For the first time ever in my adult life...I dyed my hair.  That's right, I just turned two years shy of 60-years-old and I took the plunge and rid my head of stray grays.  It didn't change my world; in fact, no one really even noticed. But one thing's for sure - despite what the book "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin-Laden from 9/ll to Abbottobad" claims Osama bin Laden had hoped hair dye would do for him, it didn't do for me either, which was to make me sexier.

Still, since my 58^th birthday, at least on a hair-dye level I do relate to Osama bin Laden who, allegedly to improve his appearance, "midway through his fifties... regularly applied Just for Men dye to his hair and beard to try to maintain a youthful appearance."

In his book Manhunt, Peter L. Bergen claims that Osama bin Laden, the pathetic creature we saw last year not long before his death, sitting on the floor watching news reports about himself on an old TV, had expressed the sentiment that "His family life in Abbottabad was a source of genuine solace" for him. 

Therefore, the reason the upkeep on his head and beard was so important to him was because, besides jihad and annihilating thousands of innocent people, family man bin Laden "believed deeply...[that]... polygamy was a religious obligation." According to Bergen, "To his close male friends [Osama] used to joke, 'I don't understand why people take only one wife. If you take four wives you live like a groom.'" 

There you have it. The al-Qaeda leader's idea of a frisky groom is someone who, during his downtime, mixes up "natural versions of Viagra," made of Avena syrup and wild oats.

And when not sowing those wild oats, apparently sex machine Osama kept his gaggle of concubines enamored by walking around the compound with Vaseline around his ears, a plastic bag secured by a clothes pin on his head, and Just for Men combed into his scraggily beard -- which I must say, for the female residents of the bin Laden zenana, certainly must have been enticing.

Who would have thought by looking at him that the reason the late polygamist faithfully used Just for Men was to maintain a husbandly stud-muffin facade?  It's understandable though; for Allah's sake, the man had a harem of women with whom he was committed to regularly participate in sexy time. So, in order to preserve that lady-killer persona he was so famous for, we now come to find out the man's secret weapons were hair dye and sex tonic.

This brings the conversation around to yet another beguiling 50-ish world phenomenon (besides myself): the eternally youthful Barack Obama. Although it's never been mentioned by him, it appears Obama has also been known to address a stray gray or two now and then.

Try as he might to hide it, the President can't, because if you stare long enough at his closely-cropped hair, occasionally it begins to resemble a time-lapse photo series as it changes from ebony on Monday to ivory  on Saturday and back to full fledged Just for Men Jet Black by the following Monday morning.

Of course, for Barack Obama the effort to 'youthanize' himself with paraphenylendiamine is not about acquiring a harem, because he claims to have "improved his gene pool [when he] married up." But then again, he also will intermittently "brain storm" with border security advisor Eva Longoria, and the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" Beyonce has been known to drop by the Situation Room on occasion, which would inspire even the most devoted husband to try to maintain a young-looking appearance.

Nonetheless, while Barack Obama remains cloaked in a shroud of hair-dye secrecy, thanks to Peter L. Bergen the world now gets a front-row seat to the Navy SEAL assassination of Osama bin Laden. As an added bonus, we'll also learn about what went on as history's most notorious terrorist mastermind padded around in his pajamas for ten years in his comfortable Pakistani hideout.

Manhunt readers will gain new insight into what fueled the Saudi Arabian love machine who, when not plotting mayhem and murder, wrapped himself in a blanket and spent afternoons mixing up love potions. Know this: if he had managed to survive, the egotistical bin Laden would probably never have revealed the secret of his irresistible virility. 

The same is true for Barack Obama, because when it comes to smoking, and more importantly hair dye, the first lady appears to be sworn to secrecy. On numerous occasions, Michelle Obama has obfuscated on her husband's behalf, a practice which has enabled the President to continue to pretend nobody notices the ever-changing black and white kaleidoscope pattern on display directly above his shoulders.  

Yet, despite the ongoing mystery, Barack Obama's weekly disappearing and reemerging salt-and-pepper head gives observant Americans like my newly-dyed self the insight that, at least as far as hair dye is concerned, what went on in Abbottobad is probably not that different from what goes on 7,053 miles away, on touch-up night in the White House family quarters.

Author's content: www.jeannie-ology.com