If you don't already color your hair, you may be ready to take the plunge if you find yourself utterly bored with your locks so bored that not even a new haircut makes you feel perkier. At this point, you begin noticing hair color on other women, you study celebrities' locks, you see a magazine article on highlights and you can't help wondering: Should I try color?

Whether or not you decide to color your hair is ultimately up to you. I will tell you this, however: There is no one who cannot wear hair color. Okay, maybe there are people who are allergic to some hair coloring ingredients - those folks should avoid color - but the rest of us live in a world filled with hair­color choices. So many choices, in fact, that it's easy to find a product to enhance your beauty gently or to downright alter the way you come across. You can try a no-pain, wash-out color, then slowly move on to more permanent choices such as highlights or double-process color. . or you can keep experimenting with different temporary shades. That way, if you get tired of coloring your hair, you can simply stop.

Covering gray

I am just now beginning to see my first gray - a tuft at each temple. This confuses me: Both my parents were a full 15 years older than I now am when they started to gray. While there's nothing I can do to stop my premature gray, I can cover it. Apparently, I'm not the only woman who sees hair color as a way to cover silver. According to my hairdresser, half of his clients (both women and men) get their gray covered. This doesn't surprise me - after all, we live in a youth-oriented society, where even the smallest sign of age erodes a woman's sex appeal (or so we've all come to think). For those brave souls who want to keep their gray, a silver-enhancing shampoo can keep hair from looking dull or yellow.

Gray strands are incredibly resistant to hair color: Depending on your hair, you may find that certain home hair-color formulas ­especially the less permanent versions - simply can't cope with your silver strands. If you're having difficulty at home, why not go to a salon? Chances are, a color technician can hide every last trace of gray.

Adding excitement

Excitement is a subjective term - especially when it comes to hair color. To me, exciting hair color is color that is better (I know, another subjective word) than nature. On my own head that translates to "brighter than the mousy, light brown buried under my gold highlights." For someone else, exciting means brash, such as bombshell blonde or high-intensity auburn. Another person might see exciting as sensuous, embodied by a glossy espresso or cool aubergine. Blue streaks, green tips, pink ends - these can also be exciting, as can rushing to try every hair-color trend before it hits the streets. In short, the excitement of hair color is part fun, part self-expression, and part self­improvement. And yes, all of this is subjective.