Grey Hair

Apparently no one knows why we get grey hair or more accurately, why we stop producing the melanin that gives hair it's colour.

The old wives tale of it being related to stress has yet to be proven. I can fully believe however that a stressed individual will possibly be exhibiting behaviours that aren't conducive to 'normal' hair growth like not eating well, smoking etc. But the idea that it's a direct link still is a bit far for me. Primarily because I have grey hair.

I've counted a grand total of 5 'white' hairs. One really long mama, one about an inch, and the rest are in my temple hair. All of which are in the same front left quadrant of my head. Friends can't see anything from the back. When I first told my niece (same age as me) that I had them about a year ago just casually in conversation, she was stunned and thought I must be super stressed. I'm not, and I wasn't. If my hair colour was directly related to my stress levels I would have had a full head of white hair when I was 21.

Biologically, my fathers side all had grey hair in a front quadrant from what I imagine was a relatively young age, 40 ish. My issue is, when should we actually expect to get grey hair? Does anyone even no anymore? I had a couple of grey hairs coming and going since I was about 16. I've never dyed my hair, but a lot of young girls do obviously. Could more people be getting grey hair in their 20's and we just don't know because we artificially change our hair in one way or another all the time?

There was a lady on the train with her son yesterday, she must have been 37 at a high push. She had a good inch of grey roots showing against dyed brown hair. And I thought, lets just say she's a normal every day person who is relatively healthy, if she really has gone fully grey, are most people grey? Or at least is it much more common at a much earlier age than we actually know?

As far as I know it doesn't seem to be a problem for men, they look distinguished as they get older. I don't know what men think of women with grey hair, surely if your face and your general mannerisms still reflect your age (or the age you feel), how much of a big deal is it? And also how you wear your hair as well. My white hairs are still good quality hairs so my hair styles still rock, is it that some people's grey hair loses it's manageability or is it that people give up caring for their hair in the same way once it goes grey? thus then making you old (the rusty dusty kind not my granny still looks amazing in her church dress and wig kind).

I have a lot of questions as you can tell. I don't know if I'll ever get answers for them. I've never been drawn to dying my hair and it doesn't entice me now, always a possibility that could change in the future but I like to think it won't, mostly because I don't know if my fine hair can take a relaxer as well as hair dye.

Also it isn't lost on me that age and aging keeps popping in my head with my milestone birthday coming up. I like to think as long as people keep getting my age wrong in both directions, I'm probably doing ok.