Hair dye for work in IT industry?

Sassafras

Maybe something more natural might suit your friend and this seems to be a popular look among IT workers:

Sassafras

Here's a good look for the IT crowd:

ToneControl

Sassafras said:

Tell him to shave his head and grow a beard like all his colleagues do.

well there's another problem opening up.
Another mate I know from when I was 20, who is (and always has been) a struggling musician has to dye his beard to attain the effect he wants

Certainly my beard went grey a long time before my hair

Kilgore

ToneControl said:

prowla said:

Old blokes who dye their hair look odd.

AFAIK almost all the women I know of that age dye their hair, do they all look odd?

Women spend a few quid and get it done properly. Blokes get a cheap dye from Poundland.

usedtobe

ToneControl said:

prowla said:

Old blokes who dye their hair look odd.

AFAIK almost all the women I know of that age dye their hair, do they all look odd?

Gender shouldn’t make any difference, but it seemingly does. I think women tend to experiment with hair colour more, and from an earlier age, than we chaps. And they carry on colouring it, so you’ve got a kind of continuity to the thing.. It seems to be more accepted.
A bloke who suddenly starts dyeing his hair in middle age, sticks out like a sore thumb. It also looks more like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s going grey.
Its just the way it is, it seems. Maybe one day, people will see it differently..

Sassafras

It's the jaded, ravaged look that comes from a lifetime of debauchery that betrays age, not hair colour.
I could dye my hair all the colours of the rainbow and I'd still look like a dirty old lecher.

Sporky

Excellent thread title.

Lady BMcH suggests trying "Just Four-bit Men", which works better out loud.

DrCornelius

I had isolated grey hair on the sides of my head only , I looked like Paulie from the Sopranos and I hated it.

I used that GX shampoo stuff on the sides for a year or so until the rest of my hair caught up, now I'm nicely grey all over and I'm cool with that.

I can't see a problem with chaps dying their hair tbh.

octatonic

ToneControl said:

My mate (early 50s) works in IT in the US, and dyes his hair because the average age  at work is 28, and he doesn't want to make it so obvious how old he is with whatever grey he has.

Is this common in the software industry? It hasn't been where I've worked, but I'd like to know

Key thing in the is he is in the US which is more obviously ageist than in there UK.
That said, I've never noticed it, especially once you are off the bottom hiring rungs.

CHRISB50

I think it says more about your mate’s perception than it does about anything else. I've worked in IT for 20 years and never noticed any discrimination based on grey hair.

Philly_Q

usedtobe said:

ToneControl said:

prowla said:

Old blokes who dye their hair look odd.

AFAIK almost all the women I know of that age dye their hair, do they all look odd?

Gender shouldn’t make any difference, but it seemingly does. I think women tend to experiment with hair colour more, and from an earlier age, than we chaps. And they carry on colouring it, so you’ve got a kind of continuity to the thing.. It seems to be more accepted.
A bloke who suddenly starts dyeing his hair in middle age, sticks out like a sore thumb. It also looks more like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s going grey.
Its just the way it is, it seems. Maybe one day, people will see it differently..

Women also tend to dye their hair in progressively lighter colours as they get older.  You don't see many older women with bright red or dark brown/black hair, because it looks weird against ageing skin.

Whereas men tend to try to "restore" the colour they actually had when they were young, which looks unnatural past a certain age.

That said, I'm 54 and I don't have any grey hair yet, except in my beard.

MrBump

I have gone bald specifically to gain the strategic advantage of never looking either younger or older than old.

FX_Munkee

I find it positively helps being a "silver fox" coder*

* absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that we never write documentation and the skiddies coming in from college positively crap themselves when they see something that isn't c#

Nope, definitely isn't that.

Sassafras

Doesn't seem to bother this guy:

Octafish

Sassafras said:

Doesn't seem to bother this guy:

Does he work in IT?

randella

Octafish said:

Sassafras said:

Doesn't seem to bother this guy:

Does he work in IT?

With that tan, he’s probably a contract analyst. 

57Deluxe

prowla said:

Old blokes who dye their hair look odd.

Sassafras

Octafish said:

Sassafras said:

Doesn't seem to bother this guy:

Does he work in IT?

He might once his acting jobs dry up because of his fading looks.

Modulus_Amps

he dyes his hair, so what? there is a pretty big industry selling hair dye for men, So I am sure he is not the only one.

ToneControl

CHRISB50 said:

I think it says more about your mate’s perception than it does about anything else. I've worked in IT for 20 years and never noticed any discrimination based on grey hair.

his role is in the top 0.5% of the IT industry over there, I have no data to go on. He has to do a lot of top level corporate PR as the face of the company.
For all I know, grey hair has been banned in Silicon valley