Where have all the greying women gone?

Do all women reach for the dye bottle as soon as the first flicker of grey emerges? Fiona Gartland searches in vain for a natural head of hair in transition.

Where have all the greying-haired women gone, the transitional ones, between youthful sheen and shining silver? They seem to have faded away. On the bus into town I scrutinise each head that boards and gawk out the window at passers-by on foot, but cannot spot a single one.

There is still a core of 1930s children who take a set once a week and the odd blue rinse. And there is the occasional model type, whose silver tresses are swept up into a chignon, the colour and style enhancing her cheekbones and giving substance to her face. But where are the in-betweens, the quarter, half, three-quarters-of-the-way-to-grey women? There were plenty of them 20 years ago, women in their 40s and 50s, grey highlights weaving through dark or fair bases. It gave them an air of authority, of having served their time. They were women not to be messed with.

And there are plenty of men in transition. They have barely been affected by those Grecian 2000 ads. They sport their silvery locks and dark crowns, are happy to be called distinguished and look like they believe it.

But we women seem to have succumbed to the ads that tell us we're worth it.

We seem to have taken to the bottle without remorse.

It's become a concern of mine, having noticed the rogues lurking in my own hair, coarse and strong but still relatively easy to pluck. Initially there was one, which was torn from its follicle without a thought, but its descendants are taking a stand, not in a clump, not colonising one particular area but sprinkled, like icing sugar on a coffee sponge.

There is a technique to plucking, a search-and-identify mission involving squinting into a mirror, tweezers in hand, while turning from side to side.

And when a stray is spotted, there is a freeze-frame. The separation and removal is done as quickly as possible, before the culprit gets a chance to disappear into the dark again.

I imagine that the few discovered are quirks of nature and once removed will never return. But each time the process is repeated there are more.

It has become a family affair, with my eight-year-old earnestly joining in the search; like a young ape hunting in the matriarch's head for lice, she is business-like and thorough.

"Hold still - here's another one!" When asked to comment, my husband only notices the weather and gives a small smile, well-learnt over years to combat all those no-win questions.

The eldest, at 15 glossy-headed, shrugs in despair.

"Mam, just dye it," she says.

But I'm not ready to go there.

The permanent colour solution is so stressful and so time-consuming. Friends seem to spend a considerable chunk of time in the hairdresser's chair, a concoction of chemicals plastered onto their heads, flicking through old magazines while it cooks, fretting over whether the shade will blend with the original and then complaining of their roots three weeks' later.

There is a big market in home treatments. But the dangers of doing it at home, like the home perm of the 1980s, seem to far outweigh any possible monetary advantage.

Those women with full heads of grey or white are to be admired, but how did they get that way? Did they check one morning and discovered they had transformed like cabbage butterflies in their sleep or did their hair, like Marie Antoinette's, turn instantly to snow with fright? Perhaps they hid beneath expensive hats until the change was complete, or took extended continental holidays.

It is a mystery I have yet to solve and will continue with tweezers and mirror for a while longer, until the unplucked are outnumbered by the icing sugar round my chair.