Editor’s Note: Anne Kreamer began life as a blonde. As an adult, she did what a lot of us do: colored her hair as close to the original color as possible for awhile, switched colors for fun occasionally and fretted as hiding the gray got harder. Unlike a lot of us, though, Anne decided she had enough. At age 48, she let her hair go gray. And she’s kept it that way ever since. In 2007, Anne’s book Going Gray was published to great acclaim. Two years later, wowOwow decided to check in and see how her life’s gone since she made the change.

wowOwow: Since the book came out, have you settled in to having gray hair? 

ANNE KREAMER: It’s only gotten better. I had my hair cut yesterday for the first time in six months, and when one of the colorists saw me, he said, "Oh, my God. Your hair is so amazingly fabulous — I couldn’t make that color if I wanted to. Whatever you do, never, ever dye that hair."  And what’s bizarre is that it happens all the time.

wOw: But you have the best kind of hair for going gray: straight and thick. You look like someone in a Ralph Lauren ad. What would you say to people who can’t pull it off as well as you — whose hair looks like a steel-wool pad when it’s gray?

ANNE: It’s a fallacy to say that people can’t look good with their natural color. What may be required is a different style or a different cut or new hair products. I see incredible women with gray, wavy hair, or dark-skinned women with different shades of gray, and I think they all look terrific.

wOw: What would you have done if you had decided to go gray and you really didn’t like the look of it? 

ANNE: You know, I probably would have dyed it again. But what do people have to lose by trying?  If they don’t like it, they can always go back to dyeing. The only caution I would give is that it takes a long time for hair to grow out.

wOw: Do you think gray hair makes people look older?

ANNE: When I surveyed people for the book, I found that, in the abstract, they thought gray hair looks older. But when I showed them pictures of people whose hair had been photoshopped gray, and asked them how old the subjects were, they accurately guessed their biological age. In pictures of me with gray hair, they guessed that I was 48; with dyed hair, they guessed that I was 46.

Click here for wOw’s Favorite Gray Haired Beauties Part I and Part II.

wOw: So we’re not fooling anyone.

ANNE: You know, if I dyed my hair today, no one would look at me today and say, "My goodness, look at that attractive 20-year-old." One reason people dye their hair is that when they look in the mirror they feel they aren’t seeing their authentic selves. And what they mean by "authentic self" is that period in life where they thought they looked their best. So they try to recreate that moment through hair color. Then they look in the mirror and think, "OK, I’m still kind of that 16-year-old girl."

wOw: Do you think it’s a moral failing when people do that?

ANNE: Not at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But it might be helpful for people to know they don’t have to. No one pays attention to anyone else! We have far more latitude to be comfortably what we want to be than we think we do. We should all be more tolerant about aging, no matter what choices people make.

wOw: Tell us about your Match.com experiment.