At this year’s Golden Globes, the media went crazy when Gwyneth Paltrow showed her gray roots on the red carpet, and when former Supermodel Paulina Porizkova bared her silver, it made waves. But have you looked around these days? Gray is the new black.

Yes, Gaga has gone stylish gray many times in recent years, but the real gray is sweeping in.

“It was the most liberating thing I’ve ever done, because it’s not just the hair, it’s what’s behind it,” said Rosie Dalton, a 62 year old motivational speaker. “I’m feeling more empowered. I don’t care so much what other people think.”

Dalton says her dive into gray encouraged her friends.

At Patrice Vinci Salon on Boston’s Newbury Street, they know there are more than fifty shades of gray. Stylist Nestor Cruz’s clientele are young. He shows a photo of a recent convert to gray — a beautiful young woman in striking iron gray and silver locks. This look might just be part of a white hot style moment, but it took all day. First to strip the existing color out, then to add color back in.

“Granny chic, they like to call it. So it’s gray hair that’s purposed,” Cruz said.

Cruz said the young trend has helped give older women more confidence about going gray.

“It kind of just gives them a more, edgier approach to it,” he said.

Salon owner Patrice Vinci has seen this growing trend and said it can actually make some people look younger.

“They look ten years younger because if the color on their skin is too dark or too heavy, it can age people,” Vinci said, “When I remove the color and we get some of the white back in and some of the gray, they actually look more youthful.”

Vinci said when she talks to women who are ready to have color removed and go gray they’re “emotionally” ready. “It’s a time in their life where they feel complete,” Vinci said. Wanting to reduce or remove the chemicals is also a factor, Vinci said.

Real estate agent Alex Pinck decided to embrace her great white.

“My hair grows so fast that I didn’t want to continue to color it. I was doing it every three weeks and it just was just too much.”

She decided she loved her hair.

“I have to say, walking around the city, I’ve gotten more compliments on the color of my hair than I ever have when it was colored,” Pinck said.

Seems a long way from the days when two famous lines in a Clairol ad in 1957 helped make hair coloring the norm. “Does she or doesn’t she?... Only her hairdresser knows.”

But silver sisterhood is not for everyone. Vinci client Wendy Foster said she considers gray “a badge of honor,” but wanted to keep coloring her hair.

“It’s just a really personal thing for me about how I think I would look gray,” Foster said.

Many looking for a new job, or feeling the pressure of younger colleagues at work also wouldn’t leap into gray.

“If I were trying to find a job, I would probably color my hair, try to hide my age a little,” Pinck said.

And while going gray may mean fewer trips to the salon, it doesn’t mean saying goodbye to hair products; there are special toners and glosses and shampoos.

In the end, if women are still piling on the makeup, and running to get Botox, does this silver hair really represent social change? (at 05:45 approx)

“I think that any kind of act that a woman does to claim a space to say, “I’m getting older and I’m comfortable with that and look at this.’ I think that all of that is progress,” said Ashley Mears, a sociology professor at Boston University. “But we can’t expect women to completely shred the trappings of beauty.”

Dalton also has a theory. “I think midlife is different for us than it was for our mothers. So I think it’s just a whole different mindset, a consciousness that wasn’t there before,” she said.

And if you’re thinking all this is just a lot of hot air about hair, you may need to look at the root of the matter. Hilary Clinton has made hay of her hair in many speeches over the years. And she summed it up in a commencement speech in 2001 at her alma mater Yale University.

“Pay attention to your hair,” Clinton said. “Because everyone else will.”