Table of contents:
- How can hair turn white?
- Various myths and facts about gray hair
- Having gray hair means that you are old
- When you pluck out one gray hair, many more will grow
- Gray hair is stronger than black hair
- Lack of vitamin B can increase the growth of gray hair
- You can return the gray color to black again without painting it
- Smoking can speed up the appearance of gray hair
Has gray hair started to grow in your hair? Have you ever been asked by your father to pull out a lot of gray hair with tweezers? Some people believe that plucking gray hair will actually make it multiply. Is this true? Then is it true that you will only turn gray when you are old? Check out the following explanation.
How can hair turn white?
Hair grows on a structure of the scalp called a follicle. There are an average of 100,000 to 150,000 follicles on one human scalp.
Our hair is basically white. The color that hair has is due to the presence of melanin, a pigment that also gives skin its color. Melanin consists of 2 types of dark melanin (eumelanin) and light melanin (phaeomelanin).
Melanin is made in a pigment cell called melanosites. In the process of forming hair, melanosites play a role in injecting melanin into cells that contain keratin (a protein that plays a role in the formation of human nails, hair and skin). Gray hair is formed due to a lack of melanin, as a colorant. Thus, some of the factors that cause a person's hair to be dark and bright include genetics, hormones, age, climate, pollution, and exposure to chemicals.
Various myths and facts about gray hair
Having gray hair means that you are old
Not quite true. Gray hair is formed because your hair lacks melanin, the pigment that gives your hair its color. The melanin contained in the hair of each person is different. That is why, there are some people whose hair has turned gray even though they are still 25 years old, while others do not have gray hair even when they are 50 years old.
When you pluck out one gray hair, many more will grow
Wrong. A doctor revealed that only one hair will grow from one follicle, and the hair around the gray hair will not be affected by turning white, considering that gray hair occurs because the pigment in the follicle has died. So, if you pull out one gray hair, new gray hair will still grow later, because the pigment cells no longer produce the pigment to grow black hair. But still, only one, not a multiplicity, grows.
Care should be taken when pulling hair out. This is because pulling hair can provide trauma to the hair, and repeated trauma can cause infection, injury, and potentially baldness.
Gray hair is stronger than black hair
Not quite true. It is still uncertain whether the diameter of gray hair is thicker or thinner than black hair. However, some literature explains that, the usual light on the gray color is able to make it look thicker.
Lack of vitamin B can increase the growth of gray hair
Correct. The presence of gray hair in someone who is still 35 years old is mostly due to the lack of vitamin B5 in the person's body.
You can return the gray color to black again without painting it
Wrong. No research has yet supported this assumption. Once hair changes color because the pigment dies, it will remain the same color forever.
Smoking can speed up the appearance of gray hair
Correct. There are several studies that have been able to reveal that the gray hair of acute active smokers appears faster than secondhand smoke.
ALSO READ:
- 7 Foods to Reduce Hair Loss from Within
- 8 Unexpected Causes of Hair Loss
- Does Mutual Shampoo Make Hair Damaged?