Welcome to the #whitehairdontcare newsletter!

Welcome to the #whitehairdontcare newsletter! I’m so glad you’re here!

Before I get into what you can expect from this newsletter, let me first give you the origin story because everything gets better when you understand the “why” behind the “what”, right?

Since March of 2022, I’ve been growing out my white hair & it's been a pretty positive experience for me. I have become happier in my hair (& skin), more confident in my being, & more hopeful about life in general. This has partly been helped along by me receiving loads of compliments on my effort and/or hair, from acquaintances & complete strangers. Then I started wondering, "Wow, if this has been a great experience for ME so far, surely it could be for other women as well?"

I was also curious to see how the younger generation felt about aging, given they are growing up in an incredibly accessible era, where folks can change their entire appearance with manageable effort. So I decided to meet them where they were for the most candid conversations, & that led me to TikTok. I hosted a 100-day focus group of sorts on TikTok, to see firsthand how the younger generation, & just folks in general, perceived aging. More specifically, I wanted to see what the reactions would be to seeing a woman with aging hair. So I decided to post images & videos of myself speaking about aging hair while showcasing my own salt & pepper goodness, once a day for 100 days straight.

Key Stats From My 100-Day Project on TikTok:

• Garnered 1.2M video views in total

• Received 7K+ comments across all of my posts

• Gained 5.2K followers

• Averaged a 5.3% engagement rate ("good" is considered to be 4% - 18%)

• Was asked to do an influencer collab with a shopping app brand

It was a pretty fantastic journey (I have now experienced going viral on TikTok!) & I learned quite a lot about people's thoughts on aging & women with aging hair (or aging anything). I enjoyed hearing other women's positive experiences with their aging hair. In these (very few) cases, it was almost always because they had seen examples of healthy/happy aging around them, with stories about how they grew up seeing their mother embracing her white hair, or older sisters who had stopped coloring their hair.

Stories like these made me want to spread this message far & wide; that in this day & age where we have the most power when it comes to the choices we make for ourselves, why not choose differently? Why not choose to accept our natural aging process vs. trying to hide it? Aside from the personal benefits that I believe a woman can get from unburdening herself from worrying about the color of her roots, our younger generation would benefit from seeing older people accepting & celebrating the aging process.

This desire is what led me to my next project, the #whitehairdontcare microdocumentary, an award-winning film that looks into how a very personal decision a woman makes to accept her own aging process can cause ripples in the world around her, pressuring her to follow a set of societal standards that don’t really benefit her. It’s a small glimpse into the unfortunate reality of so many women who don't want to fit the mold society has made based on physically and mentally unhealthy beauty standards.

This was an idea that had passed through my mind a few months after I had started my TikTok focus group, around the time that I was pitching this work for a TEDx event in Washington DC. I thought it silly at the time because I knew nothing about filmmaking and it seemed like a really far-fetched idea so I dismissed it as quickly as it had appeared. It was only after I wasn’t selected to be a speaker at the TEDx event (I made it as a runner-up!) that I started to seriously entertain the thought of making the documentary using the learnings from my TikTok work.

It took me a few months to learn my way around film-making things like which camera to use, how to use the million features in said camera, perfecting audio & video editing, and then finally making the film without spending too much time or money on the process. As an incentive (and setting a necessary goal post) I’d given myself a deadline for completion based on the application deadline for the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). I figured it was the logical next step after making the film - submit to as many film festivals as I could, though I had very low expectations of actually getting selected by any.

Fast forward to today - my film has been screened in 2 theaters, won 3 awards, selected by 8 film festivals, and waiting to hear back from 14 others!! This is the clearest signal I’ve ever received that I’m definitely onto something 😂😂 

Which brings me to this newsletter. The number of conversations that have been started by my pro-aging work on TikTok, and the #whitehairdontcare documentary has inspired me to create a space where I can continue sharing my perspective on this topic while also inviting you and others to share yours as well. My intention is to create a community where we can help each other feel a little more comfortable about this inevitable part of life that nonetheless, sometimes makes us fearful of actually living life.

With that said, you can expect to see my words come across your inbox on Wednesdays, every week. It would be awesome if you read what I have to say, and share your thoughts with me as well 🙏🏽