Thursday 5 November 2009

A hair mystery

A tiny percentage of my hair has been white ever since I was 10 years old. It used to make me very self-conscious as a kid but I eventually grew out of it. Recently, I noticed a strange thing about some of my white hairs: about one out of every 5-10 strands of white hair was turning black again. Some strands were completely white while some had black ends with white roots. The rare ones (of which I have found about 10) have black ends, white middles and black roots. The length of the white middles varies between one inch and several inches.


I rarely dye my hair these days as I dislike the damage and dryness that hair coloring causes. My last dye job was over a year ago so more than half of my now chest-length hair is undyed. From what I've read, once hair turns white, it does not turn black again. I have absolutely no idea what causes this. Variance in stress levels maybe but I'm always quite easily high-strung, due to my job.


It's just bizarre!

17 comments:

Jamilla Camel said...

I am just like you!! I had a very slight widow's peak all my life, and now it's gray!

Citrine said...

I have seen that kind of hair on me as well(OK, one strand) but I never saw gray on me anyway...I am guessing one of those normal follicles just had a temporary nutrition shortage, creating white then the supply got back to hair again after a month or two...

I don't think a white hair can really turn black like that...I think the few gray ones you have just fell (since it's normal to lose 50-100 strands per day) and you never noticed the gray with black end before hand...then you suddenly notice the black-white-black when it fell off...

cewek said...

I know when I stress out I gain a couple of white hairs. The last time I got one it was at my hairdressers. He reckonned that it was my lucky charm and I should pull it out; when I got home, I asked my DH to pull it out anyways.

mandy said...

I have this problem too! I wonder if it's because of stress or if it's just hereditary. I gave up looking for those kind of hairs because it's usually on the bottom layers so it's not as noticeable.

Anonymous said...

Have you been eating new food or new health supplement lately?

Anonymous said...

My mother has grey hair at a very young age & now all her hair has turned grey. However, I was luckier & in my 30s now, I still do not have any grey hair although I am stress at work too & you know we ladies tend to have PMS every month. I guess in your case, it may have to do with changing hormones?

Tracy said...

I had 1-2 strands of that same issue. I think it could be due to the weather also. My hairdresser once told me that if there's too much sebum on the scalp it can affect healthy hair growth.

Haru said...

My diet has been the same, and I haven't started taking any new supplements. And if it was due to diet changes, I would think it would affect my hair evenly but instead I get a few strands with just an inch of white in between black sections and some strands with three to four inches of white in between black sections.

Hair is not supposed to turn black again after it turns white but I have found quite a few strands in the past few days. Some of the new black roots are also quite long, more than 3-4 inches which means that after turning white, they turned black again and has been that way for almost a year, given the rate at which my hair grows.

pinkdolphi1 said...

Hey so nice to meet u today! I don't see you've any white hair :p

Jaslyn

Haru said...

Hey Jaslyn,

It was a lovely surprised meeting you too! Thanks for calling out to me :-)
I've snipped off or plucked quite a few of the white hairs, and the rest are 'hidden' under the top layers ;-p really hate them!

Yumeko said...

ooh i have hair like that too
but then i dye my hair like crazy [as u already know]

it is strange indeed, i wonder why they do that

p.s by the way girl, u gotta let me know if u want me to help u get anything here <3

Anonymous said...

i think these black-white-black hair strands are like that due to variable environmental factors like stress, rather than being part of the ageing process - i think the latter will not reverse its color to black evere again

Anonymous said...

Hi! I had dat 'zebra' hair when I was secondary school and I might say it was the peak of stress for me that time. After sec sch phase, the hair went back to normal and now with the actual whole white as I stress myself with working life.

Don't worry!

Anonymous said...

hi, my hair is like that too..
my conclusion: when i am stress i notice i have more white hair, but as days goes by i ask myself to relax and i gradually notice my white hair turning black. that is white part nearer to the end and black part nearer to the roots. it's strange...although not on all white hairs but it occurs a few times before.. =)

Haru said...

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your experiences! It's good to know I'm not the only one. Yeah, thinking back, maybe it was because I was really stressed out a few months ago.

makeupmag said...

Reverse hair aging...so cool, Iris! :D

Anonymous said...

omg im exactly the same!
i dont know why it does that though
so u really think stress can have so great an effect though?