Premature gray hair seems so unfair: why do some of us enjoy our natural colors well into old age, while others have to follow a regular dye routine to hide white hair as early as age 20? But what causes white hair at a young age and is it possible to delay graying? As a professional trichologist, I have the ultimate answers for you.
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Before we move on to the discussion of early gray hair, it is worth consulting hair science to understand what a norm is and why hair turns white in the first place.
Our hair gets its color from a special pigment present in the hair follicles: melanin. Melanin in turn consists of specialized pigment cells; they gradually die as we age, causing our hair to lose its color, turn gray and eventually white. This is why graying is one of the normal changes that hair undergoes as we age.
Normal graying begins in the mid-30s for white women, the late 30s for Asian women, and the mid-40s for African American women. Random white hairs are becoming more common and by the age of 50, women already have a significant amount of gray hair on their heads.
