Gray Hair, Walnut Hulls, Foti Root, and an Evolving Definition

Recently, someone reacted with surprise when they learned I "Herbatint" my hair.

“You dye your hair?”

It wasn’t openly hostile. But it didn’t feel neutral either.
I felt exposed. Assessed. Slightly diminished.

The implication — subtle but present — was that managing visible aging required justification.

That moment stayed with me.

Because I’ve used the term botanical beauty in the context of this brand. And yet, when it comes to my own gray hair, I notice something more complicated happening in my body.

Hair turns gray because melanocytes in the follicle gradually stop producing melanin. The stem cell niche that supports those pigment-producing cells declines over time. Oxidative stress increases. Hydrogen peroxide accumulates. Catalase activity decreases. Less pigment is deposited into the growing hair shaft. What grows out is essentially unpigmented hair.

It’s cellular ecology shifting. Not laziness. Not decline. Biology.

For years, I’ve had an R&D idea quietly simmering: turning walnut shells into a botanical hair dye.

Walnut hulls — particularly from Juglans nigra — contain juglone, a naphthoquinone compound that oxidizes and binds to keratin. It stains protein fibers. Historically, it has been used to dye textiles and hair because of that chemical affinity.

Stained hands from handling green walnut hulls. Chemistry doesn’t care whether we call it beauty or wellness.

I've also been very curious about Foti root — Polygonum multiflorum, known in Chinese as He Shou Wu (何首乌). In traditional Chinese medicine, it has long been associated with longevity and the restoration of dark hair. The folklore tells of an aging man whose gray hair returned to black after consuming the root, a story that gives the plant its name. Chemically, it contains anthraquinones and other phenolic compounds, and there are hypotheses about antioxidant activity and possible interactions with melanocyte biology. But consistent clinical evidence for reversing gray hair in humans remains limited.

Walnut can stain.
Foti may influence oxidative pathways.
Neither is magic.

And yet — when I look in the mirror and see gray, I don’t feel neutral.

Intellectually, I understand the biology. Philosophically, the cultural script that equates aging with decline is difficult to fully detach from.

In my body, there’s still a whisper that says:

If I go gray, I become irrelevant.

That whisper isn’t logical. It’s cultural. It lives below belief.

As a woman in business, visible aging doesn’t feel culturally neutral. Experience compounds. Pattern recognition sharpens. Authority deepens. And still — appearance carries signals in professional spaces, whether we acknowledge it or not.

So when someone questioned the dye, what I felt wasn’t vanity being challenged. It wasn’t inquiry either. What I felt was reflexive judgment.

That tension is what I’m examining.

Not to reject beauty. Not to defend it. But to understand it.

I’ve used the term botanical beauty. I still may. Beauty matters. Humans are sensory beings. Presentation influences perception. Confidence influences posture and tone.

But botanicals don’t live neatly inside marketing categories. They modulate inflammation. Influence oxidative stress. Bind to keratin. Support barrier function. Interact with enzymatic pathways. Affect microbial ecology. Shift sensory experience.

Where does wellness end and beauty begin?

If a botanical dye improves confidence, is that superficial?
If supporting oxidative balance internally is wellness, but staining keratin externally is beauty — are those truly separate domains?

I’m less interested in defending a term and more interested in refining it.

This brand is evolving. So am I.

And perhaps the real work isn’t choosing between wellness and beauty — but understanding how physiology, perception, identity, and confidence intersect.

Botanicals resist neat categories.

So do we.