Olivia Colman has swapped her signature pixie crop for long, tumbling grey curls – and suddenly everyone is talking about it. Jemimah Wright asks why a woman allowing her grey hair to show still feels like a statement, and what the Bible says about ageing, beauty and learning to embrace our grey.
Olivia Colman has gone grey. And she looks amazing.
The 52-year-old Oscar-winning actress appeared at the Zurich Film Festival in September with long, loose, salt-and-pepper curls swept over one shoulder, a dramatic departure from the short brunette pixie cut we’re used to seeing. She was there promoting her new film Wicker, but it was her hair that quickly made headlines.
Why, in 2026, is a 52-year-old woman having grey hair newsworthy? Perhaps because, for women, going grey has never simply been about hair. I think men have long been permitted, even encouraged, to become “silver foxes”. For women, the arrival of grey often brings an entirely different message: You are getting old. Quick, cover it up.
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I understand that tension because I’m not embracing my own emerging grey hairs just yet.
I understand that tension because I’m not embracing my own emerging grey hairs just yet. I currently hide them with highlights. At what point will I stop? I genuinely don’t know. My mum is 81 and is hardly grey at all, with just elegant swathes of silver at her temples. My dad, on the other hand, began receding in his 20s and was grey for as long as I can remember. Judging by the greys coming, I think I may have taken after him!
But why should that bother me? Do I secretly believe grey hair will make me less beautiful? Or is it because allowing it to show means admitting something we spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to avoid: I am ageing.
READ MORE: How God helped me to embrace my natural hair
I recently wrote about the same subject when it comes to having Botox, and the Danish Prime-Minister’s bold response to an offer of plastic surgery. The subject is obviously on my mind! Scripture doesn’t treat grey hair as something shameful to disguise. Proverbs 16:31 says: “Grey hair is a crown of splendour; it is attained in the way of righteousness.” Proverbs 20:29 contrasts the glory of youth with the dignity of age: “The glory of young men is their strength, grey hair the splendour of the old.”
The Bible never tells women that our value diminishes as our faces change. In fact, its understanding of beauty repeatedly pushes us beyond appearance. As 1 Peter 3:3–4 reminds us, beauty is not ultimately found in outward adornment but in the “inner self”.
READ MORE: My thoughts as a Christian woman on Ulrika Jonsson’s bold rebuttal to ageism
None of that means colouring your hair is somehow unbiblical.
None of that means colouring your hair is somehow unbiblical. I certainly won’t be cancelling my highlights appointment on the strength of writing this article! Enjoying fashion, make-up or hair colour isn’t the problem. Perhaps the more revealing question is whether we feel we have to hide ageing in order to remain beautiful.
Olivia Colman isn’t disappearing into middle age. She looks confident, feminine, glamorous – and unmistakably grey. Will I eventually follow her example? Ask me when the highlights bill becomes unbearable. For now, perhaps the challenge isn’t whether I colour my greys, but whether I can reach the point where I no longer fear them. Because if God grants me the privilege of growing older, they’re a crown of splendour – and evidence that I’m still here.
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