THE HAIRPOLITAN MAGAZINE VOL 6 MAY 2017

KNOW - HAIR
Twist Outs
“
THERE ARE
REALLY NO LINKS
TO ONSET OF
GREYING DUE TO
STRESS, DIET OR
LIFESTYLE
“
Images via www. 123rf.com
GREY IS THE
NEW BLACK
by Evie Dondi
You wake up one day, go through your daily morning
routine and when you get to the part where you
scrutinize yourself in the mirror, you freeze. You see
a silver/grey hair – one hair and that’s it, your brain
goes into a semi-panic state wondering, should you
grab some tweezers and pluck it? Then you remember
the grapevine information that states if you pull it,
more will appear and that’s what you are avoiding.
Then it dawns on you, but why? Why do you fear
having greys/silvers? You are not alone. According
to a survey by Crown Clinic, the UK’s leading hair
transplant clinic, 72% of women dread the sight of
their first grey hair.
So what’s the science behind greying? It is as a result
of the reduction of pigment and as you age. Chances
of going grey increase anywhere from 10% - 20% every
decade after you hit the 30year mark. Hair, believe it
or not, is originally white and gets its pigment from
melanin. There are two types of melanin responsible
for the array of hair colors we see, dark (eumelanin)
and light (phaeomelanin). Specialized pigment cells
called melanocytes position themselves at the skin’s
surface as the hair grows. During the formation of
hair, these melanocytes inject melanin into the cells
containing keratin. Keratin is known as the protein
that makes up skin, hair and nails.
The hair follicle has a melanogenic clock and as
we age this clock slows or stops all together the
melanocyte activity. This in turn reduces the amount
of melanin that the hair receives, thus it turns
grey. How soon the clock slows or stops is entirely
controlled by age and genes, thus explaining the
different rates at which we all grey. In 2009, scientists
discovered that a slow build up hydrogen peroxide,
produced by hair follicles, in the hair shaft, lead to
a gradual loss of color. (FASEB Journal, v. 23, July
2009: 2065-2075)
We’ve all heard the saying ‘teenagers will give
you grey hair’ but apparently there really no links
to onset of greying due to stress, diet or lifestyle.
However, an interesting factor that lends a hand to
greying is race. In a survey of 4,000 people from
around the world published in 2012 by the British
Journal of Dermatology, 74% of those between the
ages of 45-65 had grey hair. People of Asian and
African American decent had less grey hair at any
age than Caucasians.
Lifestyle choice is another factor that speeds up
greying of hair. According to a report in 2013 in the
Indian Dermatology Journal, smokers are two and
a half times more likely to start greying before the
age of 30 than smokers. Looking for a reason to quit
smoking? Well now you have it!
The idea of women going grey/silver always receives
mixed reactions and sometimes there’s a double
standard. See, its ‘OK’ for men to grey early or rather
gracefully and they even get sexy names such as the
‘Salt & Pepper’ look. On the flip side, for women,
there’s this social pressure to keep the hair colored
as a sign of youth or vibrancy. Many women have
reported feeling a need to keep looking youthful in
order to maintain a successful career path. In any
case it’s unfair. Additionally the hair market seems
to subscribe to the same ageist agenda and dozens
of hair dyes on the market are specifically made to
cover up errant grey. However, the social pressure
that befalls a woman who decides to let her hair do
what it will naturally is slowly lifting and in fact grey
is the new black.
The new trend was first spotted on runways in 2014
and is now spreading like wild fire across the globe.
Grey has now gone from symbolizing aging to being
a symbol of high fashion. This swap in representation
has also lessened the stigma of aging and allowed
older women to embrace the process. In the words
of Erykah Badu, “Body and brain have aged. My
consciousness has witnessed this, yet has not aged.
This “awareness” is who we are.”
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