Gwyneth Paltrow has been seen in public “makeup-free” with – and you may need to sit down for this – grey roots. Photo / Getty Images
Gwyneth Paltrow has been seen in public “makeup-free” with – and you may need to sit down for this – grey roots. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
Gwyneth Paltrow, as you know, has become the celebrity whose every decision (cold-water hair rinsing or not, eye mask at night or only at the weekends) is noted and dissected, after which it becomes this month’s new essential lifestyle tip.
Gwyneth doesn’t stir her honey into her tea, shelets it melt off the spoon. Gwyneth stores soft drinks on the top shelf of her glass-door fridge. Gwyneth tries not to smile after 7pm because it interferes with her facial relaxation routine. I’m making these up – apart from the fridge one – but only to make the point that nothing is too inconsequential in Gwyneth’s day to merit a heated debate, and this week the news is that she has been seen in public “makeup-free” with – and you may need to sit down for this – grey roots.
This development beats her tip for lunching on bone broth hands down and we should pause and consider its implications, for two reasons. First, we’re talking about arguably the world’s most famous Good For Her Age blonde allowing herself to be pictured with “greys” when, in 2023, you barely get away with untouched roots if you’re a booker on Britain’s Got Talent. Grey roots are on the list of unthinkables, along with ignoring the hair on your upper lip, dirty toenails and unwhitened teeth. It suggests your cast-iron care regime is slipping. Second, and even more damaging, it’s showing your age.
We’re guessing that Gwyneth has got a bad case of end-of-summer goggles. She’s been barefoot and makeup-free for so long it may have temporarily slipped her mind that her brand is Natural With A Lot of Work. Brad Falchuk probably said: “Babe you look great just as you are,” and she thought, “You know what? I do,” forgetting that the mission is to look always fresh and youthful and, at the very least, never grey.
"We’ve had the grey conversation many times, but it boils down to this: if you’re doing it, you have to do it wholeheartedly and look like you mean it."
We’ve had the grey conversation many times, but it boils down to this: if you’re doing it, you have to do it wholeheartedly and look like you mean it. Roots are the pits. Roots look grubby and old lady. We don’t make these rules, we simply report them. But grey roots, if you’re in the business of beating age-related expectations and looking 38ish forever, are the very last thing you want. An eye patch would be preferable.
Gwyneth has taken a big step into the taboo territory of ageing intolerables (expect some woo-woo involving experimental regenerating hair colour soon). There has to be an explanation. While we’re on the subject, here are the other top ageing intolerables, in no particular order:
Cellulite
It’s many years since Jerry Hall was outed for appearing to have cellulite while paddling at the beach. (Interviewed by us a few weeks later, she obligingly flicked up her skirt to flash her smooth thighs, thereby proving that cellulite is 90 per cent bad lighting). But the point stands, which is that cellulite is shameful: a sign that you are losing the glow of youth and entering the lumpy-bumpy phase when you would really be better off being pushed out to sea in a bathing hut.
Similar territory to cellulite but you get really punished for wearing a bikini if you’re not a bikini-perfect 10. The new rule seems to be that we celebrate the one-piece wearer who is in good nick (Martha Stewart on the cover of Sports Illustrated) and we demand a supermodel figure or stick thinness for anyone over 50 who dares to bare their midriff (most recently, Claudia Schiffer).
Celebrities avoid being seen in surgical boots like the plague. It matters not that they are the result of a skiing accident or a bunion op, they work like Kryptonite on your Good For Your Age rating. Notable surgical boot moments include Kate Moss hobbling after an injury on the slopes (ooh, Kate not looking cool) and Coleen Rooney during the Wagatha Christie trial.
Coleen and Wayne Rooney at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, May 2022. Photo / Getty Images
Bustiers and bottoms
Certain items of clothing may not be forbidden by law to the over-50s but they may as well be. We’re thinking bustiers (after the furore about Helena Christensen’s black lace number), babydoll dresses, bottom-revealing leotards (Madonna).
Some things are changing: a lot of exposed cleavage on a woman with grown-up children used to be frowned on but Liz Hurley has done sterling work on that front and her grown-up son often photographs her pillowy chest – just to drive home the point. Crepey cleavage still not desirable, just in case that needed clarifying.
Having a baby later in life
While there are always a few rumblings about the appropriateness of men fathering children in their 70s and 80s, they don’t compare to the judgment you can expect as an older-than-average mother.
That said, celebrity mothers in their 40s are now two a penny and we have come a long way since director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s pregnancy at 44 shocked the nation 11 years ago. Naomi Campbell became a mother via surrogate at 50, and Sienna Miller is pregnant at 41. Hardly anyone is shocked and almost everyone is happy for them.
Very similar to the late baby taboo and also on the wane. Sienna Miller is 16 years older than her partner, and were she not shaving her armpits it would be more shocking. Is this because Sam Taylor-Johnson and husband Aaron have been together for 14 years and made the “older woman younger man” couple respectable? Is it because younger men are more egalitarian and domesticated and therefore more attractive to older women? Hard to say, but the words cougar and toyboy are looking as out of date these days as bedsocks and dentures.
