When do people go gray

I was really on the fence, yet I didn't feel particularly rushed to conceal my grays. What did you do about them? Color them or leave them as is? I left them, and I've been embracing each and every single gray hair. After giving birth, they started to grow with more intensity. Maybe because of the stress of being a new mom. My ability to embrace this change is largely because of how other Black women with gray hair have celebrated this transformation, pouring into me with kindness and support.

I've even had a few people question whether my gray streak is actually "real" because it's growing in so "perfectly. Do you think this will change in the future? Why or why not? I don't think my love for my gray hairs will change in the future, as I've never colored my hair besides a temporary purple hair wax that simply magnified my silver strands and have had conversations with different hairstylists on treatments and braiding style I can use to make them stand out even more.

They're here now, and that's OK! I noticed my first gray hair in college. I was horrified and used to pluck them individually. For a while in my 20s I embraced it as sort of a silver fox thing, but by the time I hit my mid-thirties I realized they were just looking dull and frizzy, so I decided to start dying my hair.

For years, I had it colored professionally, but during the pandemic I've been doing it myself using over-the-counter semi-permanent dye, and honestly, I might never go back! The maintenance is exhausting. I have dreams of cutting it all off and going all gray, Jamie Lee Curtis style. I was around 40 years old when I found my first grays.

Honestly, I didn't expect to have gray hairs at such a young age. I color my hair when the grays became really obvious. I will continue to color my hair for now. Maybe, I'll stop coloring it when I am 70 years old. I've seen older women with heads full of white hair and I think it looks beautiful! I was in my early 20s when I first started noticing strands of gray. I have dark brown hair so even one strand is easy to find.

I thought it was quite novel when I first noticed them. As the number of grays increased along with my age, I started to consider dying my hair to cover them up. I thought about dying my hair several times, but I have never colored my hair before and so there wasn't a precedent. I think if I had a prior relationship with hair color, I may have been more open to the idea.

The idea of having to introduce a new maintenance plan to prevent gray roots from showing is unappealing. My initial reasonings were simply upkeep and cost, but then, as I entered my 30s, my choice to stay natural unintentionally evolved into a counter-culture statement. I have had many women both friends and strangers comment on my choice and say that it "looked great" and was "inspiring". And so, this fueled my decision to stay grey and bolstered a sense of pride for "going against the patriarchy that expects me to cover up or fix any sign of my aging DNA.

I don't know, but I would be lying if I said I haven't thought about it. I am not married to the idea of staying in one lane for the rest of my life when it comes to hair color.

The most important thing is that whatever I choose, it is something that brings me joy. I first noticed them in my 30s: wiry gray kinks sprouting from the roots of my waist-length dreadlocks. At first, they were a novelty. But as I moved into my forties, not so much! They started to make me feel old. Back then, the only woman with gray dreadlocks I knew of was Toni Morrison. And she wore them well.

But I was too young to look like Toni Morrison! I dyed them black for years. By my late 40s, I was spending almost an entire day at the salon every two weeks just to keep the grays at bay. So, on my 49th birthday, I made an appointment with my stylist, who cut my hair into a TWA teeny-weeny afro , which I planned to grow out into a silver halo of hair. Now my hair journey has come full circle. Back in when she cut my dreads, my stylist had encouraged me to keep them. And three years ago, she permanently reattached all 80!

I am now 72 and first noticed gray hairs in my mid-forties. I was not overly upset, but I had always thought that one of my best features was my very dark brown hair. My hair is quite thin and fine, but the color was good, so it was an asset. I started to color my grays at home, sporadically, back to my natural dark color. Eventually, I started seeing a professional for single-process coloring.

I continue to do that. Of course, the pandemic has limited my visits to the hairdresser, and I have only been able to go in once since February. I am doing at-home touchups and they are working out okay. I miss my dark hair, but it is not a big deal. I will continue to get highlights for the foreseeable future. If I had thick enough hair to cut it short and look good, I would consider going fully gray, but I am not there yet. This analysis revealed that the times when graying or reversal occurred corresponded to periods of significant stress or relaxation.

In one individual, a year-old man with auburn hair, five strands of hair underwent graying reversal during the same time span, which coincided with a two-week vacation. Another subject, a year-old woman with black hair, had one strand that contained a white segment that corresponded to two months during which she underwent marital separation and relocation—her highest-stress period in the year.

For now, the next step is to look more carefully at the link between stress and graying. Picard, Paus and their colleagues are currently putting together a grant to conduct another study that would examine changes in hair and stress levels prospectively—which means tracking participants over a specified period of time rather than asking them to recall life events from the past.

Eventually, Picard says, one could envision hair as a powerful tool to assess the effects of earlier life events on aging—because, much like the rings of a tree, hair provides a kind of physical record of elapsed events.

Diana Kwon is a freelance journalist who covers health and the life sciences. She is based in Berlin. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American.

First, at the Golden Globes, Jessica Biel, 36, walked the red carpet with a few subtle gray streaks in the front of her updo. Then, at the Grammys , Katie Holmes who is 40 had a few silver slivers peeking through parts of her dark hair.

My Cruella dreams are coming true! What makes this movement feel so revolutionary, though, is that it's not about something influencers getting ashy, faded, Instagrammable silver blonds. It's about women owning what happens to us naturally.

I thought, Well, I have this naturally, so I might as well go for it. But that doesn't mean the transition is easy. Despite the supportive networks on social media, women say they're still feeling pressure from friends and family who are stuck in antiquated mind-sets. Louis, MO, stopped coloring her hair at 38 after going gray at 22 and now documents her progress at nellegreyz , says, shockingly, that it was women who gave her a harder time about her transition than men.

They couldn't believe I'd let my hair look so 'old. In some cases that only strengthened their resolve though. And then there are more surprising barriers to make it happen, like finding a colorist who agrees to help. The women featured on it helped her stick to it, even though she's been tempted to color it back.

But I remember how much upkeep it is. Will I ever color my hair again? Actress: It's like you took off 10 years. Actor: And in just five minutes.

Man: Just For Men. She'll love the way you look. Flanagan: So why does it happen? Jennifer Chwalek: The process of hair changing from darker color to white or gray with age is mainly due to genetics. It can be inherited from either parent.

The color of our hair is determined by the form of hair pigment that we have. The pigment is actually produced along the hair shaft, and there are two main forms of hair pigment. There's eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin is what we see in brunettes and darker-haired people, and pheomelanin is what we see in blonds and redheads. The cells in our hair bulb produce a little bit of hydrogen peroxide, which is a metabolic byproduct, and typically there's an enzyme called catalase that breaks this down to water and oxygen.

But as we age, there's declining levels of catalase, and this allows the build-up of hydrogen peroxide in the hair bulb, which damages and destroys the melanocytes, or the pigment-producing cells, of our hair. Flanagan: So I wanted you to take a look at my colleague Joe here.