Gray Hairs: Where the heck do they come from?!?!



I've been watching verrry carefully, but I can't find evidence of any "transition" from black to gray. It's EITHER/OR. When I go to sleep, there are no gray hairs. When I wake up, there are multiple gray hairs! I don't get it!! I don't have ANY half black/half white hairs so it's not that the pigment just craps out NOR do I have any brown or faded black hairs. They appear out of nowhere!! There's only one answer:

























It's magic.

I call them highlights.

Just one of many reasons why I shave my head.

It's just called magic....I'm very magical when I don't see my hairstylist...LOL

The pigment cells in hair get less and less over time. The fewer pigment cells in a strand of hair, the less melanin it has to give it color.

i have one.

and its one thick white hair in my bangs that sticks up curly cue style.

i pluck it every time i see it.

and no... 3 more didn't grow in. :p

It IS weird!! I know what he means. It's not like they all just start to grow in and start showing grey. Sometimes, what was a dark hair suddenly becomes completely depleted of color, like it went away over night.

Now, nutritionists are touting all sorts of things about taking melatonin, and one of the things stated was that it can cause the hair to stop going grey or as grey. I dunno!!!

You remember when we had the Tooth Fairy come by and take our teeth from under our pillows when we were fast asleep?

Well, in this economy, and with kids expecting at least a couple bucks for a tooth, the Tooth Fairy had to pick up a second job working for Father Time.

And thusly, she(or he) comes into our rooms at night, and sprinkles old age dust onto our pillows, and when we roll over onto... *POOF* some more gray hairs.

Here's how it works:

The root of every strand of hair is surrounded by a tube of tissue under the skin. This is the hair follicle. Each hair follicle contains a certain number of pigment cells. These pigment cells continuously produce a chemical called melanin that gives the growing shaft of hair its color of brown, blonde, red, and anything in between.

Melanin is the same stuff that makes our skin's color fair or darker. It also helps determine whether a person will burn or tan in the sun. The dark or light color of someone's hair depends on how much melanin each hair contains.

As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. When there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, that strand of hair will no longer contain as much melanin and will become a more transparent color - like gray, silver, or white - as it grows. As people continue to get older, fewer pigment cells will be around to produce melanin. Eventually, the hair will look completely gray.

Thus endeth the lesson for the day.

They could all turn gray and I would never shave my head.

Yep. As long as they don't fall out, they can turn any color they want.

The reason you don't get single strand that are half and half is because hair falls out. The new, paler hair grows in from the hair folicle.

It's even worse when something very depressing and shocking happens. When my father passed away...i got a whole bunch turning grey at once, out of nowhere. It's in one stack right up front, someone actually asked me if I dyed it. I did not believe this sudden change almost overnight, until I experienced it myself.

The hoarfrost of age is the rime of icy death reaching out to gather mortality into its relentless grasp. Its power drags us backwards from the eternal luster of youth, pulling the essence of life into the soil from whence life arises. We grow in youth, bloom in young maturity, ripen to fruitfulness and then go to seed. As the shafts of wheat and corn give up their purpose when the growth matured, so too do people wane away--unless they plan, and fight to live harder, and longer, and then the graying or whitening hairs and loss of youth is replaced with the vigorous strength of determination. That is life by plan, by design, and is far more dependable and stable than the happenstance of exuberant youth. Choose your path to find comfort at night, knowing that the graying visitor will fit well with the life of choice that greets you each morning and is at peace with your dreams.

Live long, and prosper.

My hair's chestnut/red, as such, it will probably never turn grey, but rather sandy. Woo hoo, let's hear it for sand!!

Everytime I get a haircut I ask the girl to cut all the gray out. And everytime she tells me that I would be bald if she did.

I think she's kidding me.

One of these days I'll find one that will do it.

And I'll marry her!

You're SUCH a nerd.

I hate it when they get stuck between ..........

As far as I know, I don't have any grey hairs (yet). However, I didn't catch the news report, but they advertised that they have a 'cure' for grey hair!

"If there's a cure for this, I don't want it" Diana Ross & The Supremes