Emily is 32 and lives in Boston with her funny boyfriend. She is a beauty school dropout who cannot stop cutting her own hair. She can be found obsessing about cheese and her cat at Pretty Crabby or talking about products endlessly at Tallulah Blue. She has not seen her real hair color since 1990.

There’s an unspoken problem in the world. I feel this is tied to our shame, or perhaps we don’t want to really LOOK at this issue. Because this issue? It’s scary. It’s ugly. It’s real.

The issue is older (though not always) gentlemen and their HORRIBLE TERRIBLE dye jobs. Have you seen this?

First there was the issue of hair plugs when guys like Ben Affleck and Steve Carrell (whom I love but have you ever watched season 1 of The Office? Say for three hours straight on a Tuesday? And then you watch Season 3 and WOW MICHAEL HAS SO MUCH MORE HAIR!) suddenly showed up with a way stronger hairline. Which…okay. I don’t know what it is like to be a man with thinning hair. So, I give them that. Plug away, dudes!

But the dye. Oh. The hair dye. My mom and I have a favorite example of this. That example is Paul McCartney. I argue that while most English men somehow end up looking like old English ladies (which I heard somewhere and then I saw Elton John who looks markedly like my grandmother these days) but that doesn’t mean you should also attempt to dye your gray hair brown. It doesn’t work.

See?

Rolling Stone.com

Awful! He should just be gray. EMBRACE THE GRAY, Sir Paul! it looks like a sweater sitting on his head.

Or then there is this guy. You may recognize him. Take a deep breath before you look at this photo…

Ready?

Gawker.com

GAH! Al! What have you done?

I mean there are a lot of HANDSOME men who have gone gray and accepted it. Richard Gere springs to mind or Steve Martin, gray since birth! It is like I have said before, it is very hard to cover up gray. Most ladies know this and instead chose to go blond. Guys for some reason, keep trying for that dark brown. Let this be a lesson to those at home. Doesn’t work. Don’t try it.

You’ll thank me later, when you aren’t going to bed alone. In the meantime, please buy a hat and grow that stuff out. Cheers!

Workouts + Hair = UGH

It doesn’t really have to be that horrible, though! I wrote a post about workout hairstyles over at one of my very favorite health and fitness websites, Bodies in Motivation. Included is information on great styling products, dry shampoos and some of my favorite workout clothes.

Check it out here.