Happier Grey Podcast with Jen Boxer

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 Jen Boxer, a graphic designer based in Sydney. She's a mother of two young adults, and a cat person, who jumped back into acting in 2023 after embracing her greys at the age of 50. Hello Jen, how are you?

Jen: I'm very well, thank you. It's lovely to be here. 

Helen: I'm gonna start by asking you, can you remember when you found your first grey hair?

Jen: I can very, very clearly, because I was very young when it happened. I was about 22. Back then I was a very brunette person, and I spent most of my life as a very brunette person. So, when you find a grey amongst what is basically dark, dark brown or black hair, it stands out like a beacon. I think back in those days, I was using the tweezers to pull them out.

Helen: Not unusual. Did you start dyeing your hair to cover them up?

Jen: I did. Pretty much from my early twenties until my fifties, I was a regular, initial salon goer and then, home dyer, because of the time and expense that salons, took up. I did that for 30 years of my life. Tried lots of things towards the end. Hairdressers giving me ideas about lightning, and putting highlights through it, and that was a horrible disaster.

So yeah, 30 years of box dye.

Helen: What made you stop?

Jen: I'd actually thought about it for quite a long time. It had been something I'd been considering for ages. Well before I was even aware that there was any such thing as a grey hair movement. That was something I discovered after the fact. 

I'd always said that I was going to cut it all off, and let it go grey, and let it grow out naturally, at some point. I think the thing that happened for me was the fortune of COVID was what caused me to start my actual grow out process. 

Being stuck at home and not going out into the world. Not having access to salons and the supermarket as much as possible. And not being worried so much about how I was presenting myself in the world, gave me the freedom to actually let that happen.

Helen: How did you grow out? Did you have it cut short, or did you just let it grow?

Jen: I let it grow initially, so there's some really fantastic photos of me with varying shades going through my hair. Having coloured my hair for so long, being that I was so dark, dark hair really embeds itself into the hair shaft. There was year upon year upon year upon year of colour within my hair.

So, I actually did go and buy some colour removal, which was an interesting experience. Because what that does is it actually turns the hair to a sort of fox, orange colour, as it tries to remove the dark tint out of it. For a long time, I had a very white root, followed by a very bright orange streak, followed by darker ends.

I kind of looked a little bit new age, new wave punk. It was actually quite cool for a while, because having been a brunette for my whole life, brunette people have very, very one note hair. It's all one colour. It's solid. It's dark. 

It doesn't have the highlights, and colour shifts, that someone with a lighter coloured head has. You know, blonde people, light brown-haired people have all those tones and colours in their hair. But if you're a really dark brunette person, it's just really quite solid on your head. 

And so, seeing my hair with all that colour in it, and so much colour, orange and grey and white and black, and all together at the same time, it's really a new experience for me.

I did that for quite a long time. Then I started lobbing the ends off. Every few months or so, I'd probably cut about two inches off the bottom. And the grey just got longer and longer and longer. I still remember the day that I did the last final chop when there was no black left.

Helen: So, a couple of questions then. First of all, the colour removal thing that you used, was it easy to use, and would you recommend it?

Jen: It was very easy to use. I'm not sure whether I recommend it. I don't think it hurt my hair. I think my hair was fine, so I wasn't worried about it from a damage perspective. It wasn't like a bleach or anything like that. It literally was just trying to strip away colour, but it doesn't make you look particularly great.

It was more of a trying to get there, faster process for me. So, if you're not worried about the look necessarily, I'd recommend it. I wouldn't worry about whether it's going to hurt you. I wouldn't worry about any of those aspects. But yeah, it doesn't look particularly awesome in that phase.

Helen: How did you feel during the grow out phase? 

Jen: I was quite blessed that I was at home with my kids and my husband for most of it. I did have a few major events happen that year. Majorly I had a birthday that I celebrated on Zoom with friends and family, being that it was quite a milestone. 

Sadly, my mother-in-law passed away during the later part of that year, and we did have to attend a funeral. That was probably my coming out, at a funeral, with really unusually stripy hair. Nobody had probably seen me at that point, and so I did attend that with very, very strange hair. It was probably about, shoulder length. But it definitely had a good three inches of dark, a good three inches of orange, and rest of it in a grow out phase.

So, yeah, that was quite fun.

Helen: How did your friends and family react when you told them you were going to go grey?

Jen: I've had nothing but positivity surrounding me. I've been quite I'm amazed by that. When I've talked to a lot of fabulous women across the world now that have all embraced their greys. And the amount of people that talk about negativity. And the comments that I see in their feeds from people, just absolutely shocked me, because I've had nothing but positivity from everyone.

I think when you're a brunette person, and you go grey, it is a very stark change. It's not a slight change. People are quite amazed initially, because you, go from being the positive, to the negative, if you like. It's a complete opposite swap in terms of the colour. So, it is quite confronting. 

But everybody's been very positive and, very complimentary. And it's been a complete reawakening I suppose for me.

Helen: So, have any of your friends decided to embrace their greys as well?

Jen: I do have a few friends that have started the process. Oddly most of them seem to be fair haired people, so you don't really see a lot of the change to the same degrees. But yeah, people are starting to go down that path. 

Then at the same time, I have some friends that are very stalwart about not doing that yet, because they like their colour and they want to stay as they are.

Helen: Which again, I think is cool. I think you just have to do what feels right for you. 

Jen: Absolutely.

Helen: And if that's going grey, that's fine.

Jen: It's got to be a choice for your own reasons. 

I have had the great pleasure of meeting really lovely, wonderful women here in Sydney. Through social media, we connected through our grey hair, and they call themselves the Sydney Silver Sisters. And so, I've had the opportunity to get together with them, most recently for Christmas drinks, and previously for lunches and catch ups.

We are all very diverse. Very different backgrounds, from very different places in the World. We've got some English people, some South Africans, there's a lovely Canadian lady, really eclectic group of women. Different lifestyles, some are married, some have got kids, some are very high corporate people, some are very creative types.

It's been wonderful getting to know them, and bonding over our hair.

Helen: Do you find it useful to having that level of support in the background?

Jen: I think it's been lovely having the support. But it's more that it's been really lovely seeing something as simple as a change to our hair colour, that we've all chosen to do, that has brought us together. Whereas we might never have ever met in the real world. 

Helen: Is your hair the colour you expected it to be before you started the grow out process?

Jen: I actually wasn't sure what was going to happen. And my hair, I would call it grombre, I suppose. It's got some very white streaks at the front. It's got a lot of grey, and white, and silver streaks throughout. So, I'm definitely not a solid white, or a solid silver. There's a lot of tones through it. And I like that.

It's been a nice surprise to see that. Because as I explained before, the contrast between being a solid haired person, to being somebody with highlights and changes is refreshing. It's new. It's something I have never had before.

Helen: Since going grey, you've taken up acting. Talk to me a little bit about why and what you're doing.

Jen: In my youth, when I was studying, I did a little bit of acting and modelling, probably mostly to pay my way through university. It was just a means to an end. A young person's job, if you like. Then I moved on to my real life working in big advertising agencies, as an art director. And never looked at that again. 

But if I really look back at my youth, I danced as a child and I did drama at school. And the exhilaration that I got by being in those circumstances, where you throw yourself in the deep end, and see what happens, was always there for me. During my time working in the corporate world, I actually went and did some acting classes as just a hobby, just as something to do outside of life.

Then along came kids, and my eldest child is absolutely in love with acting. And has been doing drama and, going to drama classes since they were very small. Now they're 20, turning 21 this year. 

I'd been going with them to all of their events, and taking them to all their castings. Off to the side thinking, gee, that would be fun. I'd like to do that myself. 

And literally somebody approached me when my hair went grey and said, look, we're looking for someone to play a Nonna, in a pasta commercial. Would you be interested? And I said, sure, I could do that. I've got the Mediterranean sort of look. Sure. Why not throw me in?

Nothing came of that, but then they asked me if I wanted to be represented by them. And I thought, why not? That was about 18 months ago. Since then, I've been taking acting classes, and auditioning for lots of things. Participating in commercials, and film, and television, and absolutely loving everything about it.

I still work and I still have my family and look after the family, but I've finally got something that's, all mine, I suppose, it's not part of the family. It's not part of the workload. It's something I can just do to feel part of the world and feel exhilarated.

Probably the loveliest thing for me that's come out of it is attending acting classes. The reason I say that is because it is a challenge. It gets your heart pumping, and the fear sets in, and you get through that, and the exhilaration of feeling like you've achieved something in that world is great. 

But the bigger thing for me is that I've been able to attend those classes mostly with a lot of young people. And all of them have made me feel incredibly welcome, and part of the group. I'm not the crazy old lady in the room. I'm one of them. It's a really nice feeling to be embraced like that by different generations.

Helen: I'm curious about the roles that you've been doing. Do you feel like your age is represented accurately in the roles that you're doing or are you sometimes asked to be more elderly than you actually are?

Jen: I’ve actually only had one situation where that came up. And that was a particularly interesting one that I actually offered the opportunity to age up for it. And the reason for that was it was actually a project through Macquarie University here in Sydney. 

They do a bunch of films for the Psychology Department and the Psychiatry Department, where they produce films to help people who are going through situations. And the film that they were trying to make them was about, they're called ageing wisely.

They were about people dealing with loss. Particularly, people having lost their partners late in life. And how they get through that, and live, and cope through those circumstances. 

They were having trouble finding someone and they asked me if I wanted to play the role. I felt happy to play that role because I thought it was a really worthwhile piece of film.

Other than that, I play a lot of mums. And I don't have a problem with that because I am a mum. Often I'm playing mums that are possibly younger than me, which is actually really interesting because I am 55 and I do have silver hair. But I don't feel like they're making me be the older mum per se.

They're casting me as anywhere between 38 and 55, I suppose, which is quite pleasant. But, in terms of acting at my age, I'm not doing this to be the female lead. I'm not doing this to be the romantic love interest. 

I'm doing this to portray women like us. That are, you know, dealing with, empty nest syndrome or, loss of partners, or divorce, or menopause. My gosh, all the things that we're all going through in our journeys, as not young women, are really important stories.

And I'm happy to play women of our age because we need to be represented on the screen. Not by young, nubile, gorgeous people necessarily. We need to be portrayed by a varying cast of wonderful women that represent ourselves.

Helen: I think it's really refreshing that you're being asked to play a mum, rather than asked to be in play grandmas all the time, just because you have silver hair.

Jen: I know, well, I anticipated that that's what it was going to be. Like I said, that first call that I had was, “Hey, do you want to play a nonna?” And I went, well, my kids are still at home. and actually, still finishing high school. But sure, I could be a nonna. Because technically I could be, I mean, I might've started much younger than I did. 

But I haven't actually played a grandmother yet. I was offered one role, then it didn't happen. Other than that, it's, mostly a mother of young adults, but occasionally, and most recently, I've played mum to some primary schoolers. Which I think is lovely, thank you.

Helen: A very different topic now. How are you feeling about where you're at in the ageing process?

Jen: Look, I'm going to be completely 100 percent honest about myself, and how much I take care of myself, and how much I don't. I've been very blessed for very long, in terms of being slim, and that presents as looking fit and healthy. But I am noticing that I need to do something now to maybe prolong things a bit more.

I am very stiff, and I get very sore. And I don't do any exercise. My goals for this year is to really, up the ante on that, and try and start looking after myself. So that I am ageing more gracefully than my body is trying to age at the moment. 

I'm quite aware of it too. Because my parents are amazing, and doing very well. But, you know, 87 and my dad will be 90 in February. And I see my dad is a little bit sedentary. And so, he should be probably now at 90. But I'm following his path a little bit. And I do want to make sure that I'm possibly a little bit more agile than, than he is when I get there. And I can see that I need to start that process now.

Helen: What have you got in mind in terms of exercise?

Jen: I've been down this path before, and tried to get militant about it. I found that what I do is you start too hard, and you hurt yourself, and then you have to stop again. So, I'm definitely not doing that. 

At the moment, my initial plan is just to go on a whole lot more walks than I would normally do. I do love walking. And I live in a really beautiful part of the world. There's beautiful trees. And just being out walking around in nature is a really good start for me. Once I've gotten a little bit better at that, then I can add a little bit more in. 

Other things that I love to do, yoga when I get time, quite often I'll fall asleep. It's that kind of yoga for me. I remember somebody saying to me, don't feel bad about that, because that's your body telling you what it needs. If I get to a point that I'm so beautifully relaxed that my body wants to go to sleep for a minute, then I'll take it.

Helen: Okay, back to your hair.

Jen: Yes.

Helen: Do you do anything in particular to look after it, and keep it in good condition? In terms of shampoos and conditioners and that kind of thing?

Jen: The only thing that I have taken onboard is the use of purple shampoos, toners.

Because I have found one thing about doing more acting work is that when I am working, people are sticking my hair in hot tongs, and straighteners, and hair dryers more than I would necessarily use myself. And I do find that that can tend to yellow my hair a little bit. 

And having never had any yellow tones in my hair, it's quite weird when you get yellow ends on it. So, I do use purple shampoos at least once a fortnight, if not more often, but just as part of my shower routine. I don't really do much more than that with it.

Helen: I guess you live in quite a sunny climate as well. 

Jen: Yeah, what happens in a not sunny climate in terms of silver hair? I've got no concept of what that looks like.

Helen: Probably less yellowing.

Jen: Right.

Helen: Because we don't have the sunshine. Although it's hard for me to notice anyway, because my hair was a dark blonde before I started going grey.

One last question then. If someone came to you and said, I'm thinking about going grey, what advice would you have for them?

Jen: I would say, if you want to go grey, absolutely do it. But make sure that you're doing it because you want to do it, and what are your reasons for doing it? Some of the good reasons I would put out there are convenience. It just saves me so much time not having to deal with all that salon stuff, all that colouring, and all the expensive colouring. 

It used to drive me insane sitting in the salon for all those hours, with all that stuff, that foil on your head while the colour set in. so, I'm so thrilled to not have to do that anymore.

In terms of how it makes you feel, for me, it's made me feel alive again. It really has. I get so many people stopping me in the street and just saying, “Wow, I love your hair”. “What have you done to it?” “How did you get that colour?” And then when I tell them, that's just my hair and I let it go. And that's just how it is. They're amazed. 

I would say do it, do it for you, do it and see what happens. And if you don't like it. You can always dye it again. Nothing lost.

Helen: This is true. I think the other thing to say is there will be bad days during the grow out, when you look at yourself and think, I just look horrendous, but it's worth it in the end.

Jen: Absolutely. But I can only equate that to, you know, when you're young, and you do crazy colours in your hair, and you have to deal with getting rid of those. 

Or, in my case, I went through a couple of phases of cutting my hair very short when that seemed like a cool thing to do, and then had to deal with the horrendous grow out to get it back to a length that you could actually do something with.

We've all been there over the years. Even when we were children, when our parents, gave us horrendous haircuts that we never wanted. Or we did something dumb at Uni because it was a trend and went, well, that didn't even suit me. 

So, you know, hair is hair. We'll always have times where we wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and go, oh dear. But it's just hair and you can always put it up in a ponytail, stick a hat on, there'll be days. 

But I think that the fabulous days definitely outweigh those days of what was I thinking.

Helen: Cool. I'm going to say thanks so much for joining me. You've been fascinating to chat to and enjoy the rest of your day.

Jen: Thank you so much. It was lovely to chat with you.

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.