Sunday, March 30, 2008

Going Natural

What does that phrase mean, anyway?

I believe there was a time when 'going natural' meant not dyeing ones hair. Generally referring to women of a certain age (for me, it was 25), going natural meant embracing the process and consequences of aging, and allowing the world to witness the emergence of grey.
The subject-verb agreement does seem a bit twisted, though, because we are all born natural. What does going imply? The fact that we were once not natural?
It's true, I spent a few years experimenting with boxed dyes.
And then I decided to "go natural."
Now, in the rising green economy, 'going natural' implies organic, chemical-free goodness. In food or in cleaners, lubricants or toilet paper, natural is the oasis, the green pasture in which we will be reborn, erasing all our chemical sins of the past.
But, as I learned this week, it doesn't always work that way. Forgiveness may be swift but chemical exposure--harmful as it is--cannot always be dropped cold turkey.
I recently visited Pure Joy, a natural hair salon in Ottawa. No, not because I'm stil fighting the grey (though the stick-em-up strands, the ones that are so dry they're kinky? They meet the tweezers).
No, my visit to Pure Joy was pure research, for a short piece on the salon. We were a bit concerned that the place was selling itself as greener than it really was. Why are there still chemical products on the shelf?
Because, the stylist explained, hair gets hooked on it.
The natural stuff is, well, weaker.
What, it doesn't burn my eyes? Will it really work??
Apparently the results are better, softer, even 'more youthful.'
So this is a way to 'go natural'-- but without the grey.

Hmmm...I'm still a bit confused on the subject-verb agreement, but to be honest, I don't completely understand the expression subject-verb agreement.

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