Are you curious about letting your hair go natural and embracing the grey? Robin Salls started her journey to grey hair in 2018, the same year she launched Tangled Silver Magazine. In today’s episode, she shares why she made the decision to go grey, why she believes in having the choice to color or not color your hair, and how you can embrace the grey as well!
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Meet Robin:
Favorite Childhood Memory
On Saturday mornings as a child, Robin would head to her grandmother’s house in upstate New York to watch horror movies with her. She also loved brushing and playing with her grandmother’s hair, which likely attributed to her decision to go grey.
What Society Feeds Us About Grey Hair
We’ve been taught be society and culture that going grey isn’t something that should be embraced. Not only is the media telling us this, but sometimes the people around us make comments on our appearance without meaning to. At 26, Robin started noticing grey hairs, which she quickly began to color, as she didn’t want to look older than she was. I personally started turning grey at 35.
Embracing the Grey
Now, Robin chooses to let her natural hair color grow out, allowing her to go grey. This has given her a platform to encourage women to do what feels right for them and embrace the grey. To clarify, she’s not anti-color, but she is anti-anyone trying to tell her what to do.
I myself have chosen to go grey as well. At two months into my journey, I’m very much understanding the lesson in patience. It does take time for the grey to fully take over and see what your natural hair color will look like when it’s a full head of hair.
If you want to try going grey, give yourself time and patience for it to happen. It will be an ongoing journey for you as you will continue to see changes in your hair. This isn’t a race.
Tangled Silver Magazine
In 2018, Robin was looking for inspiration on going grey, but there really wasn’t a lot out there. Thankfully, things have changed and more people are creating inspiring content for going grey, but back in 2018, to help solve this missing content, Robin created Tangled Silver Magazine, an online publication. She hoped it would help women embrace themselves and inspire the world to look at grey differently.
Grab your free copy of Tangled Silver Magazine below!
Connect with Robin:
Review the Transcript:
Susan Crews
Have you ever thought about embracing the grey and letting your natural color shine? Maybe your hair will be a beautiful silver color. listeners. I am so excited about today’s episode where I get to talk with one of the pioneers in embracing the grey. My friend Robin Saul’s, she has created the tangled silver magazine. And today we’re talking about all the cool things that go in with embracing your grey. Enjoy the show. Are you dreaming of having the time and energy to create a life you love? Is your calendar full of events? And you’re thinking there’s no time for me? Do you look like you have it all together on the outside, but on the inside, you’re a hot mess. You’re frustrated and tired all the time. Suzie Cruz shines the light on successful women and a few men who have busted the exhaustion cycle by prioritizing herself, released any guilt and have found inner peace while creating a life they love filled with harmony. Join Susan’s candid conversations to learn how these successful women illuminated their inner life to create a radiant life. Welcome to the radiant soul sisters. I am so excited today listeners I have a friend of mine who has totally embraced the grey and is doing some amazing things around all of the women who are embracing grey. I have Robin Saul’s here with us today. And Robin is a fierce female futurist and entrepreneur whose passion is empowering women through a global network to make a social impact by writing and public speaking. She is the founder of the tangled silvered magazine, which I read my first issue last night and absolutely love it listeners. So you’re going to be sure you grab your copy to read that. Robin is a beautiful person inside and out. And I absolutely love her long silver hair. Robin welcome today.
Robin Salls
Thank you so much, Susan, what a nice introduction.
Susan Crews
Oh, you are welcome. You know, Robin, it was a pleasure to meet you in person two weeks ago and what was so wonderful listeners. You can’t see it. But Robin has these two dimples that are precious and her smile is so infectious. So I was glad to see you and hug your neck and get to know you a little better. But even more excited to have you here today.
Robin Salls
Thank you. It’s fun when you get to have those in person hugs. Right. I’m giving it up for all the talks we’ve talked which is really fun,
Susan Crews
right? We’re not having to look at the Hollywood Squares anymore is called?
Robin Salls
Yep, yep, I Yep, totally.
Susan Crews
Well, Robbie, one of the things that I love to do is I love to find out a little bit about the women that I’m talking with about their childhood. Can you tell us or share with us one of your favorite childhood memories?
Robin Salls
Oh, you bet. So my, my absolute favorite childhood memory is about? Gosh, I would say I was probably about six to maybe maybe seven or eight ish. But on Saturday mornings in upstate New York, we would go spend the day with my grandparents, and my grandmother who had this gorgeous white hair. So I’ve always been like drawn to white grey hair because of her. We would watch Saturday, horror matinees. So it was in upstate New York they’d be like the vampire director like all the original ones and my grandmother and I would park our little tissues in front of that TV and totally watch those horror movies. So everybody said why do you like horror movies? Well, because my grandmother I used to watch them even funny thing to watch with your grandmother but we totally were enjoy those horror movies. So I am horrible. Thanks to my money. Mommy is what I call her.
Susan Crews
Oh my goodness. Well, there’s one other story about your grandma that you have shared with me. You guys love those horror movies. And you know, I’ve told you I am not a horror movie person of any sorts. So I think that’s really cool that you did that with your grandma. But what is the one other thing that you used to love to do with our for your grandma? Oh yeah,
Robin Salls
it was the version of her hair we would just sit in front of during those many movies and I would be brushing her hair or curling in. She always was a little curlers as well. And so we just we played, we played with her hair all the time, I just really enjoyed her energy and her spirit and she loved just let me brush it and brush it, she’d just be in awe. So I love
Susan Crews
that story too. Because, you know, I, I think about that story after you shared it with me, you know, our grandmothers, for the most part, they didn’t really color their hair, right. So whenever their hair turned grey, that’s when they became grey or silver, or white. You know, there’s such a wide range of colors within the and I’m putting air quotes listeners the grey, but you know, I can imagine like my husband’s grandmother whose hair was to her waist, she her hair was white beauty, a beautiful white. And that’s, you know, how they left that it was really, I think our mom’s generation that started really coloring their hair throughout life. What’s your thought on that?
Robin Salls
Well, I think if you if you look at the 70s and 80s, especially in the 80s, all of a sudden, there was a commercial that was telling grey wasn’t doing a color that grey right out of your hair. But like I think that commercial really propelled, it feels like really in the 70s and 80s, suddenly, it became a bad thing to let your natural hair color come in, especially if it was white or grey. Right? Suddenly it kind of started being the men were allowed to be distinguished when they went grey. And they were considered sexy. But women were considered like they were letting themselves go or that they stopped caring about themselves if suddenly they stopped coloring. And I think that was really brought on by, you know, you have to do what you feel best about and what you feel beautiful with. Right? Right. But if you don’t want to color you shouldn’t feel like you have to color to be relevant. And that’s like, that’s my key thing. Like I I am not again, I’m not anti color. But I’m again, I’m anti anyone tell me I have to color to be relevant.
Susan Crews
And that is such a great point. You know, first off, I agree with you, when you talk about that commercial, I can all of a sudden hear it in my head and see the commercial where the woman is literally scrubbing her hair, you know. And I think that not only did our mothers buy into that, but as little girls or teenagers. We’re hearing that right. And it got ingrained or embedded into our subconscious right.
Robin Salls
100% I mean, the story is that we were spoon fed is like, Oh, I like to look because they’re not necessarily our stories. I love my love my grandmother’s white silver hair. I absolutely loved her hair. I worked in nursing homes, and was in all of the women in nursing homes. There was a little lady was there a 90s. Again, she had what they now know is dementia. But back then they didn’t know what to call the like she would brush her hair, 100 strokes every morning and just strips at night. She had this gorgeous grey hair. So I was never afraid of it in that sense. But yet the moment somebody said to me, and it was my stepfather at the time, we were doing a family picture and he was standing above me and he looked down and he said, Oh Robin, if you don’t follow this brace, you’re gonna look older than your mother. And I went what, like, all of a sudden. So I bought into that story of I’m going to be older than my mother and at 26 I certainly didn’t want to look older than my mother which wasn’t even true. But like it’s a stories that were spoon fed that sometimes get into that subconscious and you don’t even realize they’re there. Like you said, the color the commercial with the color grey. Like you’re spoon feeding us what the stories and they’re not necessarily our stories, but somehow we allow them to feel like they are.
Susan Crews
Absolutely and you know, I started turning grey at about 35 or 36 By the time I was 40 I was coloring my hair listeners. I’ll share my story in just a minute but I was coloring my hair and I continued to color my hair until actually just three or four months ago. But here’s the deal. So my dad had blond hair like white blond hair towhead kind of hair so when he started turning grey, you really couldn’t tell. My mom has jet black hair and my brother also has jet black hair. So at 39 years old, I am completely grey. And my mom doesn’t have a grey hair in her head right? And even to this day mom is 85 She has what I call salt and pepper and sprinklings of grey in her jet black hair. So I hear you Robin in agree and I think a lot of our listeners are the same way that they think oh my gosh, if I am in midlife and I’m completely grey. I’m gonna look way older than my mom.
Robin Salls
Well, I think I think we think that Oregon, it’s like we have friends and maybe like oh no, I mean you look younger when you keep when you when your color is like do look I mean, that was part of when I first decided to do and I told my inner circle of friends, I was doing it. The response was kind of funny. I love them all dearly, and they love me dearly. And they were supportive. But the responses were like, oh, Robin, I can’t do that with you. And I was like, Well, I wasn’t asking you to do it with me. I was telling you, I was just telling you, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t expect you to go along with me. I mean, if it’s if it’s not, you don’t do it. That’s right. Yeah, I think it’s that that little piece of our social society that somehow planted the seed in women, that going grey is related to old, which is a bad thing, which, again, for me, like what, there used to be a time where we looked at age as wisdom, right? And like culture, other cultures celebrate a gene. And yet, in the US, especially Asian has suddenly become this problematic thing for, I’m gonna say it the brands that want to keep us selling us things that they say are gonna keep us young. But there are others who can’t, we’re going to grow no matter what I mean, we’re going to age so let’s do it gracefully, and embrace it and celebrate it because, like, you know, there’s women now their 70s 80s 50s climbing mountains and fourteeners. Like, we’re not just sitting in rocking chairs, because suddenly we’re older and we have grey hair.
Susan Crews
Exactly, exactly. So Robin. And listeners, as I mentioned, I started embracing Monterey, three months ago, two months ago, I guess it was, and so I’ve got about a half an inch or an inch up on top that is showing. Yeah. And I’m, I’m really loving it. I’m loving the way it’s looking around my face. But here’s something that I find fascinating. Robin are 30 Somethings, absolutely love Ray. And even some of them are choosing to to, I guess you would say color or strip the color of their hair, whatever it’s called, I don’t know, to be that color. And I was sitting in the chair talking with my hairdresser. And there was a another young girl sitting there. She was 32. And I was telling him, I’m like, you know, I’m thinking I’m gonna go grey. And he’s like, Well, you know, you said you were gonna do it when you were 70. And I’m like, Yeah, but I’m really ready. When the young girl says, Oh, my gosh, it’s gonna look so good with your skin color. And it’s going to be so sexy. And I’m like, wow, when I was 30 Something I sure wouldn’t tell myself that.
Robin Salls
While we certainly weren’t telling other women that in our 30s Yeah, you know, I really got brave and 2018. I decided I I just I was ready. But my daughter was getting married. Nine months from then and 20 in September 2019. I thought, Oh, what if she doesn’t want me to have grey hair and her pictures? So I went to my daughter, I was like, Hey, honey, I’m thinking about letting my hair go grey but I can like talk to the wedding if you want and her response was I love girls my age are paying for it. Just do it, do it. And I was like, really sweet. But then that’s where the silly thing came on. I thought nine months I’d have a total ahead of silver hair. If you look at her wedding pictures, I do not have a total total silver head, you know, when we are when we’re coloring? It seems like it grows so fast, right? Because we have to keep going back and coloring which is part of reason why one and stop coloring because I was spending so much time in the salon. But then the minute you stop coloring your hair goes, whoa, okay, let’s slow this right down. Took a good two years, I really feel like I have like a good solid silver grey hair.
Susan Crews
Well in I think that’s a wonderful point. And it’s actually something that I read in the magazine last night. And also you and I had had a conversation so I’m prepared. But when you choose to stop coloring and embrace the grey, be prepared for your lesson in patience.
Robin Salls
She becomes your best friend. If you don’t have it, you’re gonna get
Susan Crews
it. Yes, you you had you had prepared me for that, like I said, and I read it. And it’s so true because I haven’t been I haven’t had any color put on my hair in like I said two months and I was going every four weeks. And it’s only about maybe three quarters of an inch grown out so I can see that this is going to be a long process. And just that a process ladies that I am choosing to embrace. I like Robin, I’m not against color. If that is you, girl, do it. Right. I am making this choice like you Robin. It took me an hour to drive to the salon. I was in the chair three hours and an hour to drive home. That’s five hours once a month simply on the hair. Right? You know, and I’m like, I really want that time. The money saving the money won’t be bad either. But I really want wanted the time, that’s what was important to me. And then, you know, I laugh you and I’ve had this story. I do a lot of natural, holistic things. And that’s how I coach women. And that’s how I live life. And I’m like, so why am I still choosing to color my hair? Yeah. Yeah, you know, you know. So Robin, you’re the expert in this area, if someone is contemplating embracing their grey or their silver, what would be your tip, your biggest suggestion?
Robin Salls
Oh, my biggest suggestion is to give yourself grace and a lot of it. Because it is in it’s just a color choice. So again, like if you get into it, and you’re doing it, and you really don’t like it, you can color again, it doesn’t hurt to try. But I will, I will say that the number one thing is to give yourself the time to see what’s going to look like because like for Susan, you’re, you know where you’re at right now you’re three quarter inches, it may be that color, but then in a year from now, it may not be so I tell everybody, if you’re going to jump in, really try to pitch yourself giving yourself at least a year if not to to really see what it’s going to look like because it will start off one way. And then we’ll end up totally different. When I started I was more salt and pepper for sure. And now I have more of a grey and silvery tones are and a lot of it also depends on what you’re wearing, too. I mean, different shades of colors are going to make yesterday I had my hair pulled back and what I was wearing, may may have very dark grey, and I was like, Oh, I don’t think I’m dark grey. But I’ve been with what I was doing yesterday. That’s what it looked like. And it was a cloudy day. So the lighting was also different, right. But I think it’s really a matter of when you decide that you’re ready to give it a try. Like, like, don’t do what I did the beginning which I thought nine months I was kind of the full head of head of grey hair. It doesn’t happen. It is a process. It’s kind of a reemergence of yourself. Right. Right. Like it’s kind of like you would go in as a caterpillar, you come out as this beautiful butterfly, when you are literally let your grey come in. You have to give yourself grace, you have to understand it’s going to take time, you can do it different ways. And when I say take time I’m talking about you’re doing it naturally, if you’re just doing it cold turkey, which is what I did, you know, because you can do blending, you can wear wigs to get through the transitions. I mean, there’s all sorts of ways to embrace going grey. But if you’re doing it naturally, and you’ve decided not to color at all, just understand that you gotta give yourself grace, because it’s going to be a journey for you. And if you have, you know, if you have shorter hair, of course, it’s not going to take nearly as long. I just hit the four year mark. And I feel like now I can honestly say I like I’m not completed because it’s a transition that I think never is completed when people say I’m I’ve completed my journey. I don’t think so. Because in 10 years from now, I expect that I will probably be more whites, or even more silvery, because I look at my grandmother and my mother who are in those places, right? So it’s going to be an ongoing journey. But just give yourself that grace and understand that it’s it’s not a race, right? It’s not a race,
Susan Crews
it can’t be a race. It cannot be erased, I can tell you that just from where I am in the very beginning part of the journey. And in listeners, I can tell you, I’m not 100% sure how I am doing this journey. It may be when it gets an inch or two out. I might do like Robin said, I might add a lot of highlights in there to make it look like a smoother transition or not necessarily like I have a bowl on my head. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like I am just taking it one month at a time. The other thing I did do was I cut three inches off of my hair when I started now am I going to cut it shorter? I doubt it. I would be very surprised if I did that. But I think what I hear Robin saying is there’s no right or wrong way to do this. And Robin did assure me she’s like Susan, if you get started in this journey, and you find out it’s not you, you simply make an appointment and go back and recolor
Robin Salls
and sell it. It’s not life ending, right? It’s just hair basically, although what I will tell tell you is that most women that Look at it go It’s just a color and not just my hair. Once they get in it, you start discovering so much about yourself and you start peeling back layers. That’s kind of I use the word immersion, right you reemerge in because all of a sudden, you’re coming back into your own you’re coming back into your own sparkle this because there’s so many things you discover about yourself that you either forgot, or that were maybe so damn buried beneath other people’s stories of what things were supposed to be that suddenly your degree discovering yourself. So it becomes way more than just a hair journey.
Susan Crews
I like that. I like that. I’m looking forward to it. You know well, but I have always had I’ve had a coat For years and years, I also have had psychologist, I’ve had mentors, lots of people that have helped me peel layers, some of it childhood crud that I carried over such as we’re going to look older than our mothers, or whatever. But anyway, so So Robin, tell the listeners a little bit about your magazine, tangled silver magazine, it’s a digital magazine, that is all about embracing the grey. And it’s not ladies here. This is not about being a midlife because there are women that are younger, like me, if I had embraced this, I would have embraced it in my late 30s. Right. So tell us a little bit about the magazine.
Robin Salls
Well, so let me clarify a little bit. So there is midlife in there because the majority of us are gay. So I don’t think you’re going to this magazine, obviously, you’re seeing menopause articles. You’re like, Well, wait a minute, I heard Susan and Robin say it wasn’t good. Like, there is midlife in there. Because that’s, that’s where the majority of us are, where we come to the point that we’re actually able to embrace it, the next generation is gonna have a way easier because they’re already like rocking grey and thinking we’re rocking. Yes. So the magazine was really started, you know, because I was at a place decided I was gonna go grey wanted to do it. But I’m very visual. And so you when you go to a salon, I was the girl, but I’d be looking at the book to decide what hair cut, I wanted to get that time, right. But when you’re going grey, there aren’t really any visuals like that. The visual is mostly about grey or we’re at the time, you know, hair pulled back and tight little bit or little old ladies, it wasn’t somebody that looks fabulous, right? Elegant, whatever. So I wasn’t finding what I was looking for. And I thought there had to be other women that were feeling the same way. And in 2018 there were not the amount of Instagram accounts that there are now for great inspiration right? There were some but not the amount there were no and I was just like, I’m just going to put this magazine together and give it a try and see what happens. I’m it was more of my love letter to the silver community than it was magazine in a sense, but I just knew that’s what I want to do. I needed the visuals, and I was hoping that it would help somebody else embrace themselves. And our key line is no embrace you because that’s the first step celebrate her because we should be celebrating other women, especially when they’re embracing it with us. And then let’s inspire the world look at grey differently. That’s really the mission behind the magazine. And the stories. You know, there’s everybody has a story, whether it’s health related, whether it’s just you just got tired, like, like I didn’t use it. We just got tired of coloring. There’s a story behind everything. And each and every one it’s I always like I like to compare like a quilt. You know, when you’re when you’re making a quilt, you’re making all these individual blocks. And they’re all beautiful blocks when you put them together and you have this amazing quilt. I feel like the silver community is that we all bring these intricate little stories that are our stories, nobody else’s story, but ours. And then we tie them all together, we’ve created this community, this tribe of women that are uplifting, and hopefully making it so that the next generation girls and granddaughters and great granddaughters all never feel the fear of going grey the way that most of us felt that are in midlife right now. So that was really kind of the inspiration for the magazine. And yes, we spotlight the younger women as well, because I think it’s important to show that those younger girls are not afraid of that. I mean, if I didn’t Brisbane at 26 Imagine all the money and time I would have saved over the years.
Susan Crews
We definitely would have saved a lot of money and a lot of time. But here’s what I say to that is when I started coloring my hair. And the years that I chose to color my hair served a purpose for me. Yes. And I have no regrets. I just knew for me, it was time to make this transition. And I think a lot of us choose to do this at very different times. Right. And that’s that that’s all good. One other thing that I have noticed Robin in you might can speak to this is even though there there are a lot of women embracing the the silver, the grey, the color range is vast.
Robin Salls
Yes, that’s why I tell everybody you know, don’t judge it based on your little bit of grow up you’re starting to get because it’s so true. If you see me, I still have some caramel strands. My natural commandment my natural like curly blonde strands are still inner smooths without him. But throughout throughout my strands from the roots. It’s not like it’s just at the end still. You can go through and you can actually pull and you can see where I’ve still got some of those primal strands coming down from the roots. Right so you know that you know, 50 Shades of Grey literally there’s 1000s of shades of grey because we all are different. And when a woman says Oh, I’d go grey up only my grey would look like yours. The first thing I said, well you don’t be glad it won’t look like mine. It’s gonna look just like you You would like it’s supposed to be I mean, Mother Nature is the best artists when it comes to this stuff. I mean, you let her let her have her way. And you’re gonna love it. And if you don’t again, color again, nothing has nobody stopping you. It’s just a matter of choice. And yes, you have to come to it when you’re ready. I wasn’t ready when I was 26. Obviously, I wasn’t ready until I was 51 did and I was suddenly like, Okay, now now it’s time.
Susan Crews
Exactly, exactly. Well, I do. And it also brings me back to what the young woman said to me. She’s like, Oh, it’s gonna look so good with your skin tone. Right? She had no clue what color my hair is. I don’t have a clue what color but but she was like, oh, it’s gonna look so good. Oh, my goodness. Robin, thank you so much for your time today and this wonderful discussion. And maybe we’ve inspired someone else to decide or to think about. Maybe it’s time for her to embrace herself. And she certainly can check out your magazine. And listeners, if this has you thinking about something that you want to change or how to create a life that you love. Be sure and go to my website, Susan cruise co.com. And check it out. Or follow me on socials at Susan cruise comm. Robin, before we leave, what would be one tip or one suggestion of, you know, how you might want to leave our listeners with today. Just one tip you’d like to share? How to live a better life, how to create a life you’d love how to go grey. You know, I
Robin Salls
think the biggest thing I want to share is I think that we all have to remember that kindness and love are the biggest things in the world for us. All right. Yeah. And that we need to share more of that. And we need to uplift women, regardless of if they’re going grey. Regardless of how old they are. The best thing you can do is smile at a woman when you walk by or right. I mean, there’s just there’s a magical piece for uplifting and you never know what somebody’s going through. And I find like I go up to women and yes, they tend to be silver because that’s what I do for a living now, right? And I’m all about my silver like, but it’s amazing. I walk up to them, I go you have the most beautiful silver hair, and they’ll be like,
Robin Salls
Oh my gosh, nobody’s ever told me that. Oh, my God. And they look at me like,
Robin Salls
Am I crazy? I’m like, I just have to tell you that and they’ll walk away. I’m not handing my business cards. I’m just telling them how beautiful they look. And I think that that if we as women make more of a point to uplift other women with that love and kindness. I think that’s what we need more.
Susan Crews
I love that. I love that the greatest four letter word of all, love, love, love, love yourself. Love others. And ladies, let’s join Robin and lifting one another up because truly, when you lift someone else up, we all rise together. Amen. Robin, thank you again. I am grateful for your time, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
Robin Salls
Thanks, Susan. Thanks so much. Yes,
Susan Crews
that was a fun episode of the radiant soul sisters. Thank you for choosing to tune in. Be sure to join me next week when I shine the light on another beautiful woman. Till then I’m Susan cruise, your host and be sure to check out my website at Susan cruise co.com where you will find all the podcast episodes and resources for our community.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
