Debating whether to ditch the dye?
From Dame Helen Mirren to Andie MacDowell, plenty of celebrities are proving that gray hair is gorgeous, opting to celebrate their silver strands instead of covering them up.
Below, a few of our favorite salt-and-pepper stars who are aging like fine wine — and embracing their natural beauty.
Jennifer Aniston
The “Friends” favorite made “The Rachel” a sensation in the ’90s, and she’s been known for her luscious locks ever since — even launching her own haircare brand, LolaVie, to capitalize on the public’s obsession with her tresses.
While plugging her line in a June 2023 Instagram Reel, Aniston showed off a hint of silver at her hairline, to much fanfare.
“Well done for allowing grey to come through – refreshing,” one person commented on her post, while another wrote, “So nice to see. And she’s obviously still gorgeous.
George Clooney
Silver fox Clooney started going gray during his “ER” days — and rather than hiding it with dye, he leaned into his new hair hue.
“You have to come to terms with getting older and not trying to fight it,” the Oscar winner told the BBC’s Radio 4 in 2015.
“I’m a big believer in the idea that you can’t try to look younger. You just have to try to look the best you can at the age you are and not worry about it.”
Christie Brinkley
While the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit fixture is famous for her sunny blond locks, she periodically plays around with a salt-and-pepper look.
“The second you see gray hair it raises the question , just like when you cut bangs ..to keep or not to keep?” Brinkley captioned a March 2023 Instagram post showing off her silver roots.
“Thank goodness both are just a personal preference or a fun change of pace. My son thinks it looks cool,” she added.
Salma Hayek
This brunette beauty’s not afraid to embrace the gray.
“Me waking up and counting how many white hairs and wrinkles have crashed the party this morning,” Hayek captioned a candid June 2023 Instagram selfie.
“Thank you for sharing! It helps all of to see that even the most beautiful and famous also age,” one fan commented; “Natural beauty is ageless,” another wrote.
Tia Mowry
In a 2022 InStyle essay, the “Sister, Sister” star recalled once being reprimanded on a film set for not covering her grays — and standing her ground.
“There are so many people on a daily basis that are not making it to the age where their hair starts to gray. And so when I see my gray hair, it actually is a blessing because it means that, yes, I’m getting older and I’m still here,” Mowry wrote.
“For me, beauty is confidence, beauty is feeling good about yourself, beauty is embracing all of your flaws, and beauty is aging.”
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Kristen McMenamy
While the ’80s and ’90s supermodel has been both a redhead and a brunette, she found fresh fame in the mid-2000s, when she decided to stop dyeing her hair and let it go fully gray.
“The reason I went gray was that I didn’t think I’d ever work again, and I wanted to make my life simple. I didn’t want to keep running back to the salon to get my roots done,” McMenamy — who’s covered magazines, strutted runways and posed for campaigns with her long silver strands front and center — told British Vogue in 2021.
“I didn’t expect it to look great, it was an accident. But now I want to help people realize you can be over 50 and still be cool. You don’t have to conform, you don’t have to cut your hair. You’re still yourself.”
Andie MacDowell
After embracing her gray hair during lockdown, the “Four Weddings and a Funeral” actress stole the spotlight with her silver curls at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival — despite apparent pushback from her management team.
“I somehow feel like I look younger because it looks more natural. It’s not like I’m trying to hide something,” she told Vogue of her decision to go gray.
“I think that it’s a power move, and that’s what I kept telling my managers. It’s exactly what I need to be doing right here.”
Jane Fonda
The “Barbarella” beauty turned heads at the 2020 Academy Awards with her fresh silver pixie cut, the work of star colorist Jack Martin.
“She wanted to have a total new look for the Oscars, and at the same time embrace her natural color,” Martin told Page Six Style at the time. “Before she came to me, two or three other colorists had tried and couldn’t get the color right.”
Fonda’s transformation took seven hours to complete — and the star seemed thrilled with the results.
“I tell you, I’m so happy I let it go gray,” Fonda told Ellen DeGeneres in 2021. “Enough already with so much time wasted, so much money spent, so many chemicals — I’m through with that.”
Sharon Osbourne
Martin was also the mastermind behind Osbourne’s gray makeover in 2020.
“I was just so fed up of going and having it dyed and having it dyed, and I just was like, I can’t do this anymore,” the TV personality explained on “The Talk” at the time.
“She had been coloring her hair every week for the past 18 years, and when she came in, I could tell how tired she was from that commitment,” Martin told Page Six Style shortly after Osbourne debuted her new ‘do.
“Imagine how many layers of color I had to go through in order to get her to white while still keeping her hair healthy.”
Jamie Lee Curtis
The “Halloween” icon is proud of her gray pixie cut, which she’s had for around two decades.
“I tried to do everything you can do to your hair. Personally, I felt it humiliating. I would go into a hair salon, the smell of the chemicals, the feeling of that color on my hair, the wearing the things, sitting under the hair dryer, I was like, ‘For what?’” Curtis said during a 2021 interview on ITV’s “Lorraine.”
Added the actress, “I have been an advocate for natural beauty for a long time, mostly because I’ve had the trial and error of the other part.”
Sarah Jessica Parker
While the “Sex and the City” star has yet to go fully gray, she’s a fan of “herringbone highlights,” a coloring technique that weaves in silver strands to make them less noticeable without covering them completely.
“I can’t spend time getting base color every two weeks. Can’t do it. Nope. Too much,” Parker told Allure in 2022, recalling how a set of viral paparazzi photos the previous year led to “months and months of conversation about how brave I am for having gray hair.”
Since starting production on “SATC” revival “And Just Like That,” SJP has repeatedly hit back at ageist comments aimed at her and her co-stars’ appearances.
“I know what I look like. I have no choice,” she told Vogue in 2021. “What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?”
Diane Keaton
Keaton first went fully gray at the 2014 Golden Globes, and it’s hard to envision the “Something’s Gotta Give” star with a different look these days.
“It’s better to have light around your face — I think it looks better on older people,” the actress told People in 2017 of her flattering silver hue. “Darker hair is not as softening.”
Helen Mirren
Nobody has more fun with their silver hair than Dame Mirren, who’s played around with temporary blue and pink tints on the red carpet.
“I did it because I’m lazy. Honestly, I’m so lazy about my hair!” Mirren told People in 2020 of her decision to go gray “It’s a lot of work and as wonderful as many hairdressers are, I don’t want to sit in a salon for hours. I just can’t be bothered with that.”
Added the Oscar winner, “I think women were just so terrified of having white or gray hair because it immediately put them into a different category. And of course, you are in that age group. I’m sorry, but you are! So, why not just embrace it, go a long with it and welcome it? Make it a positive thing as opposed to a negative thing.”
Andy Cohen
Like his BFF Anderson Cooper, the Bravo king has sported a salt-and-pepper ‘do for years.
“I’m not saying the ‘Housewives’ turned my hair entirely gray, but they did,” Cohen quipped on Instagram in 2021.
Tan France
It’s tough to imagine the “Queer Eye” fashion expert without his signature silver coif.
“I do feel like I’ve carved out a little niche for myself where I’m brown, I very much embrace my hair, and even how I’m going gray early, which is very typical for South Asian men,” France told Refinery29 in 2018.
“I embrace all of these things and I hope it empowers other kids who aren’t Caucasian to feel like they should be empowered to be who they are.”
