I think a lot of people know you from The Golden Bachelor, but I'd love to know more about you outside of that. Tell me about what you do.

I’ve been doing so many things. Before I was on TV my daughter had her own business and I helped her open the business. I ended up working for her because she was so busy with very high-end celebrities.

So I started tailoring for a lot of celebrities, working on music videos for artists like Katy Perry, Janelle Monáe, and Christina Aguilera, and for clients like Kim Kardashian. The list goes on.

My daughter was a designer at 19 designing for Nordstrom and after four years working for a private company, she decided to go on her own. That's where I came in and helped her. 

When I looked at your social, I saw you had a lot of tips about tailoring and I think you had some pieces that you had made. How did you get into that? 

I always loved sewing, but I never saw myself going into a business doing that. My passion for it came from my upbringing, as I was taught knitting and embroidery by my two grandmothers, who even made my clothes. 

So when my daughter, who had trained in fashion, invited me to join her business, it was perfect. I loved it, and everything just came so naturally and easily to me.

That's amazing. I feel like that's an aspect of your story and background that we didn't learn that much about on the show.

When my daughter submitted my application for the reality show I got called in and cast. I didn't want to tell the producers about my experience tailoring for celebrities because I just felt like I shouldn't name any names. So, I just said that I'm a realtor, that's my other job.

It’s amazing how versatile you are. Even though you were in real estate, you have such a talent for styling and fashion. And then, finding yourself modeling and on The Golden Bachelor, I feel like a lot of silver-haired women were watching you, cheering you on, and felt like you were representing us. Did you get a lot of messages from women with natural gray hair reaching out to you?

Just a couple but not a lot. I got a lot of followers for being a grandma because I have three grandkids, but very few who had natural gray hair. A lot of people think that my hair is not silver. Since I use a curling iron, it turns a bit yellow so I think people think it’s blonde. 

Tell me about your progression. I saw on social media that you started getting gray hairs as a teenager but you dyed it for years.

Yes. My transition to natural gray hair started when I was around maybe 20 or 17. I had a couple of white hairs that I plucked out. Later, I got married, had my kids, and I noticed that they were coming back.

So, as soon as I had my daughter 30 years ago or more, I decided to dye it black since my natural hair color was black. And then I changed it from red to dark red, to black and brown and all that.

I think it hit me in 2018, I was just tired of it. I would dye it and soon see white hairs growing back around my face. I started thinking that this was not good for me. I needed to make a change to improve my well-being and accept myself. And I think that's when I actually loved myself, and I said, 'I'm just going to do it.'

What gave you the courage to do that? What was the spark that made you decide to finally go for natural gray hair?

I did it for health reasons too. I thought, ‘We don't even know what we're putting in our hair.’ It could cause so many other side effects, and I began to worry about how it might impact my health in the long run. 

I just didn't want chemicals on my face, in my hair, or on my hands. I had to embrace my gray hair and I told myself, ‘I'm just gonna love my gray hair, I just don't care about what they say.’

How long did the whole process take you?

In 2018, around October, I decided to let my gray hair grow out. I have pictures of it being just an inch or two long, and it took almost a year to grow further. That’s when I always wore a ponytail. 

I went to a salon and decided to see if they could try to remove the black, but it was so difficult. The black was really, really hard to get out because it's the darkest color. 

It turned so orange, and it just didn’t look good, so I ended up bleaching it again. I knew my hair was starting to fall apart a little. But I got it a little bit lighter, then I cut it, and it’s been growing since 2018.

I trim it a little, but my hair grows very fast. It was around 2020 or 2021 when I noticed that the yellowish and burnt parts were almost at the ends of my hair. 

I remember that last year, in July or August, when I was on TV, my hair wasn’t this long. It grew at least four inches, so it really does grow fast.

In 2019, once I started going gray, my daughter posted a picture of me on Instagram. I was contacted by a production company from a hair salon, called Wow Science, and I started modeling from there.

Amazing. So you had never modeled before? 

I was a model when I was very young for a few years, but I never pursued it. I got married, had kids, and all that, but in 2019, I was approached and decided, 'Yes, let's do it.'

You said that when you were doing your grow out, people had a lot of negative comments. Now that your natural gray hair is fully grown out, do those same people still feel the same way about your hair? 

No, actually the neighbor came over after I had it with half of my hair blonde and the other half gray. She said, 'I love your gray hair. I think I should leave my hair gray and do it like yours.' 

And I said, 'Do it! Why not embrace the gray?' For me, the gray hair opened another door that I never thought it would. I found more success with my silver hair.

When your daughter applied for you to go on The Golden Bachelor and you got in, did you have any thoughts about whether you should dye your natural gray hair to be on TV? 

Not at all! By the time I got called, I was already being hired to model for my natural gray hair. So that wasn’t going to happen, but I had one friend who never liked my hair, and she said I should dye it black. I was like, 'No!' I felt more insulted than anything else.

Did you have any reactions from the other contestants about your hair?

Everybody said, ‘Wow, you have beautiful hair!’ and I was like, I can’t believe I’m the only one here with natural gray hair. One person had a little gray hair, but no one else had fully embraced it. I was in shock.

In talking to different women, I’ve found that younger women have a different attitude towards going gray. 

Yes, I get approached by a lot of younger women asking me, ‘I love your gray hair and I’d love it if my hair could be that gray.’ I think gray is really in with young ladies so they want to have gray hair now.

Unfortunately for me, I waited too long. In my family, on my father’s side, everyone gets white hair by 30. So by the time I was 30 or 35, my hair already looked like this, though it was a little less gray in the back.

If I could go back and let my hair go gray from the day I found my first gray hair, my whole life would have been completely different. I would have embraced it from then on. 

Yeah, imagine if you had gone through life as a 30 year old with your natural gray hair the way it is. Wow!

I saw that you have a lot of really interesting hair care tips. Can you tell me some more about some of the tips that you have for taking care of your gray 

hair these days? 

Yes. I love to plant, so I decided to remove all the grass and plant flowers and vegetables in my front yard. I have watermelons, cucumbers, cherries, tomatoes, melons, pumpkins— I have so many vegetables. 

I have aloe vera too because, as a Latina, it’s one of the plants I always use. When my children were younger I always kept aloe vera around for things like sunburns. 

I use aloe vera daily for my gray hair. If I want to use a hot iron, I put the inside of the aloe vera plant into my hair to style it. Then at night, I rub it into my scalp and leave it there. You can’t even tell it’s in there, and it doesn’t mess up your hair. 

What it does for me is help my hair grow, and I truly believe that. On top of that, I use rosemary. I infuse it, mix it with aloe vera, or sometimes with olive oil or coconut oil. I try to do everything natural for my gray hair. 

Amazing! That's really interesting. Rosemary has definitely been proven to promote hair growth, and it sounds like you're really nourishing your scalp with the aloe vera. That’s such a cool tip.

Yeah, and I use it on my face, and if I’m cutting a melon, I’ll eat it, but at the end, I’ll rub it all on my face. What’s more beautiful than putting something so fresh and so delicious on your face? So sometimes I do that too. 

I don’t have Botox. I do a laser treatment for my face once a year, but this year I haven’t done anything. So I’m trying to embrace all my wrinkles with my natural gray hair.

Well you look radiant so it’s obviously working! It’s very inspiring. I should go plant a big aloe plant. 

Yes! Do it! In the morning, I put the aloe vera on my eyes and then I use my creams if I want to add to it. 

I love it. Is there anything that was most surprising to you about the process embracing your natural gray? What surprised you the most about going gray? 

After I embraced my hair and decided to go gray, I didn’t realize how many people would like it. I get approached a lot by people saying they love my hair. Even just going to the market, people say, 'I love your hair.' It made me even more happy to embrace my hair. 

Do you have any advice for women out there who are thinking about embracing their gray hair but haven’t yet? 

Not everybody has courage. But you need to have courage in order to do something amazing for yourself and get rid of the dye. Get rid of it! Just embrace yourself!

I think women want to, but you have to have courage to let everyone see you’re going through the change of letting your dyed hair grow out.