Makeup Files

I’m 26 and inching ever closer to discovering my first gray. I’m dreading it.

A few weeks ago, I was leaning down to get something and my mom, who was standing in front of my and had a clear view of the top of my head, yelled…

“You have a gray hair!”

I practically had a mini heart attack. Yeah, there are plenty things worse than gray hair (swine flu?), but I’m just really not looking forward to aging.

Luckily, she couldt find it after her exclamation, so I’m choosing to believe that it was just an illusion.

Did you know that gray hair comes during different times in life based on your ethnicity?

• Caucasian: Mid 30s
• Asian: Late 30s
• Black: Late 40s

Lovely. My Caucasian heritage means early grays.

Regardless of your heritage, grays can happen at any time. My brother started getting gray hairs when he was in high school!

What to do when you get gray hair

Noticed some grays? Here’s your options:

• Pluck it. The old wives’ tale that the hair will grow back two in it’s place is FALSE. Still, this is only viable if you have a few grey hairs. You really don’t want to pluck out your whole head of hair, do you?
• Ignore it. Gray hair is natural. Why ignore something that’s a part of life? Go ahead and let that beautiful gray hair blow in the wind!
• Dye it. Okay, you don’t want gray hair. No big deal. You can always dye it.

Dying your gray hair

If you’ve decided to dye your gray hair, there’s some things you need to keep in mind. For instance, gray hair is actually a lack of color, and not a color change. It’s because the melanin in the hair follicles has stopped.

Sometimes when you dye your hair, your regular non-gray hairs will dye the right color, and the grays will just turn a lightened shade. It sort of looks like highlights. Thing is, this can be obvious and not the desired look.

Try for hair dyes that explicitly say they work on gray hair. Because not all dyes do. If you do that, you should end up with a full head of hair that’s all the same wonderful color.

Hair dye suggestion

I’ve heard that Clairol Natural Instincts Hair Color does pretty darn well for grays.

See in the picture, at the bottom right? It says ‘covers gray naturally.’ Make sure to look for that when you go dye shopping.

And if you need help with the home hair dying experience, I’ve got some good tips for you: Home Hair Dying 101.