Happier Grey Podcast with Denise Hansard

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 Denise Hansard, an executive coach who combines compassionate trauma informed coaching with strategic wisdom and intuitive guidance, helping high achieving women feel safe enough to embrace their brilliance. Her unique approach creates transformative experiences for clients who understand success requires both skills and the courage to use them.

Good afternoon, Denise.

Denise: Hello, Helen. Good morning from where I am, which is over in the United States and North Carolina, so there you go.

Helen: And I'm in the UK, so yeah, time difference, but I do like to chat to people from around the world. 

Denise: Oh definitely.

Helen: I'm going to start by asking you, what was your hair like when you were a child?

Denise: You know, it's interesting that you asked that. When I was born, I was pretty much like I am today. I was white headed. I was born as what they call in those days, a towhead. Don't ask me why they called it that. That was just the term they had, but I was totally white. Up until about, I'm going to say until I was maybe five or six, when it started turning more of a dirty blonde aspect.

So yeah.

Helen: And did you have long or short hair?

Denise: it was interesting. You know, it varied. I would always have it probably shorter, but there were times when I had it shorter as in around my chin. And then there were times I had it down onto my shoulders. 

And I can remember one time as a child, if you don't mind me telling a story.  As my white hair, very light blonde, playing around the creek area. My father had just cut the grass, so the shavings of the grass had fallen into the creek, little waterway. And there was a tree that kind of went across that creek from one side to the other, and I was going back and forth back and forth, and I fell into the creek, almost headfirst. And as you can imagine here was this young girl with white hair, and green grass in her head. So, I started colouring my hair at a very early age. I just used natural products.

Helen: Did it stain it at all?

Denise: Oh, no, my mother washed it out very quickly. But it was an interesting episode, I would say, in my hair journey.

Helen: Did you, in your teens, experiment with dyeing your hair?

Denise: Oh, totally, totally. I've always been one and like I said, I think that's why I told that story, is because even then, I looked at my hair where my mother was gasping going, oh my God, it's green, you know, and having all the grass in it. And I looked at it and thought, oh, this is really cool. I like this. 

Probably, it was my later teens because my parents wouldn't allow me to colour my hair, even though I did have a few greys coming in. Because my father was prematurely grey when he was younger. 

And so, it wasn't until after I got into college and after college that I was kind of giving myself permission to experiment with my hair. I would colour it many different colours. I would style it in different ways.

I think the only colour I've never had is jet black, or a very, very bright red. But I've had in betweens, even went a platinum blonde one time. So, yes.

Helen: That was all just for fun?

Denise: You know, yes, because I got bored easily.  I wanted to be, and have a different look. Anytime that I find myself getting stuck in a rut, I guess you could say, I need to shake it up. I need to do something different. 

Even to the point when I would go home to visit my parents, they would tell me, we never know what you're going to look like, Denise, when you come home. it's just shaking up myself, shaking up everybody else around me.

Helen: Were you doing the same sort of thing with your clothes and your identity generally at that point?

Denise: I was doing I would say with my hair more so than with my clothes. I was still considered that good girl and I was working in corporate. Mostly stayed in the corporate style, except occasionally I would get a wild hair and have a red dress on and toss on a black leather jacket, which of course was really taboo and stepping out at that time.

I refused to wear the corporate suit, even as a woman. It just wasn't my style. I would wear dresses more so, and jazzy jackets. Or a dress with a coat over it or things like that. So, I guess in that way that made me a bit of an experimenter, and a bit of a rebel

Helen: Did there come a point where you started colouring your hair to cover the greys? 

Denise: Oh totally. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that was early on. Because even with, probably my thirties I guess, it wasn’t as if was total grey, but I had more and more grey coming in. I was more like my father in having that preponderance for premature greyness. 

And so, even though I enjoyed the difference in colouring my hair, with everything and changing the colour up, and sometimes it was not pretty. But I did it anyway, you know.

I suddenly realized, oh, I am getting grey. So, I don't want to have the greyness there. I don't want to lose the colour of my life, is kind of what I thought about it.

Helen: Okay, and how did you feel about the greys?

Denise: I guess I kind of took it in stride. I don’t know that I really felt anything. Except maybe the thought of I’m a little too young to have this. Even though my father was one who had premature grey. I'm too young to have this. I don't want people to be saying, oh, you've got grey hair. 

And, of course, it was more than just colouring. It was the highlighting, so that even though my grey was there, it was blending in with the highlights that I would put in it. So yeah, there was that aspect of it. Of being a little vain, I guess? Of being in my early 30s and not wanting to look like I had grey hair? Yeah. Normal. 

Helen: I think it's really funny because it's kind of so conditioned into us that only old people have grey hair, when in reality lots of people start getting grey hairs in their twenties and thirties.

Denise: Yes, and I think even as I look back on it then and how I thought then. It was okay for men to have spots of grey in their hair, at an early age. That was okay.

Yet, when my mother started having some grey pop up into her hair and everything, that was not acceptable, because that made her old. That old woman.

That conditioning. I wish it had gone away today, but it still is out there in a lot of different ways.

Helen: How long did you dye your hair for?

Denise: Well, I will be 67 this year, and I stopped dyeing my hair three or four years ago. 

Helen: And what was the catalyst for stopping?

Denise: My hair wouldn't hold the dye anymore. I mean, my hair forced me to just stop. It was one of those where, exactly, my body was going, oh girl, get over yourself. Come on, you can go this way. 

I would go to the hairdresser. I would spend hundreds of dollars having my hair highlighted, coloured, etc. and everything like that. Only to find within a week, maybe 10 days, that it started fading out so much that you couldn't tell I'd coloured it at all.

And of course, being the lighter hair that I am, the blonde and everything, I kept it that way only because the harshness as you get older, really makes you look even older. And yet it faded me out is what I felt. 

And so, that moment that I went to my hairdresser and I said, you know what? I said, my hair is not holding the colour. We need to just work my way into being natural.

Helen: How did you do the grow out process?

Denise: I started doing less of the root colouring, and more highlights. Going blonder and blonder. So that it looked like a natural process of just going to a lighter colour. And people really didn't realize that I was not really allowing it to go to its natural colour. It was easier on me than I've seen others that did it.

And I mean, both of my sisters had already allowed their natural colour to come out. One older than me, one younger than me. And they were both, already in their white grey stage, I guess you could say. 

I was the one that kept colouring it, because I was working. Even as an entrepreneur now, I was still working within the aspect of corporate, and that made me say, oh, I've got to look youthful enough to be in this role, with everything.

Helen: Okay.

Denise: But as it continued, and it probably took about, a month or two, to really let it fully, you know, be the last one and everything like that. That I didn't have to even highlight it anymore. And he did a really good job on allowing it to look the most natural that it could. He was a good hairdresser, you know, with everything.

And then suddenly I wasn't, and people went, oh my God, your hair is beautiful. I love the colour of your hair, and I'm going, well, this is natural. This is my hair colour and I was just surprised by it all, but, yeah.

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

Denise: Well, my sisters, they had no problem. They were like it’s about time Denise, you don’t need to be colouring your hair. You know, because they have already allowed theirs to come in.

Helen: Yeah.

Denise: Friends were different. I can think of two in particular that it was an interesting conversation, when I said I was going to allow it. Because they both looked at me and went, “aah” and did the gasp. And went “aah” are you going to do that? Are you really going to do that? And I'm going, yeah, I am. 

They both coloured their hair at that time, as I was allowing the process to come in. And I was visiting one of those friends in Paris. She works over in Paris at this time, and I was visiting her. And I can remember sitting down for lunch one day, and she looked at me, and she said, Denise, are you sure you want to stop colouring your hair?

And I went, yeah, but in the back of my mind, I'm going, oh my god, is it going to look that bad? I just cannot believe this, and I looked at her, and I said, do you think it's going to look bad? And she goes, no, no, no. She said, I just don't think I can ever not colour my hair. And she's a year older than I am.

And I said, why? And she goes, well, because I work in corporate and I don't want anyone to look at me and think I'm old. And I'm like, that is really a shame that you can't be exactly who you are, because of the stigmatism that other people put on it. The judgment that they're viewing you with that.

And she goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. I do hear you. And she said, and I think it would make me feel old. And I think that's one of the things with women that we struggle with is how our looks impact our feelings toward ourself. And I get that. 

Even today, I mean, I've got white hair. I'm pretty pale in my, skin colour. I don't tan at all. I turn red, and then I peel, and then I go back to the white, you know? And so, If I don't have any makeup on and if my hair is just the way it is, I feel like I fade out. Because it's nothing but pale, white, pale skin. 

So, I understand that and that does make me feel older and invisible. So, I've still got a little stigmatism on my own with it, with everything. But I'm getting older.

Helen: Couple of questions then. In terms of the corporate thing, 

Denise: Yes.

Helen: and the not wanting to be seen to get old. How much of that do you think is a real case of ageism in the workplace? And how much of it do you think is in the women's heads that it's going to happen?

Denise: Unfortunately, I think it is probably close to 70, if not higher, percent, in corporate. For so certain companies and people. I really think it still plays a major, major role.

Helen: Because people think you're stuck in your ways? Rather than valuing their wisdom and experience that you've got, from all the years of in the workplace.

Denise: Right. It's definitely stuck in their ways. It's that you become less productive. You don't think as clearly, because you're ageing. You can't do the job as well as you did before, because you're ageing. Those type of things. 

Helen: Okay.

Denise: We need someone younger, more vital, more productive. And yet that's not true.

Helen: Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I don't think there's any reason to suggest most people are less productive.

Denise: Exactly, exactly. And yet that thinking process has not grown enough. 

Now I do believe that more and more women are embracing, their ageing process, and the greying. I know even some younger women who are colouring their hair so it is grey. I applaud them because it's, it's a beautiful colour. 

It's like, of those two friends I was talking to you about, the one in Paris, she still colours her hair because she's still working in corporate. The other one, she started to allow the grey, or the white to come in. And it's so pretty, because it's like just on one area, you know.

Helen: Yeah.

Denise: And I will say that both of them have darker hair, which makes the grey more prominent, obviously, than me, being blonde, and just turning a little blonder or white. Because when I am out and the sun is shining on it, it's like a white head. 

Helen: I find it really interesting that it's the one that's in France that's choosing to colour it. Because in general, from the conversations I've had, I think Europeans are more relaxed about going grey than in U.S. and the U.K.

Denise: Yes. And at the same time, she is American. So, I think it's more putting it on herself than they would be. 

And yet, the company she works for, she's told me a few things that they tend to, it's like once you hit a certain age, they're ageing out. 

Helen: Yeah.

Denise: And it's not the age I am today, and that's a little difficult, so.

Helen: Okay. The other thing that I was going to come back to was, has the way you dress changed since you chose to embrace the greys? 

Denise: Um,

Helen: Are you brighter colours or anything?

Denise: You know, I don't think I am. I've always worn bright colours. I love reds and blues. I love the primary colours. Yellows never looked good on me, so I'm not going there, but I don't think I have changed. 

If anything, I recognize maybe that the paler colours don't look as good on me. And so, that's why I guess I go more toward the brighter, deeper, darker colours with everything. Yeah.

Helen: Do you wear black or white?

Denise: I don't wear black because black's just black. 

And white, no. I go with a cream, and I think that's my skin tone, more so than anything. 

I'm a huge fan of blues, reds, greens. Love all forms of greens. Pink, I like a hot pink. It looks really great on me. So, I've always tended to go that way. Yeah, so no. Brown is good.

Helen: A question about your hair then, obviously your hair is very white. Are you doing anything to stop it from yellowing?

Denise: Oh, I use the Shampoos that they have out there, yes. 

But I don't do, like, I remember my grandmother, whom I'm very much alike, my mother's mother. And she used to go to the hairdresser once a week, and put a rinse on it, to keep it white. 

I just use the shampoo for grey hair. Shampoos and conditioners. Yeah, I don't really do anything else with that.

Helen: The ones with the purple tint?

Denise: Yes. And then they have enhanced some others that don't have the purple tint. 

But there again, I get bored with everything. So, I have like three or four different types of shampoos in my shower so that I'm using different ones every time.  

Helen: Do you think you're going to get bored of having the white hair?

Denise: You never know. I always said I might put a little green streak in it, going back to the grass method. 

Helen: In terms of ageing healthily, are you doing anything to stay healthy as you age?

Denise: You know what? Movement is the biggest thing, and stretching. I try to do 30 minutes of some type of movement. It doesn't matter if it is Pilates, Qigong, cardio. Walking. And I love that. 

And, of course, with eating, I'm pretty clean eater. Until I get on a binge, where I just need sweets, and chocolate. And I'll blow it out for one day, and then go back to my normal pattern. So those are the things.

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

Denise: I would want to dig deep into their reasonings why they want to, and to see where it's coming from. Or why they haven't done it before. I want to ask them those questions. So that it's a reflection on you, and what your reasoning behind everything is, as opposed to outside influences. Is what I would say.

Like for me, I knew that I could not continue paying the money out. I was throwing money away. Simply because my hair said, no, you're going to do it. It's not holding the colour. Why spend the money on that and everything? 

So, I'd want to know the reason on why they want to go grey natural. And why they haven't done it before, yeah.

Helen: Any advice for the process for them?

Denise: I would just say, you know what? Fall in love with you again. Embrace it. Look at the beauty that you have that's coming from inside of you out. Cause that's what it really is. 

And think about the freedom that it gives you, to finally accept and embrace all of who you are. Your hair colour, your body, everything. 

Because no matter what happens, our body changes, we change. We're continuing to grow, into our wisdom, our gifts, and everything as we age. And it's fine. It's time for us to just be in love with ourselves again. Yeah.

Helen: That’s cool. So many people talk about freedom and also about, it isn't just your hair. Because by the time you're ready to make that decision, it's about self-acceptance. 

Denise: Yeah.

Helen: It's about other things that are going on too. And it's about being able to sort of stand up and say, this is me.

Denise: Embrace it and fall in love with yourself, because that is who you are. And that's the beauty of who you are.

Helen: Cool. Thanks so much for joining me. You've been a fascinating guest. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Denise: All right. Thank you, 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.