Hair, Age, And Everything In Between: A Beauty Editor On Growing Through Her 20s And 30s

When I was 20, hair was an impulse. I cut it on whims, fried it on cheap flat irons, stained my bathroom floor burgundy with box dye, and thought fringes were personality traits. Now, at 34, hair is a negotiation — between health and style, greys and gloss, damage and repair.

Looking back, I can almost track the past decade and a half through my strands alone. The breakup cuts, the rebonding phase, the first greys, the scalp serums that now live on my nightstand. Hair, more than birthdays or jobs, has marked the transitions in my life.

My 20s: Identity on a Whim

I treated hair like a playground in my 20s.

• At 21, I coloured it burgundy with a box dye bought for ₹300. The thrill lasted two weeks. The towel stains lasted longer.
  

• At 23, I got a fringe that grew out faster than my patience. It survived barely a month, but the regret lived in every photograph.
  

• First salaries meant trips to the salon for straightening treatments. Poker-straight strands were an era—until Mumbai humidity had other plans.
  
  

Every experiment was tied to identity. A bob after a breakup. A fringe for a new semester. A colour for a new city. Hair wasn’t just about how I looked; it was about how I wanted to be seen.

My 30s: When Hair Became Health

By my 30s, the game had changed. Hair stopped being about reinvention and became about resilience.

• At 30, scalp serums appeared on my vanity next to bond repair masks.
  

• At 32, greys announced themselves along my parting, and I spent weeks debating whether to cover, pluck, or embrace them.
  

• Stress-related shedding and hormonal fallouts forced me to think of hair as health, not just style. Dermatologists became as important as stylists.
  
  

Now, at 34, I can tell you exactly which shampoos trigger fallout and which oils actually work. My hair decisions are slower, more deliberate, and rooted in care rather than impulse.

The Emotional Undercurrent

What my hair taught me is that the change wasn’t just physical.

• In my 20s, hair was rebellion. I cut it, coloured it, and and fried it because I wanted the world to notice a shift.
  

• In my 30s, hair is a reflection. I nurse it back to health because I want to notice myself in the mirror without flinching.
  
  

The woman who chopped her hair short at 23 after a heartbreak is the same one massaging rosemary oil into her scalp at 34 after a long week. Hair doesn’t just age. It evolves with you.

The Indian Context: From Rebonding to Rituals

Growing up in India, hair wasn’t just a personal canvas — it was cultural.

• In my 20s, chemical straightening was the ultimate flex. Kareena Kapoor’s poker-straight era was gospel, and I wanted in.
  

• In my 30s, I returned to the rituals I once dismissed: champi oils, Ayurvedic rinses, and weekly masks. The same coconut oil I rolled my eyes at in college now sits next to my Dyson on the dresser.
  
  

Millennial women are the first to live this duality: we reach for Olaplex and hot oil massages in the same breath. We switch between Sephora aisles and kirana store bottles with equal reverence.

What Hair Has Taught Me About Growing Up

Looking back, my hair is my autobiography.

• My 20s strands shouted: restless, impulsive, identity-seeking.
  

• My 30s strands whisper: reflective, resilient, rooted.
  
  

Hair has taught me that growing up isn’t about dramatic transformations but subtle negotiations. It holds memories of break-ups, jobs, fatigue, and joy. And if you read it carefully, it tells the truth before you’re ready to say it aloud.

At 20, I wanted hair that made me someone else. At 34, I want hair that lets me be myself. And maybe that’s the real lesson: hair will always change, fall, grow, and grey. What matters is that, somewhere along the way, so did I.