3 Reasons Why Women Turn Gray Sooner (and How To Stop It)

Gray hair has ceased to be a shame, becoming a fashionable independent shade. Today on Instagram you will find over 2 million hashtags for "gray hair" (#greyhair). Popular today and "grombre" (ombre dyeing on gray hair). Women confidently defend the right to painlessly grow gray and white roots, and not to mask them with shamefaced tint dyes.

Salt, pepper, silver, charcoal - the shades of gray are innumerable. And even if you haven't thought about it yet, the hour will strike. If earlier gray hair was the lot of 40-year-olds, today girls at 20 find them in their homes. A study by colorists at John Frieda found that today 32% of British women under 30 are turning gray.

Why does hair turn gray?

The natural hair color is determined by the pigment that the cells reproduce - we are talking about the melanin contained in the hair shaft, more precisely, its varieties (for blondes and redheads it is pheomelanin, for brunettes and brown-haired women it is eumelanin). When the cells stop doing their useful activity, the hair color loses its intensity. Doctors do not relate the rate of appearance and spread of gray hair specifically with age, noting, first of all, the effect on the body of genetics and stress. Interestingly, they do not deny the racial factor. According to medical observations, representatives of the Caucasian peoples begin to turn gray first - at the beginning of their third decade, Asians - towards the end of their 30s, African Americans - after forty. The Slavs are traditionally distinguished by their individuality.

The trend is gray hair and "grombre"

Helen Mirren

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A new cause of gray hair - "sick" hair

Increasingly, doctors began to associate early gray hair not only with the state of the body, but also with the "well-being" of the hair. Poor ecology, an abundance of styling and a variety of styling accessories, lack of time for full care of the length of curls and scalp leads to the fact that the condition of the hair is rapidly deteriorating. The main mistakes in this direction:

we do not choose the right care products (meanwhile, over the years, not only the skin of the face, but also of the head grows old ─ we read How hair grows old and what to do about it);
we do not clean the scalp well enough of styling products or even neglect washing, trusting the presentable look of hair to dry shampoo (it has already been proven that its abuse leads to thinning hair);
we constantly injure our hair - chemical dyes, too dense rubber bands, bad combs. As a result, the hair follicles, which are responsible for the growth and normal condition of the hair, break down and cease to perform their functions (including supplying kerotine and helping cells to reproduce melanin).

But the situation is fixable. Here are 4 ways to avoid (or slow down) early gray hair.

Quit smoking. Research shows that smokers are 4 times more likely to experience early gray hair than non-smokers. Smoking is directly related to the activation of oxidative processes in the body, which is caused by free radicals - do not forget that their number increases with each puff.
Take vitamin B12. The fact that its low level in the body forcibly stops the process of melanin production in hair cells has long been proven.
Nourish your hair. Masks and serums will help here. A weekly diet - at least one intensely nourishing mask and 2-3 doses of a moisturizing serum. However, correctly applying a mask to your hair is a separate science (for more details ─ How to use a hair mask correctly).
Wear your hair loose. Or at least balance the ratio of "loose strands" - "gathered in a ponytail / braid / bun". If you collect your hair every day, especially with an abundance of hairpins, invisible hairpins and hairpins, then mechanical damage is inevitable. They lead to trauma to the scalp, which, in turn, leads to early graying.

Photo: Getty Images