Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Samuel Ullman
The beauty spoken of here in these pages is your own. It is the natural beauty of self-discovery and diversity, your unique expression of genetics, culture, and style.
Beauty customs (common practices being hair and skin care and makeup) have continued to evolve in all cultures for thousands of years. They often began as holistic practices that benefited the health of the individual as well as the environment. Over time, health was separated more and more from beauty, until society began to view beauty issues through a medical lens that turned them into problems that need to be “fixed.” I believe our society’s story has reached a point where we’re ready to embrace another beauty, what I call wellness beauty.
Some will automatically assume wellness beauty is synonymous with diet and supplementation, and while these tools can be helpful, if we view them as a panacea, we lose sight of the body’s miraculous and innate ability to function without our worrying about it. I use the term wellness beauty to indicate an integrated approach of mind, body, and spirit that recognizes that each aspect of the self needs its particular nourishment, food, or “supplementation” — whether it’s sunshine, movement, or meditation.
The pure herbal colorants described in this book are plants that have been used for centuries for healing, and some have been used just as long for color. Coming from the earth, they grow in various geographies and climates. The very elements of air, earth, and water, along with the light of the sun, moon, and stars, all combine to create the conditions that impact these plants’ ability to not only heal but also serve cosmetic purposes. In this way, herbal colorants connect us more deeply with the earth and our universe and can be a part of a wellness beauty lifestyle.
As we embrace wellness beauty, so too may we embody conscious aging, known also as “sage-ing.” Sage-ing is a part of a broader movement that, according to Sage-ing International (sage-ing.org), “offers a vision of aging as a time of life characterized not by diminishment and decline, but by growth, contribution, and fulfillment.” The organization strives to “change the paradigm in our culture from age-ing to sage-ing.” We grow older and sage rather than decline and age.
Regardless of our current age, we all grow older from the time we are born, so this is not a message just for those older than 50, but an ongoing conversation for people at every stage or “season” of life. Everything experiences seasons. There are general planetary seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter as well as perpetual shifts from drought to flood to bountiful harvest within those cycles. We experience seasons as we progress from infant to elder, and we each have personal seasons within these when we are insecure/confident, unemployed/productive, depressed/shining. These fluctuating influences touch all aspects of our lives — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and change the way we view beauty, as our self-expressive and self-care intentions change.
It is important to be mindful of the temporal nature of our bodies at every stage or season, while also being exhilarated that vibrant longevity is on the rise: there are a thousand people over 100 years old in the United States alone! We witness the many forerunners of this emerging trend, such as 96-year-old vegetarian yoga teacher Tao Porchon-Lynch, who teaches every morning at 5 o’clock and shows no signs of slowing down. Or 100-year-old Australian choreographer Eileen Kramer, who told the Sydney Morning Herald that “everything happens at 100, everything changes.” Her dancing continues as she’s entered triple digits, a period she describes as “magical.” These people live what biologist Bruce Lipton called the “biology of belief,” which, as Dr. Christiane Northrup affirms in her 2015 book Goddesses Never Age, “trumps DNA.” Northrup states that growing older is inevitable, though aging is optional, a result of “cultural portals,” beliefs, and lifestyle choices.
Imagine if, at a young age, we knew to expect that life naturally changes and is fluid. Might we affirm and embrace our own personal life seasons more easily? Might we not be less susceptible to the next marketing campaign that tries to convince us we need to buy a new product or exotic superfood to be healthy? Might we perhaps instead be empowered to live our own authentic beauty and values, embracing tools that allow us to expand rather than those that limit us?
Many cultures accept growing older as normal, rather than seeing it as bad or harmful. In our Western culture, growing older is pathologized. We assume that we all inevitably decline, so we put in place systems to ensure that money is directed to the medical industry for curing our ills, rather than toward the wellness and beauty industry for health maintenance and pleasure healing. For me, there are many factors to sage-ing vibrantly. Aside from hair coloring, there is bodywork, movement, meditation, and daring playfulness — which is at the top of the list!
There is a season in some people’s lives when coloring hair can make a difference in appearance and self-esteem; and then, for some, though not all, there seems to come a time when coloring their hair no longer provides the same result. For those who will benefit more from restoring the vibrancy of their complexion and overall vitality, regular facials are more appropriate than hair color treatments, if their budget allows for one service a month. Authentic self-observation can determine what is right for our distinctive beauty image and our personal values.
Natural wellness beauty is a journey in self-discovery. We explore to discover what it looks like for each of us, as unique individuals, to stay vibrant and sensual throughout our lives. I offer the information here as a possible lifestyle model — a viable alternative practice for coloring hair, with herbal hues.