You never thought it would happen to you. At least not at 27. But grey hair, or white hair to be more accurate, is a chronological affliction that gets us all one day. In fact, if you can last past 35 without a single grey hair, you're doing pretty well for yourself. The real question though, is how you approach the whole grey hair thing - drench yourself in hair dye on first sight, or make a feature of it like Kristen McMenamy (not as easy as it looks). Below are the 12 stages of going grey. 

1. You breezily check your reflection in the harshly lit office loos. You notice something glinting in your hair, like a tiny piece of tinsel. Could it be? Surely not? IT IS. Your first silvery-grey hair. You are immediately reminded of your own mortality.

2. Best not to overact, you tell yourself. It's probably totally normal. But you have an uncontrollable urge to crawl into a foetal position and tearfully lament the demise of your youth.

3. Scratch that, you decide to deal with the situation head-on and simply pluck out the offending white hair.  And peace is restored. You can't help but study it's weird pigment-less form up close and feel as though you've emerged victorious from a small battle with reality. 

3. And then, bam! Some weeks later, you spot an offending white hair in your EYEBROW. What can this mean? Your eyebrows aren't meant to go grey for another fifty years, surely!? 'IT MUST BE DESTROYED', you roar internally, and attack with the tweezers

4. You find yourself gazing uncontrollably at other people's hair - on the tube, in meetings, on the TV - hoping to spot a little patch of grey too. You begin to scrutinize celebrities hair. And models. Especially cool French models. 

5. A while later, you find a moulted bundle of grey hair on the carpet and wonder who it might belong to, before realising, IT'S YOU. 

6. It's all TOTALLY FINE though. You surround yourself with positive images of grey hair, and keep reminding yourself that actually, grey hair is PRETTY COOL. You resolve to embrace it and style it out. You could do a silver-grey Rihanna for one...

7. ...Or, you could do a purplish-grey rinse and wear it all nonchalant and scruffy like a Proenza Schouler model. Yeah, you could totally do that. You'd just have to wear head to toe white every-day to complete the look. And throw out all your cardigans.

8. Your boyfriend starts to fixate on grey hairs he spots around your hairline and you start to think your destiny is unavoidable: you will be the crazy old cat lady before long, with grey, wiry witches hair. 

9. No really, like a proper witch

10. It's getting to the point where the little silver hairs aren't hidden within the rest of your hair any longer and you convince yourself that when people talk to you, they keep averting their eyes to your hairline to gawk at it (they're not).

11. You've become a grouch. You don't know who you are anymore. You ask yourself what your bottle-blonde 18 year-old self would have said to a few grey hairs. 

12. And then you remember, you're pretty cool. And it'll take more than a few white hairs to change that. Till then, there's always balyage.