Grooming: Love Your Salt and Pepper

Eric "McSteamy" Dane. Photo: Getty Images

While aging has become a taboo for most gay men, gray hair has quietly become a sex symbol. With Anderson Cooper, Eric "McSteamy" Dane and George Clooney sporting graying locks on primetime television, the distinguished look of a man sporting some salt and pepper—especially at an early age—is widely accepted as attractive.

But what can you do once your salt and pepper becomes more salt than pepper? Dying all of your hair can look fake, but luckily, there are a number of products that can help you to reduce the amount of gray on your head without resorting to a major cover up.

Redken for Men Color Camo: This in-salon dye job adds a little more pepper to your salt-and-pepper locks in just one visit to your colorist. Visit RedkenForMen.com to find a nearby salon.

Just For Men Touch of Gray: If you don't want to make the trip to a salon for a dye job, try the DIY approach at home. This super simple, five-minute, brush-in treatment lets you control how much gray you want to cover. Unlike other hair dyes, you won't have to mix anything, so it's mess free and pretty much fool proof.  Just For Men Touch of Gray, $7.99, at CVS.com.

Joico Re:Nu Age Defy: Joico's latest haircare system promises to restore color and healthy texture to your locks in five months by stimulating melanin production with a twice-daily Re:nual Serum. In stores May 2008, visit Joico.com/renu for more information.

Anderson Cooper and his beefcake biceps.

YSL Honored; Helmut Lang Pops a Store; Gucci on Film; Don't Get Hairapy

Yves Saint Laurent was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor by French president Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday. I can't think of anything witty to say about this one. It's YSL. Show some respect! [WWD]

Helmut Lang—the brand no longer run by Helmut Lang—will open a pop-up shop in NYCs Meat Packing District. Although that sentence seems full of double entendres, it isn't. [Fashion Informer via NY Mag]

Hollywood heavyweight Ridley Scott hopes to make a film about the tumultuous past of Gucci—murder! fashion! Hollywood!—but the folks at the luxury brand fear that Scott will make the film too sensational. Sounds like the family made it sensational enough on their own. [British Vogue]

Despite ads for Hairapy, your hair stylist is tired of listening to your problems. Please stop burdening them with your relationship issues and get a real therapist. [NY Times]

High Tech Versace Home; Air New Zealand's Mary Voyage; Dangerous Crocs; Michael Jackson's Wig Woes

Versace's newly-launched interiors website allows architects and interior designers to download 2- and 3-D models of items to include in design plans. So, you can be sure that your purple and white gold bed will fit in your bedroom. [WWD]

Air New Zealand plans a "Pink Flight" from San Francisco to Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in February. According to Queerty, "High-flying homos will enjoy some international camp as the crew dons feathered boas, serve pink cocktails and provide a bit of cabaret." All this in-flight fun for $1000. I always thought an airline with a name like Virgin would be the first to plan something like this. Yay for the Kiwis! [Queerty]

The unstoppable virus that is Crocs footwear, the neon colored shoes favored by fashion-oblivious midwestern tourists and lazy soccer moms, are causing injuries! Crikey! According to Radar, they get caught in escalators. If being an absolute eyesore wasn't reason enough to avoid the hideous things, maybe croc-hungry escalators will teach people that the shoes are not appropriate to wear in public. [Radar]

Always the drag queen of pop, Michael Jackson's wig required three hours of sprucing for a recent Italian Vogue photo shoot, say the NY Post. Come on, any drag queen worth her weight in pancake makeup lives by two cardinal rules: "The higher the hair, the closer to Jesus" and "Never spend more time on your wig than on your face." Oh, wait, Jackson has spent more time (and money) on his face. [NY Post]

Andy Roddick's Hair Don't

Photos: Getty Images

The U.S. Open kicks off on Monday and Andy Roddick, the cutie golden boy of the court has been making his rounds among New York's social elite. But there's something a different about the ace tennis player. It seems that his head fell into a tub of peroxide and came out a little...well, deep fried.

Enter into evidence, photo #1 (left): Taken last month at the ESPY awards. Roddick looks dapper with light brown locks even though his suit (or the photographer) seems to have taken a hit of acid before leaving the house. What's going on there?

Photo #2 (right): Snapped two days ago in NYC during a party for Hamptons Magazine (he's on the cover this month), and his hair is a shade of blonde that does not naturally occur on Mother Earth. Perhaps he got caught up in Beckham-fever and bleached his hair in solidarity with the soccer player because both of their sports play second string to baseball and football in this country.

At least he stopped injecting collagen in his lips. Does anyone remember the awful Cargo magazine cover from September 2005? His lips rivaled Amanda Lepore's!

Anthony takes home the Shear tiara

Photo: Getty Images

Last night on the finale of Shear Genius, Bravo's most recent gay reality series, newly (publicly) out but always fabulous Anthony took home the tiara for best stylist. Go team gay!

Head over to Project: Gay (the boys behind the always excellent Project: Rungay blog) for running commentary and tons of pictures from the after-party -- including Anthony showing off his, uh, assets.

If you missed the big episode -- don't worry. At least until Life on the D-List starts this weekend, Bravo's rerunning the show approximately 18 hours a day.

"Shear" Madness

What to make of Shear Genius, Bravo's attempt to do for hairdressers what it's already done for dressmakers? The first episode aired last night. Some first impressions:

The stock characters are nearly the same as those on Runway. Bitchy homos, kind homos, outrageously confident homos, closeted homos...and then a bunch of women with varying levels of talent.
There may be some lezzies among them (the angry Tabatha, perhaps?)

Tabatha, Dr. Boogie

The most interesting of the 'mos goes by the name of Dr. Boogie. He wears an incriminating Carrie Bradshaw-style blossom on his breast but suggested he was straight when introduced to the (arguably) hunky stylist/consultant Rene Fris:

"I'm not gay or anything like that but I don't have a problem complimenting someone. Rene's GORGEOUS!"

C'mon, Boogie. We'll call you doctor when you recognize your condition!

The producers made a terrible mistake when they allowed the judges to eject Paul-Jean, a snotty French import who promised to be the show's most entertaining cast member (he was the winner of the viewer poll on who was most likely to become Shear's drama queen).

Jaclyn Smith, Sally Hershberger

We fear for the show's host, Jaclyn Smith. Not only does she not seem to know much about hair, she also who sits next to Sally Hershberger (the inventor of Meg Ryan's trademark 'do). Jackie has been out of the public eye for a very long time now, and has come dangerously close to parodying herself, Valerie Cherish-style:

"THAT looks like it took more than two hours to create!"

Toupee or not to be?

Bad pun. We know, it's to-PAY. Of course, when you think of it, in time you'd probably PAY a lot less for a piece that really suits you than swallowing pills, getting transplants, or rubbing creams onto your hemisphere. Writer David Thorpe decided to go for a "Federer" when he ordered his toupee. Click here for the whole story.

Related: Thesmokinggun reveals that The Hair Club for Men has been spying on former clients.