Many women are going with the gray, just like Helen Mirren, Jamie Lee Curtis and Meryl Streep

There’s a silver lining to going gray.

More New York women still shy of their mature years are embracing their natural silver hair these days — a bold statement on hair care and female empowerment.

“A woman who has decided to grow out her grays is confident and comfortable in the skin she’s in,” says hair guru John Barrett of the John Barrett Salon.

Most women — 65% nowadays, according to a Procter & Gamble study — alter their natural hair color, no matter what it is. That’s up from about 7% of women in the 1950s.

That makes the decision to go gray an even bolder one than it seems. Not only are silver sirens ditching the dye, but they’re revealing their true selves through hair color.

“Mother Nature painted you, and made you unique,” says model Cindy Joseph, 63, who booked her first global campaign with Dolce & Gabbana on the very day she finished growing out her gray hair. She was 49 years old.

“Celebrate silver,” says Joseph. “I call it silver instead of gray, because gray has a negative connotation. Gray mood, gray day. But silver is considered very special and very valuable. So whatever shade of silver you have, call it silver.”

A burgeoning group of younger women is bucking the norm and letting nature take its course.

“I’ve never attempted to cover up my gray hair,” says Crown Heights stylist Carrie Pink, 34. “The first lone hair appeared my freshman year of college and I just left it alone to flourish. I never looked at my gray hair as something I needed to hide.”

Embracing a physical symptom of aging is in some ways the ultimate feminist move.

“I take issue with the notion that men get to be distinguished when they go gray while it supposedly turns women into unlovable hags,” says Krista Garcia, a 41-year-old writer in Williamsburg who dyed her hair for 15 years before breaking up with her colorist.

Anne Kreamer, who covered up her grays for 25 years before finally committing to silver streaks at age 46, agrees that silver hair is a form of women’s lib. “I love the way I feel uniquely me versus my former cookie-cutter, one-of-thousands, average, brown-dyed, projected simulacrum of some younger version of me,” says Kreamer, a writer.

Of course, going gray also saves time and money. “It’s so much easier now not to have to dye my roots every 10 days,” says Ty Alexander, who runs gorgeousingrey.com, a beauty and lifestyle blog. The 37-year-old New Yorker gave up dyeing her hair 12 years ago. “It was a hassle trying to cover them. It’s liberating in that sense … accepting what you’ve been given whether society sees it as a flaw or not.”