There comes a point in time in your decades as a woman when you want to let it all hang out. No more conforming with the standard macho concept of beauty
— blonde or raven-haired had always been the symbol of youth and, therefore, beauty. But the pandemic did a helluva lot of rethinking and reimagination (the, uhm, silvery gray lining spread by the virus) that beauty standards are now as fluid as gender decisions.

And as simple as that, gray hair — ash blonde, steel grey, silver mist, platinum white, or whatever is akin to the white shocks of Cruella de Vil or the Targaryens in House of the Dragon — is the new black.

Bleaching, once best left in the hands of expert "salonistas", is now quite a safe pursuit as spending a weekend night applying drugstore-bought hair color in the solitary confines of your bathroom. Luckily, bleaching kits now come with hair masks, moisturizers, and other things to prevent your hair from becoming brittle after the chemical fix.

Let's call it the undying — the opposite of dying — with bleaching as the first step to stripping your crowning glory with years of layer upon layer of hair color. There's something brave about a woman who allows her authentic hair color to come out finally.

Bold, but then again, in body politics: Your body, your self. Your mane in whatever shape or color, your happiness. Anyone's opinion about how you should look shouldn't get in your hair.