Cindy Crawford Wants Her Daughter Kaia's Hair Color: 'I Am Taking You to the Colorist!'

The supermodel, 51, opens up about aging (and the effects it has on her hair!) in a new interview with PEOPLE magazine

“Whose hair is this?” That’s the question Cindy Crawford found herself wondering when she looked in the mirror as she got older.

“No one warns you that your hair changes so much,” the supermodel, 51, tells PeopleStyle during an interview featured in the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. “I knew I was going to have start coloring it, but I didn’t realize the texture was going to change. That was one of the biggest surprises about aging.”

When Crawford does go to the colorist, she has a very specific shade in mind — the color she used to have, and the hue her 15-year-old daughter Kaia Gerber has now. “I try to color my hair so that it looks natural,” she says. “I look at my daughter’s hair and I am like you have my old hair and that is what I want, so I am taking you to the colorist!”

Nicholas Hunt/Getty

In any case, she’s more mindful of taking care of her strands these days. “I am fortunate because I still have a ton of hair but I am less likely to use a lot of heat on it,” she says. “I put it up in a topknot so if I do have a quick blow-dry, it helps the blow-dry last another day so I don’t have to put more heat on it.”

She also uses hair masks. Her favorites include Lush’s Jasmine and Henna Fluff-Eaze (“I put it on when I am working out and it smells really good and then after I work out I wash my hair,” she says), as well as Kevin.Murphy’s Young.Again. “It’s a serum for the ends and I just love the name. When I put it on, I’m like, ‘OK, make me young again!’”

Lush; Kevin Murphy

Overall, she says aging in the public eye can be challenging. “I guess I don’t have a choice,” she says. “My only thing is that no one on social media needs to point out how I’m aging. I know. The aspect of our society that wants to criticize everyone else saddens me.”

So when it comes to posting pictures on her Instagram account @cindycrawford, which boasts 1.9 million followers, she doesn’t hold back, often putting up images fully makeup-free. She owes this confidence to her flawless skin, which she takes care of with products from her own line, Meaningful Beauty. She launched the beauty line more than a decade ago with Dr. Sebagh Jean-Louis, and now she swears by her Wrinkle Smoothing Capsules and Ultra Lifting and Filling Treatment to keep her skin looking hydrated and healthy.

Meaningful Beauty

“That’s one of the advantages of taking care of your skin — you don’t feel like you have to cover it up with makeup,” says Crawford. “I don’t want to only present myself in one way, so when people see me in person, they’re like, ‘Wow, she looks nothing like her pictures.’”

“I feel so fortunate,” she adds. “I am strong. I work out. I am healthy. I try to focus on that as opposed to picking myself apart.”

For more of our exclusive interview with Cindy Crawford, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

With reporting by Jackie Fields