that I would have that stripe done. Then when I was finished or sick of it, I could just have it all cut off the bottom. So that would be, you know, part of the going grey process.

So that's what we did. That was all cut out. And then each time I went back, less and less of my hair needed to be dyed grey.

Helen: Okay.

Jo: And it wasn't a permanent, I don't think you can get permanent grey. So, it would just be dyed grey. And then I would go in seven or eight weeks later and he would repeat the process.

And then eventually I just said to him, just cut out as much as you can. And I don't mind my hair going really short, but it didn't need to go really short because by this time. Quite a big chunk of my natural grey was coming in.

Helen: Yeah. So, did you have some layers cut in at that stage?

Jo: Yes, layers so that it gave a bit of bounce and curl. 

Because I work for myself, and because I don't have to work all year, I don't need to get up and wash my hair, and dry it, and put makeup on, and do all that kind of stuff. 

I can get up, wash my hair. And now, because I don't have any product in it, I can let it dry naturally. And sometimes I can get out of bed, and my hair looks like I've just had the hairdryer and the tongs on, it’s incredible. Yeah, I'm quite lucky. 

I always had poker straight hair. But I don't know if you noticed since your greys come in, your hair's a bit more curly. The way it forms has changed. So, I've gone from poker straight to a bit of a kink.

Helen: Okay. Mine wasn't straight. Mine always had a little bit of a kink to it. It probably has slightly less now, but, but it still has some. I'm a bit like you and that I can just wash it and leave it, and it'll look reasonable without having to do a lot of work with it.

Jo: I've just recently been on a yoga retreat. I didn't once use a hairdryer. And it's liberating, isn't it, when you don't have to do that. It's actually liberating when you can work for yourself because there's loads of things you don't have to do. I must admit though, I do miss wearing a suit. I did quite like wearing a suit or, smart clothes to work, and now I don't have to do that anymore.

Helen: I occasionally go networking and I put something a bit smarter on, but I used to wear dresses with leather jackets and boots or, suits in my early career, but not so much recently. But now I've got a bit of a problem in that when I go shopping, I'm still drawn to those sorts of dresses and it's like, well, yeah, when exactly do you think you're going to wear that?

Jo: Exactly, exactly. Can you remember when it was really fashionable to wear a waistcoat? And they used to be sort of embroidered waistcoats, and you could buy waistcoats everywhere, and then they disappeared. And obviously throughout time you get rid of stuff in your wardrobe, when it's no longer fashionable. And I do wish I'd kept those lovely waistcoats. This year, it would appear that waistcoats are back in. And I would really like to buy a waistcoat, but I can't think of a reason why I would need one. 

Helen: Well, you could wear it with jeans and a shirt,

Jo: Yeah, they look great with jeans and a shirt. 

Helen: I'm going to ask you a couple of other questions, firstly about your hair. You said it was very brittle when you were dyeing it. Have you found that the condition has improved since you are not dyeing it?

Jo: Oh, massively. I'm sure you should never do this, but I can wash my hair with shower gel, not put any conditioner on. And then I have got this lovely stuff from the hairdresser, it must be kind of an argan oil or something like that. So just a few pumps of that, put that through my hair, brush it, and then it. It looks like I have washed it with amazing shampoo and conditioner. 

However, I do buy the silver shampoo that you can get for grey hair. And I've also got some blonde conditioner treatment, that you can put on once every two weeks or something just to give your hair a little bit of treat, I suppose.

Helen: Yeah.

Jo: I don't use it all the time, the silver shampoo. I'll use a tiny trickle with normal shampoo or whatever I'm going to wash my hair with. I don't need to wash my hair every single day. Actually, it should be prescribed, shouldn’t it. If everyone just naturally went their natural colour.  

I had mouse, it used to be called when I was at school. I think they call it, dirty blonde or dark blonde now. So, my hair wasn't really dark brown. I think it must be harder when you've got black hair to naturally go grey because it is much more visible, isn't it, as you're going through that. There's a stage, isn't there, where you have,

Helen: Yeah, the grow out phase is going to be more visible if you've been dyeing it in dark colour.

Jo: Unless you're brave enough to have it all shaved off. And I don't think many of us are that brave, especially you, Helen, you've got lovely long hair, so that would be a big ask, wouldn't it? 

Helen: When I was growing it out, it went to a jaw length bob with some layers in it to get rid of the colour. Because I'd grown it for, a bit over 12 months, maybe 12, 18 months. And I'd reached the point of thinking, do you know, I've had enough, I just don't want to see the blonde anymore.

So, then I had it cut short and then from there, I've just let it grow.

Jo: yeah.

Helen: which I couldn't do before because like you, it was very brittle, very dry because it was a bleach blonde for 25 years, probably.

Jo: Wow.

Helen: I'm going to ask you a different question now, which is about, your attitude towards ageing and what you're doing to age well. Cause I know you've been on a bit of a fitness journey cause that's how we know each other.

Jo: Yes, I have. I must admit that in my mid-forties, I did go through a bit of a crisis, and I'd gone to the doctors, and they'd taken loads of blood tests, and things like that because I just didn't feel right. I was anxious and upset, and I just thought it was my work. And they went away and did some tests and said there was nothing wrong with me.

So, I burst into tears at the doctor's surgery and, the doctor said, you'll be fine. Just go back to work. And now on reflection, I was probably in perimenopause, and going through all that sort of stuff that you go through in perimenopause. But back then, that's over 13 years ago, oh gosh, the lady who's on the TV that's made menopause a massive thing to talk about, Davina, she hadn't done any programs, nobody was talking about it. 

HRT was a thing that you shouldn't go on because it would cause cancer. That survey that they used to say HRT was a bad thing has now been totally disproved. And it only depends on certain types of breast cancer. It's hormonal breast cancer. 

It was dreadful that doctor's surgeries were ill informed or not informed. You would go in with a problem, and you would just be told to go away or they would try and fix the problem that you had.

And in my case, they couldn't fix it. I was in floods of tears, and I went back to work. And then over the years I had little bits of funny things that now can all be prescribed to perimenopause or menopause. 

I haven't always, by any stretch of the imagination, been a fitness person at all. When I returned after my first pregnancy, I decided I would cycle to work. And basically, each year, during the summer months, I would be cycling, and thinking about what I ate. And then winter, it was almost like I went into, hibernation mode, and put loads of weight on. And so, I would start the following year, at that stage again. 

And then, I was at a gym just before lockdown. Then lockdown happened and we had an amazing dog, and that dog had to be put down. So, lockdown was a horrendous time for me and I just put stones on, not pounds, stones. So, we came out of lockdown and I was very unfit.

 I managed to keep my business running throughout lockdown, which was good. But my job entails a lot of driving, and my knee, swell. 

This probably happened to a lot of people. During lockdown you didn't have to wear shoes with heels on, because you weren't going out anywhere. So, all my shoes were flat or trainers or walking boots.

We came out of lockdown, we went to the pub. I put a pair of sensible boots with a big chunky heel, walked up the street, and then on the way back had to take the boots off. And then my knee swelled up like a pudding, and then driving was horrendous, and it's never stopped since then.

Eventually I managed to get an X ray, and they said I had age degenerative arthritis in my knee. And it did get worse, and each year it got worse. We went on holiday to the Lake District and I had to stay in the cottage, because I couldn't walk very far without my knee, just without being in absolute agony.

And I just thought, this is ridiculous. I can't go on like this. And I knew, because with a brain knows, that if you're carrying a huge amount of weight, that your knee or your hip or your ankle has to carry all that weight, doesn't it? So, I decided to go on a diet. 

And then the gym thing was all over Facebook, and my friend had been looking at it. One day I just clicked on the link, and that was the end of last October, and I've been going there since November, and my Knee is no longer swollen.

I'm not suffering as much from the pain. I do still suffer, but since I've lost weight and become fitter, it's just way better. I know not everybody's the same, but I don't know about you, but I would highly recommend, getting fit and losing weight as a way to get through.

It's brilliant for your well-being, for your mind Isn't it apart from anything else? You just feel better after you've gone and done a bit of a workout.

Helen: Yeah, I think for me I’ve always run and I’ve done yoga for about 10, 12 years. So, I was fairly fit when I started doing strength training, but I'd read so much about, how important it was for maintaining muscle mass, and your bone strength. 

I'm like, well, my mum lives independently at 89 and I would like to be like her. So, it's like, well, what do I need to do now? So, that I'm then going to be fit enough. And for me, it has made a lot of difference to how fit I feel, even though I had a base of fitness beforehand. 

So yeah, I definitely think it's a good thing to do. And I really didn't like the gym before, I'd been in the gym a few times before, and just thought I'd really don't want to be here.

And, like you love being outside. So, had generally done a lot of exercise outside, with running and walking. But yeah, I think it's a great thing to do. 

Jo: We've had an allotment since I was 40, and it's a fantastic space to be in. But I was even finding that I couldn't do the weeding, because I couldn't kneel down. And now, I can go up and we can work in the allotment for a whole day.

And I just don't have any pain at all. Well, that's not true. Your back does ache. Anybody's back would ache if you did a half a day's worth of weeding. But, it's not the same level of pain. You know, if you can add strength training to your physical workout, I don't think you can beat being out in the fresh air, and the vitamin D that you get from being in the fresh air.

I can understand how running would do that because, I like cycling as well. And that's the same sort of thing. But walking the dog, anything that gets you outside, but you do need that, strength training along with it

Also, where we go, it's like a little family isn't it? A little community, you make friends with all the people that you regularly see, and have coffee, and you can't put a price on that really can you? You know making new friends It's lovely, new connections.

Helen: Good for your mental health.

Jo: Yeah.

Helen: Which we're also looking after as we're getting older. One last question then. If someone came to you and said, I'm thinking about going grey, what would you say to them?

Jo: Oh, go for it. Go for it. It's good for your wallet, it's good for your hair and you're probably gonna, keep your hair for longer, the less that you put on it, I would imagine.

And, your face will look better because your face will go with your hair. Don't you think? 

Helen: Yes. I do.

Jo: Well, obviously we do because we've chosen to do this, haven't we? But you'd look at people like Helen Mirren, that actress who was in Four Weddings and a Funeral, the American actress, who's got the curly

Helen: Andie MacDowell.

Jo: Yeah, she kept dyeing her hair for ages, but now she's gone grey and she looks amazing, doesn't she? 

My mum had friends who naturally went grey. And they did look incredible. And one of them had dark, steely grey hair, short, cropped right to her head. She had an amazing face, mind. But I just think you look better.

Your hair will match, your face will match you. And just because you've got grey hair doesn't mean you should not put makeup on. You can still go and do that. Also, if you go on holiday, or you're in the sunshine, and your face is all tanned, your hair looks amazing

I just think people should be themselves, as we grow older, we should think less about what people think about us and more about ourselves. And if we think about ourselves a bit more, then people are just going to like you more anyway, aren't they? 

Does it really matter what somebody else thinks about you as long as, you're happy in yourself? Should you be bothered about what somebody thinks about your hair?

Helen: No, you shouldn't. In my world anyway.

Jo: My teenage daughter is so bothered about her hair. She has overly dyed it, gone from having naturally dark blonde hair, to then having it dyed dark, to then deciding she wants to go back to being blonde. So, it basically snaps off. And this is because it makes her feel better if she's blonde, but she's gonna have no hair because it just snaps off. 

We're older, we've lived through life a bit, and then you start to realize that it's really important for our mental health that we feel good about ourselves. And then once you feel good about yourself, other people won't look at the mask of a person that you are, they'll look at you as a person.

And then all the things that you were trying really hard to do, by putting makeup on, making your hair blonde, will just come naturally, won't it? Because people will see you for the person that you are, instead of the pretend person that you're trying to be.

Helen: I think you just become more confident and more at peace with yourself and therefore,

Jo: Yeah.

Helen: it's easier for other people to get on with you. 

Jo: Yes, and everything else just comes on after that, doesn't it?

Helen: Yeah. Well, I'm going to say thank you very much for joining me. It's been a fascinating chat and enjoy the rest of your day.

Jo: Thank you very much. You too. 

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.