Older women and hair

As I was buying strawberries today the saleswoman (a woman in her fifties) complimented me on my hair and said that she used to have long hair like that as well (mine is just below my waist; hers is just below her shoulders) and would have liked to continue that way, but it's somehow unappropriate/unbecoming for an older woman. I would have dissmissed it as a single case of weirdness, but last weekend I ran into another saleswoman (also about 50 and with hair just below her shouldres) who said the exact same thing. Is this some kind of common cultural thing that I had never heard about before? Or is this a new trend?

And in either case why do they feel the need to follow the trend even though it goes against their own wishes?

Today's saleswoman was Finnish and the one from the last weekend was Russian.