Let’s be honest. When it comes to making a lifestyle choice of giving up the color sessions with your hair stylist and go cold turkey with your present natural hair color (gray), it can be risky business.

Why risky?

When an average American, regardless of age, sees gray hair, it’s an automatic reaction like lightening is to thunder, or after spring comes summer -- the brain registers old. It doesn’t matter whether the gray-haired person is perky, runs an ironman marathon, or drives a snazzy BMW sports car. Cultural perception dictates either “over the hill” or even worse, “slowing down.”

In the competitive workplace gray heads remain an obstacle to promotion or an uninvited push for early retirement. Doing my research for this column I revisited the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 which was created to protect employees 40 years of age and older. I’m gratified to know that there is such a law on the books but I can just imagine the subtle, blurred transparencies that must play out in professional offices, corporate hierarchy and administration boards around the country.

I was disheartened to find in a study from the University of South Carolina on Geriatrics and Gerontology, that in workers in middle to upper level income bracket, the researchers found there were definite footprints of age discrimination. Results indicated “more than 81 percent of the older workers encountered at least one workplace discriminatory treatment a year.” Unfortunately sexism along with ageism still shadows the workplace like a timeless albatross.

Men score equally in regards to their shared hair anxiety as women. However men continue to enjoy a slight edge with the perceived status that males 50 and over carry an air of being especially seasoned or possess an entitled, distinguished mantra. Have you noticed that President Obama keeps his head closely cropped?

The more he asks his stylist for a “shower cut” the grayer his hair appears. Presiding in the White House can do that to our chief executives. On the flip side, females middle-age and up, no matter how classically or in-touch styled, most of the time find the response is: matronly, bored on the job or maturely jaded. It’s the “I’ve seen it all” look or “been there done that” mantra.

A tip from a networking firm called Gray Hair Management: start with the salt and pepper look or blond and gray streaks portfolio, and in time, let the “salt” become permanent.

For me, being a senior, seasoned female without hair prejudice, I try to observe and not judge. Personally, the first time I noticed those squiggly, uncontrollable strands of gray sticking out of my crown, I wasn’t surprised because if I remember correctly I was around 50. I determinedly plucked them out. One by one. Being a strawberry blonde and always outdoors more than indoors, I probably didn’t even notice the gray. Now 17 years later I’m presently – and plan to continue -- to be a colored, understated strawberry blond.

I duly applaud the smart ladies that go natural with their shining, silver manes signaling their glorious, wordless statement of self-esteem. Count Hubert de Givenchy, renowned fashion designer and founder of The House of Givenchy in 1952, later remarked in Vogue, July, 1985, “Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself.” I’ve read that healthy, gray hair is tricky to maintain, like silverware requires constant polish. Not to worry, I’ve learned since age 50 that the whole nine yards of aging gracefully means daily maintenance forever. No wonder we ask ourselves why the months and years zoom by far so fast. If all we have to worry about is the color of our hair we must be living a blissful existence. It’s the little commonplace decisions that entertain our moments that make it easier to accept the big life- hiccups that challenge our souls.

Just an ending thought. On bad hair days, just wear a saucy hat.

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