Interview with Katie Emery, Gray Hair Confidence Coach

If you dye your hair and ever wondered what it might be like to go gray, Katie Emery will tell you the benefits can extend beyond the time and money you’re likely to save.

It can also bring a sense of freedom. “I felt really liberated from the first night I decided to stop dyeing my hair. I think that was because coloring your hair is also like a way of denying your age,” said Emery, who was 50 when she made the decision in 2018. “Even though a lot of us went gray much younger, part of the reason I was coloring all those years is that I thought I’d look old if I didn’t.”

Ironically, going gray made her feel and look younger, she explained in an interview with Frugalmatic. “In letting go of worrying about getting older or looking older, I found that it made me look younger because I wasn’t carrying that weight anymore,” she said. “I was having more fun with my looks than I’ve had in years.”

Nevertheless, the journey from dyed to gray hair can be challenging, especially during the transition period when a mix of dyed and gray hair often shows. Emery documented her journey on her website, Katie Goes Platinum, where you can find tips on transitioning to and caring for gray hair. Emery chose to go “cold turkey,” which eliminated the need for using harsh chemicals.

Going “cold turkey” can feel uncomfortable, but it gets easier over time. “Most people find that by the time they grow it out to their eyebrows, then it’s not as hard to let the world see that you’re doing it because it’s obvious you’re growing it out on purpose. It’s easier to be confident when that happens,” Emery explained.  

But if going “cold turkey” isn’t for you, there are several other options, including the dye strip technique, Emery noted.

A go-gray movement

Now is as good a time as any to make the leap to gray. In recent years, the social stigma associated with gray hair has diminished. It’s become fashionable among some younger women to dye their hair silver. The trend has prompted older women with real gray hair to wonder why they’re spending time and money to hide it if others consider it beautiful.

And for all the problems created by the pandemic, it triggered a “tidal wave” of women opting to go gray, Emery explained. That’s because many women stopped dyeing their hair after salons closed during the March 2020 lockdowns. Plus, many women faced less social pressure to dye their hair as a result of being more isolated from friends and co-workers.

Indeed, the go-gray movement is gaining enough momentum that some women have reported feeling a new type of pressure. “I’ve heard from some women that now they’re feeling pressured by friends and family to go gray. And I don’t like that. It’s not wrong to dye your hair. If you want to dye your hair, you should feel like you can without getting pushback,” she said. 

Read more excerpts from the interview with Katie Emery below.

Frugalmatic: Despite this growing support for going gray, there’s still plenty of resistance out there. How can someone prepare themselves for dealing with ignorant remarks about their decision to go gray?

Katie Emery: That’s a big problem for a lot of us. We get a lot of pressure from co-workers, family, and friends. The No. 1 thing is don’t ask for people’s opinions. Decide on your own terms. Think about why you’re going to do this. And be confident going forward.

Then if you do get rude remarks, it’s much easier to stand your ground and just say, “Well, I like it. I’m happy with my hair this way.” If you have a certain friend or family member who’s relentlessly asking you about it, it’s always good to set a boundary and say, “You know, that topic is off limits. I already told you I’m happy with my hair color, and I don’t want to discuss it anymore.” Because really, it’s rude of people to think they can comment on what is a personal decision, but it does happen all the time.

F: There’s a lot of time and money to be saved by deciding to go gray. Can you say what you’ve saved in terms of time and money?

KE: I think I save even more time than money because when you have gray hair that’s relentlessly showing up all the time—I had it to the point that three days after getting my hair colored, I’d start seeing gray roots again—you spend a lot of time fretting about your roots. Because every time you go on vacation or to a party or a night out with friends, you’re sitting in your car powdering your roots last minute.

And then there’s coloring your roots, either at home or at a salon. At home, it takes probably an hour. If you’re like me, that would be an hour every two weeks. If you’re doing it at a salon, that can take up to 3 hours sometimes if you had a really good colorist. It’s just a horrible way to spend a Saturday, especially when you have kids. I didn’t like being away from my kids and spending all that time at the salon.

In terms of money, if you’re dyeing your hair yourself, that’s only $9 a box of hair dye. But, it’s also a big mess. You can end up staining your tiles or your bathtub. So you have to pay to clean that up.

If you’re coloring at a salon in places like Los Angeles, where I live, you’re paying $140 for a haircut, plus color. That was once a month. And that’s not even on the higher price end of things here in Los Angeles. People spend a lot more than that.

And then you go in and get it touched up frequently. So, I can’t even quantify the amount of time it saved.

And then I didn’t even mention that when your hair is being dyed all the time and it’s getting damaged by that dye, you have to spend a lot of money on products to fix the problems caused by the dye.

Check out more Frugalmatic interviews

F: In one of your videos, you talk about how “deciding to accept my gray hair not only freed up my time and money, but it also gave me some amazing creative ideas. I’ve been feeling more creative and alive than I have in a few years.” You can’t put a price tag on that kind of benefit. How common of an experience is that among women transitioning to gray?

KE: The great majority of women I know say the same thing. It’s opened them up to new things. It’s also made them start making other changes to their routine, like maybe taking better care of their health or their weight. Or, start caring more about clothing and fashion—or just having more fun than feeling afraid of who they’re becoming as they get older.  It’s been a really eye-opening experience.

F: You offer a lot of resources on your website and also Gray Hair Confidence Coaching. What inspired you to get so deeply involved in helping others with their decision to go gray?

KE: Partly because, when I first decided to go gray, I didn’t really find much information online that was matching the experience I felt. I was excited and happy to go gray once I made the decision. A lot of the articles I was finding online were more negative, like “How to cover your gray hair” or “How to go gray gracefully.” In other words, how to hide your grow-out and kind of be ashamed of it. And I didn’t feel like that anymore, so I wanted to start a website that was more excited about growing gray and helping women see that it would be fun and empowering and not something to be afraid of.

There were some gray hair groups on Facebook I joined. But a lot of the information was conflicting and didn’t make sense to me. So I wanted to have a one-stop-shop where women who were going gray or already had gray hair could come to my site and get all their answers in one place.

And I also think it’s fun. I love talking about it and haven’t gotten bored yet.