Go Away Gray!!!

While I was blow-drying my hair today (and thinking how MUCH gray I have) I began thinking about how many of my (young)friends have to color their hair to cover over the gray. I have had gray hair since I was a young teenager and had to start coloring it to cover the gray when I was about 20. I am on a mission now...I want to research and find out just why it is that some of us turn gray SO early. I'm sure some of it is genetics, but is that it or is it something we are doing (or not doing?) Everyone associates gray hair with "old" but when people in their early twenties are turning gray, you certainly can't call them old! So, if any of you know anything about this...please do tell. Otherwise, I will be researching the subject and will let you know what I find out!

Okay, I did my research and I decided to just attach it to this post from yesterday rather than create a new one. It's rather boring---what I found out. Apparently, we can't blame ANY of our gray on our kids or husbands or stress. It's pretty much ALL our parent's faults! ha ha Anyway, here is my mini-research paper on gray hair.

Contrary to popular belief, gray hair is not always related to ones age. Gray hair can occur as young as in our teens and continue on throughout our lives.

Everybody is different, but the pigment of our hair is generated in the same way. The cells in our hair follicles generate a pigment called Melanin. This gives our hair its "Color". when these cells stop producing the pigment the result is transparent hair. The transparent hair agaisnt your healthier, darker hair gives the appearance of gray. In reality, the hair is not gray but transparent.

The main reason for our hair behaving this way is heredity. If your mom or dad started going gray at a young age then the chances are you may also suffer from premature gray hair. As we get older the cells in our hair start producing less pigment until there is no pigment at all in the hair.

While age does play a large part in the graying process, there are other factors that can change the pigmentation of hair, making it lighter or darker. Scientists have divided them by intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external).
Intrinsic factors include: Genetic defects, hormones, body distribution and age.
Extrinsic factors include: Climate, pollutants, toxins, chemical exposure.

Here are some hair-raising facts I discovered:

* An average scalp has 100,000-150,000 hairs.

* Hair is so strong that each hair can withstand the strain of 100 grams (3.5 oz). An average head of hair could hold 10-15 tons if only the scalp was strong enough!

* Human hair grows autonomously, that is each hair is on its own individual cycle. If all our hair were on the same cycle, we would molt!

* Hair has the highest rate of mitosis (cell division). An average hair grows 0.3 mm a day and 1 cm per month.

So, not all that interesting. Nothing I found cited stress as a cause of gray hair, which really surprised me. Usually stress "hurts" all parts of our being...but I guess not our hair. Anyway, hope you found this to be a little enlightening!