Covering Up Your Gray

"Young, right?"
"Oh, totally. It's bitchin'."

Harry: Well, it says here that this is guaranteed to restore your natural luster. Oh, Dick, you're getting your luster back.
Dick: That's wonderful. How much longer?
Sally: Oh, two minutes.
[two minutes later]
Dick: I'm done. How do I look? [removes the cap, showing his dyed-black hair]
Sally: Um, Dick, um... Okay, if somebody were helping you with an experiment and things went awry and you became horribly disfigured, you wouldn't hold it against them, now would you?

— 3rd Rock from the Sun, "Dick's First Birthday"

For many people, graying hair is one of the first signs of advanced age. While some people embrace it and some just tolerate it, some see it as a bitter reminder that they're not as young as they used to be, and so they will turn to dyes, tints, or similar substances to keep their hair looking the way it used to, or at least they'll try to. Along with the hair on their heads, men may also use dyes to cover up gray in their facial hair. Whatever the case, the results, depending on what's used and how well it's used, will definitely vary. Much like toupees and combovers, few things say "I'm trying not to show my age" like obviously-dyed hair, and the worst results can potentially reach Cosmetic Catastrophe levels of artificiality.

A Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis is a prime time for a character to try to dye their gray hair, as they attempt to work through their issues with hitting middle age. Similarly, a character who is going prematurely gray or even just getting their First Gray Hair may overreact and go straight to dyeing to hide this.

Super-Trope to Elderly Blue-Haired Lady, which attempts the same thing but doesn't work out right.

Contrast Silver Fox, when a character embraces their graying or silver hair and it's used as a sign of attractiveness.

See also Dye Hard (people who routinely dye their hair all kinds of colors) and My Hair Came Out Green (spectacularly failed attempts at hair dyeing).

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Examples:

Films — Live-Action

• Father Of The Bride Part II: George learning that he's going to be a grandfather rattles him badly, and one of the things he tries to do to recapture his youth is to have his hair dyed brown to, as he requests to the hairdresser, "look young". He's pleased with the results, and the hairdresser, who's very clearly aware of what's going on, humors him by calling it "bitchin'".^note This scene is made even more funny/absurd by the fact that Steve Martin has had grey hair since his early 30s and the entirety of his film career, making it an key part of his image, so him dying it feels simply wrong.
• Jack (1996): Jack looks much older than he actually is due to a rapid-aging condition. He tries to mask some of it by darkening the gray in his hair.

Literature

• Murder on the Leviathan: Clarissa Stamp alternatingly dyes or plucks her grey hair to conceal the fact that she is a lot older than she publicly lets on. This is because she has recently escaped an abusive relationship carrying over from an extremely sheltered childhood, so she has the social experience of a young debutante and is extremely insecure about her real age.

Live-Action TV

• 3rd Rock from the Sun: In "Dick's First Birthday", Dick becomes aware that his human body is (physically) middle-aged, so he dyes his gray hair black. Dick thinks he looks "gorgeous". The other Solomons think it's hideous. Everyone else who sees it is desperately fighting the urge to laugh.
• The ABC Murders: In this adaptation, Hercule Poirot is humiliated in his first meeting with Inspector Crome when the dye he uses to keep his beard black starts running. He leaves it gray for the rest of the series.
• Big Brother: Inverted in the fourth UK series. During a superhero task, the oldest housemate Cameron becomes the Silver Fox, whose mission is to restore dyed hair to its natural grey.
• Desperate Housewives: In season 6, Susan dyes her hair to hide her graying. Gaby makes a jab at her about it during an episode, which leads to a fight between the two.
• In The Dropout, a series about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal, Phyllis Gardner and Richard Fuisz go pay a visit to Rochelle Gibbons after her husband Ian's death by suicide. She greets them looking like a shell of her former self, complete with inch-long gray roots in her dark hair. As delicately as possible, they ask for her help in taking down Theranos. The next time we see the three of them in a planning session, Rochelle's roots are retouched to show that she has a new purpose: holding Theranos accountable.
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Loren Bray dies his hair black as part of his desperate attempts to prove that he's not getting old. Dorothy doesn't even recognize him at first and when she does, she's aghast, telling him he looks ridiculous. (It doesn't help that he's also purchased flashy clothes more suited to a younger man).
• Forever: Inverted. Dr. Henry Morgan has not aged since he became immortal 200 years ago. In the flashback of "The Man in the Killer Suit" Henry is seen adding grey to his temples in order to cover up his agelessness.
• The George Lopez Show: In "George's Relatively Bad Idea", Vic dyes his salt-and-pepper hair and mustache black when he tries to woo George's sister.
  Vic: [passionate] Oh, Linda... You look beautiful.
  Linda: [slightly creeped out] And you... you did that to your hair.
  Vic: Was an accident, uh... You hate it, don't you?
  Linda: Oh, well, i-it's really...
  George: Yeah, that's smooth. Put her on the spot there, Super Mario!
• The Office: Creed dyes his hair black when the online retailer Dunder-Mifflin Infinity is launched because he thinks the company is going in a new youth-oriented direction. This being Creed, he "dyes" it with ink from the printer.
  Creed: I'm 30. Well, in November I'll be 30.
• Peacemaker: Economos vehemently denies dyeing his beard, despite the fact that the top half is visibly grey. In the season 1 finale, he reveals that he started dyeing it but wasn't very good about coloring the roots, and eventually gave up when he started thinking nobody cared about him enough to actually notice.
• The Price Is Right: Discussed by host Bob Barker in an interview with the L.A. Times. He started graying early, but disliked how it looked and spent years using tints and dyes to cover it up. However, he finally decided to just go with the gray, debuting the look in the episode that aired on October 15, 1987. Episodes that had been recorded while his hair was still dyed but not aired featured a brief overdubbed piece from him at the very start explaining this when they were broadcast.
• The Thin Blue Line: In the episode "Fly on the Wall", when a documentary is being filmed in the police station, Inspector Fowler has berated everybody for doing themselves up for television. However, Patricia discovers that he has bought a product called "Grey Away". Moments before the cameras appear, he accidentally puts it on his teeth, turning them black.

Music Videos

• Ghost: In "Chapter 9: Tomb It May Concern," as Papa Emeritus IV and Sister Imperator are talking, Papa mentions that he's considering dyeing his very salt-and-pepper hair a full black to look more like Papa Nihil when he was young.

Western Animation

• Bojack Horseman: "The Face of Depression" reveals that BoJack had been dyeing his hair for the entirety of the series, and had already started going grey twenty years ago. As part of his Character Development, he finally decides to keep his hair grey in an Important Haircut.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Ponyville Confidential", it's revealed that Mayor Mare's mane and tail are actually pink and she dyes them gray in order to look respectable.
• Rugrats (2021): In "The Big Diff," Stu (who's 33) freaks out after discovering his first gray hair. When Chas hears about this, he rushes over with a purple marker so he can use its ink to dye the gray hair.
• The Simpsons: "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" reveals that Marge has been "gray as a mule" since she was 17 and that she has been dyeing it to cover it up. This is expanded on in "The Blue and the Gray", where it's revealed that every time she has her hair dyed, she forgets that she has gray hair, thus making her horrified when she gets what she thinks is her first gray hair. She initially goes for a complete gray look, then goes back to dyeing it to help combat her jealousy issues.

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