My 57-Year-Old Mom Embraces Her Gray Hair—According to Experts, These Are the Elegant Outfit Colors That Complement Her Natural Color
One of my greatest compliments is being told I look like my mother. I'm grateful to carry her grace and beauty with me wherever I go and grateful to be able to call her my friend—my best friend, to be exact. Catherine Mary is a woman of great intelligence and humor. After one brief conversation with the Brooklyn native, you'll see she has a tight five-minute set that's witty enough to land her on late-night television. Just say when and where, Jimmy Kimmel.
I'm entering adulthood and experiencing life post-grad, and like any appreciative daughter, I'm beginning to see my mother with new eyes, not with the eyes of the young girl she raised but with the eyes of the woman I am becoming. I'm witness to her strength, her wisdom, her age. My mother has always been one to embrace her natural beauty (my unwavering self-love is a product of that), but in today's media landscape, where profits are made on insecurities, I'm so thankful to have her as my role model.
"I don't dye my hair or look to run away from aging," my mother told me. Her refusal to dye her graying hair has resulted in a stunning silver sheen. "I remember the grays first appeared as face-framing silver strands when I was in my mid-30s. At that time, I sported a Vidal Sassoon–inspired bob. It was fitting, but as the years passed, the black/almost-blue hair I had become so familiar with since childhood had turned salt-and-pepper," she said. "Now, at 57, I've grown my hair past my shoulders, cut some bangs, embraced the silver, and have never looked back." My mother isn't the only woman north of 50 to welcome their gray hair. Fashion stylist Roz Kaur has seen just as much across her client base: "Over the past several years, there has been a noticeable shift. Many women feel that allowing their natural color to come through feels authentic and liberating. Gray hair is no longer something to hide. In many cases, it becomes a beautiful and distinctive part of a woman's identity."
Beauty creators, too, have their own unique journeys to acceptance. Who What Wear editor in residence Tennille Jenkins shared, "I'm so thankful that I had that heart-to-heart with myself and really embraced it because I love my hair color." Even the runways have taken notice. Model Stephanie Cavalli opened the Chanel S/S 26 haute couture show, and her curly, silver-speckled hair sparked Vogue headlines. Sidenote: Perhaps it's Matthieu Blazy's willingness to cast models with visible markers of a life well-lived that is invigorating the Chanel clientele to fly to Paris to get their hands on the designer's debut collection.
Anytime we are out, a compliment on my mother's hair is a given. "Despite the love from kind strangers and the hype girl that is my daughter, Josephine, I sometimes feel that my wardrobe is limited by my gray hair. I feel as though I can't wear color," she explained. Her closet resembles what I imagine Morticia Addams's wardrobe to look like: dark, colorless, and gray. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a chic, monochromatic black outfit, but a pop of color here and there can't hurt. It isn't just me who thinks so. "I want to wear color. I just don't know where to start," my mom told me. That's my cue.
What are the best colors to wear with gray hair?
I'm my mother's personal stylist, and I'm on call 24/7. For years, I've pestered her to broaden her color palette beyond black, so when she casually mentioned over the phone that she wanted to experiment with color, I was anything but nonchalant. I reached out to fashion stylists, beauty experts, and gray-hair specialists, and I even scheduled a color analysis with Seklab—all in hopes of finding out what the best colors are to wear with gray hair.
"When consulting with clients about a gray-hair transformation, wardrobe color often becomes part of the conversation," celebrity hair colorist Jack Martin confirmed. "Many clients initially express concerns about fashion and makeup after going gray. A common hesitation is the fear that gray hair might make them look washed-out or older, so they believe they should stick to safe colors like black." This put my mother's nerves at ease, especially when I relayed Kaur's definitive answer. "I don't believe gray hair limits what colors someone can wear at all. As a stylist, I look at the whole person—their skin tone, contrast, personality, and lifestyle—not just their hair color," Kaur clarified.
Whether you're looking to embrace your natural gray hair or welcome more color into your wardrobe, keep scrolling to see which color pairings our experts recommend starting with. But first, come with my mother and I to a color-analysis consultation at Seklab to discover her best color palette. Spoiler: The results were nothing we could have predicted.
The Seklab Color System
Seklab is a personal color–analysis studio based in the heart of midtown Manhattan. I was first introduced to it by our lovely beauty editor Jamie Schneider. By appointment only, the one-on-one consultation leaves you with a breakdown of the best clothing, hair, makeup, and nail shades for you, taking into consideration your skin tone (undertones are a key component), hair color, eye color, and more.
On the day of the consultation, my mother was excited, to say the least. Thanks to the abundance of color-analysis TikTok videos we'd sent each other in advance, we had a hypothesis for her potential color palette. Let's just say we should leave it to the experts.
We met with Lizzie Heo, the cofounder of Seklab. Right away, Heo prepped us on her color system: "I compare undertone, hue, value, and saturation to find your best colors." Undertone is a familiar term in makeup. Think cool, warm, and neutral.
"Hue is just another name for color," Heo shared. "And then value will be the lightness versus darkness." Those who look best in light colors will look fresh and clean, but if someone who favors dark values wears light colors, they will look undefined. "Saturation will be the intensity of the colors," Heo added.
Heo is excellent at educating on the color-analysis system, using graphs and charts to visualize color changes. After assessing these aspects, Heo moves into determining the color palette. You may be familiar with the four seasons used to differentiate them: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Then, of course, each season is broken down into subseasons: soft, warm, and deep.
My Mother's New Color Palette
My mother sat in front of the mirror as Heo draped color swatch after color swatch, going from pastel pink to peachy coral. The effect was instant. "Your cheeks look so pretty!" I said. Soft rose and rich terra-cotta gave her the look of having just applied blush. "Looking at cool color versus warm color, warm color was better," Heo determined. It turned out that my mother is a warm autumn. This is directly at odds with what we had predicted, a cool-toned winter.
She favors warm, medium-saturation colors like autumn leaves, burnt orange, rich olive, mustard yellow, and peachy coral as well as milk, cream, and ivory for basics. When we asked Heo about the role gray hair plays in a color analysis, she confirmed for my mother that gray hair alone is no deterrent to wearing color. This was the encouragement she needed to introduce color into her wardrobe.
Let's Go Shopping!
In any good makeover montage, the shopping spree is my favorite part. For my mother, that's not the case, especially when she has to model. To make the shopping experience as comfortable as possible, we went to one of our most trusted stores: Nordstrom. While browsing the racks with her new color palette in mind, we pulled chic, colorful picks. Think poplin skirts, wool-blend sweaters, dark-rinse jeans, and so much more. It's safe to say I was proud of my mother for trying something new; it's not easy to welcome change. Her willingness to explore new colors made our Nordstrom trip a success. With a new color palette, my mother no longer feels limited in the colors she can wear, and thankfully, her closet is no longer devoid of color. Scroll on to see what she added to her wardrobe.
Blush Pink + Peachy Coral
"I would not have reached for anything in this color, but I'm so glad we did this because the addition of this pink makes me feel more energetic," my mother told me.
Cerulean Blue
If only you were there to see the smile my mother had when she threw this blue sweater on. "I love the way this makes me look and feel," she said.
Olive + Mauve
This was the only outfit out of the bunch that did not come home with us. Though olive, mauve, and ivory are found in the warm autumn palette, this arrangement of colors did not have the same effect on my mother as the cerulean sweater or the blush-pink top did.
Blood Orange
We were both pleasantly surprised by this blood-orange short-sleeve sweater. I convinced her to throw a navy cardigan over her shoulders to balance out the dark-rinse denim. It seems I was successful; this look has found a home in her spring outfit rotation.
Makeup + Nails
Heo suggested peachy tones for blush and a darker lip. That's exactly what I've had my mother try out.
Here's What Experts Say
A color analysis is particular to the individual. If my mother's positive experience interests you and you would like to schedule a consultation of your own, she highly recommends it.
When I asked my mother what she took away from the experience, she told me, "I thought my gray hair made me a winter, but discovering I'm a warm autumn changed everything. It reminded me that our best colors come from our skin tone, not our hair, reminding me of my truest, most lasting self. Now, I'm excited to rediscover colors I thought I'd lost—just in time for spring, even though I'm an autumn!"
For those of you interested in an at-home makeover, I asked experts which colors are best to wear with gray hair. Read on to see their recommendations, but do keep in mind that gray hair should not be, nor is it, a determining factor in what color someone can wear. Kaur worded it the best: "Gray hair doesn't limit your style—it often elevates it."
"For someone looking to embrace their natural color or refresh their wardrobe, my advice is to focus less on rules and more on what makes them feel vibrant and alive. Gray hair often has a beautiful luminosity, so wearing colors that bring brightness to the face can be very flattering. A fresh lipstick, a great pair of glasses, or a beautifully tailored jacket can also transform the overall look," said Kaur.
The fashion stylist even told me which colors she would recommend to clients with gray hair. "Some colors that complement gray hair especially well include jewel tones like emerald, sapphire, and ruby as well as rich neutrals such as camel, cream, and navy," she said. "Even vibrant shades like fuchsia or cobalt can look incredibly chic against silver hair."
Jewel Tones
Martin explained, "Black remains a classic choice, but it does not have to be worn alone. I often suggest pairing black with other colors to create dimension and softness around the face. For example, layering black with burgundy, silver, or soft pink can look incredibly elegant with gray or silver hair. Combining these tones keeps the look modern and balanced rather than flat."
Similar to Kaur, Martin suggests pairing gray hair with jewel tones. "I often recommend jewel tones such as emerald green, sapphire blue, burgundy, and plum because they create a striking contrast with silver hair," he said. "Cooler shades like icy blue, lavender, and soft pink also complement the natural tones of gray hair very well. Crisp neutrals such as white, charcoal, and navy can create a very elegant and timeless look."
Icy Blue + Pastel Pink
Jenkins spoke with me about her emotional journey toward accepting both her natural curly texture and her gray hair. Like me, she grew up with a gray-haired role model in her family: "My paternal grandmother, she had white hair, and I just thought she was the cutest, most radiant woman." Jenkins said she was 23 when she noticed her first white hair. Though she wasn't "100% comfortable with it in those early years," she shared that "accepting [her] white hair wasn't as challenging as finding [her] natural hair texture beautiful." Jenkins decided to focus on healthy hair and embrace the natural transition. "I'm so thankful that I had that heart-to-heart with myself and really embraced it because I love my hair color," she said.
"When I'm considering clothing colors or even when it comes to makeup, like what colors are going to flatter, it's always about my skin tone and not my hair color," Jenkins continued. "I like wearing white, not because of my hair. I just think white is super beautiful against my skin tone."
Stark White
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