Lonni of Gray Hair and Tattoos Redefines Going Grey

With over a million followers on Tik Tok and 100K followers on her Instagram account, Gray Hair and Tattoos, Lonni is the ultimate trailblazer when it comes to embracing and downright Redefining style and life after 50.

"When people ask me how it feels to be 58, I'm like, it feels the same way as when I was 28. It feels the same way as when I was 38. I don't really look at myself and see an age. I just look at myself and I see Lonni, regardless as to how old I am. I just don't associate my age with me. So I guess when people ask me, how's it feel to be 58? It's just, like I said, it just feels like I'm being me," explains Lonni.

Here Lonni shares with us her top lessons, wisdom and tips for redefining life.

1. Finding Your Courage Is the Key to Redefining "The Rules"

"I would have to say the best thing about being my age is just the simple fact that all those years of struggling to find who I was, trying to figure out who Lonni really was on the inside. Now that I'm in my 50s I found the strength, the courage, the confidence to let that all out. So when people are like, oh, you know, when you're gonna be older, it's not gonna be as fun. They have it all wrong. When you're older, you get to take all of those life experiences and just let 'em run free and wild because that is truthfully why we go through all the struggles that we went through when we were younger. And it's finding that confidence to let it out when you're older. So to me, that's the best part of me being 58."

"There are two redefining moments when I decided to rewrite my story. And it would have to be when I decided to get sober, when I finally decided to allow myself to be happy and get sober, it just, it was like hitting a refresh button on a computer that wasn't working very well. It finally gave me the opportunity to be like, I'm going to rewrite my story and I'm going to live it exactly the way I want to."

"And the second part was when I decided to go grey. When I decided to grey, it was almost like I decided to stop hiding who I really was. Now, I never tell anybody to go grey or not to go grey. But for me personally, the moment that I remember waking up and thinking, why am I trying to cover who I am? I have all this experience. I have all this wisdom and I'm trying to cover my grey and hide my age and trying to hide myself, to try to pretend to be somebody who I wasn't. And it was at that redefining moment where I was like, no, I'm done hiding. I'm going to just be me in every aspect. And that included having grey hair. So that was really very redefining for me."

2. You Don't Have to "Act" Your Age

"The thing that surprises me most about my followers on social media is that out of the 92% of the women who follow me, the majority of them are between the ages of 18 and 35. And I have people asking me all the time. Why do you think younger women follow you? And truthfully, I think it's because I give them a glimpse of the simple fact that you can be okay with yourself at any age. You can be exactly who you are. You can be a version of that when you're 40, 50, 60, it doesn't matter because age doesn't take away who you are. People are under the misunderstanding that when you get to be older, when you get to be in your 50s, you suddenly have to be somebody else. You have to dress differently or you have to act differently. And I'm here showing everybody that no, you don't have to be any different in your 50s than you do at any age."

3. It's Never Too Late to Redefine Your Style

"My best piece of advice for anybody who wants to redefine their life is it's never too late. I'm always saying, let your light shine, let your light shine at any age. So if you're out there and you're in your 50s and you're like, wow, you know, I've always wanted to cut my hair, die it pink, wear Doc Martins, and have a funky style. Then I say, do it. There is nothing holding you back from you being exactly who you want to be at any age. We don't give up our self expression when we're older. Well, I will, I'll take that back. We give it up, but we don't have to. So take back your self expression and whoever you are on the inside, just let that inside person out and let it shine and honour that person and let your inside personality be exactly who is on the outside."

4. You're Not to Old For That...

"If somebody were to ask me, what are the 10 things that you're never too old for? I would tell 'em, there's more than 10 things. I would tell them that there is unlimited things that you are never too old for. If you want to do it, do it. I don't care if it's jumping out of a plane or skydiving or riding a horse or roller skating, or just simple things like getting a tattoo or coloring your hair purple or whatever it is. You are never too old to do it. I don't understand why we think that our freedoms get taken away with age. It doesn't make any sense. So there are unlimited things. There is not one thing that a younger person can do that you can't do if I were. And if I, if I have to narrow it down to 10, I will say, running a marathon, getting your hair, running a marathon, finding your own style, getting a tattoo, roller skating, picking up a sport, travel, dating, finding love, starting a new career and starting a social media platform and changing the world. One TikTok at a time."

5. Have Fun with Going Grey

"You know what, have fun with it. A lot of times when you have grey hair, you have a tendency to think like, well, my hair is grey, that's it? That's all I can do. And that's absolutely not the case. There's all sorts of fun things you can do with grey hair. I like to put purple tint in my hair because it's fun. And it adds a little pizazz to it. You can do low lights, you can do highlights. You can do anything that you wanna do to your grey hair, the same way that everybody else does with their hair. So I say have fun with it. Now, the thing with grey hair, my barber told me, and yes, I get my cut with a barber in San Francisco. Who's absolutely wonderful. But my barber told me one time that grey hair is the only hair that they cannot replicate."