Let's Talk About Victoria Rowell Owning Her Gray Hair...And Owning It Well

Private Screening Of UMC's "The Rich And The Ruthless"

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The second I see a gray hair peek out of my hairline or my crown, I cringe. Damn, am I getting that old? My instinct is to cover it up with a headband until I can grab a new box of hair color, but with that recent study suggesting that permanent hair dye increases Black women’s risk for breast cancer, the thought of covering my grays now makes me feel uneasy. But in the era of Black don’t crack with women such as Halle Berry and Angela Bassett out there looking their best and youngest in their 50s, there’s a serious pressure to keep up. Not age. Be young forever. Quite honestly, it’s exhausting. But over the weekend, I ran across a video of Victoria Rowell promoting her BET holiday film, Christmas Chaos, and I was taken aback, but not in a negative way. What hit me was seeing Victoria so vibrant and glowing with an entire head of long gray braids. The actress, widely-known for playing Druscilla on The Young & The Restless, looked fantastic, and not just for 60, but in general. Most importantly, she wasn’t covering up her aging hair, she was embracing it for the world to see.

I remember when Victoria looked like this:

And this just a decade ago:

But to see her now was inspiring and has definitely made me rethink my own issues with aging, especially around my hair. It also got me thinking that if we can lust over older men for giving us graying Zaddy vibes, why can’t we, in turn, celebrate older women? And not for having the abs of a 30-year-old at 50 or skin as smooth as supple as a 25-year-old, but to uplift women who aren’t fighting the aging process, but are embracing it and embracing it well? The answer is that we can. Or at least I can. So I am going to do just that by shouting out all the times Victoria Rowell’s glorious gray hair gave us life and serious aging goals: