Gray Hair Treatment

You must have heard stories of people who experienced a sudden shock or trauma and their hair turned gray virtually overnight. Many of such stories go back many years if not centuries ago but there are also some cases from more recent past. Since the hair on our head is made of dead keratin it cannot change color suddenly without external chemical influence such as the bleaching agent or hair color. Therefore, if any such sudden transition from pigmented to gray hair happened overnight it must have been through a sudden loss of hair.

Hence, one plausible explanation is that this sudden change in hair color is caused by telogen effluvium. Such a change can happen in a person who has a blend of white and pigmented hair. As long as there is not too much of the white hair in this blend it may be hardly noticeable. Now, telogen effluvium comes in play. Telogen effluvium is a sudden loss of hair that can be sparked off by various factors with shock, trauma or extreme stress being some of them. A person can lose a significant portion of ones hair within days as a result of this condition. If you realize that white hair is usually thicker, courser and more resistant to external factors than regular pigmented hair it can be assumed that telogen effluvium mainly affects the pigmented hair. The result is the sudden loss of the large portion of the pigmented hair, which gives the impression of person’s hair suddenly turning gray.

There is a widespread confusion about our ability to reverse gray hair. A number of commercial products make unfounded claims of being able to reverse gray hair naturally. Reversing gray hair naturally is widely understood as reversing the graying process from within. Most of the products that claim to do so are of natural origin and thus also claim to be carrying no health risks. However, there are some products, often called progressive hair colorants that make claims of reversing gray hair naturally too, which in this case means they add no extra color to your hair just bring back your natural hair color. Let us have a look at such claims:

1) As regards the ability of some nutritional pills to reverse gray hair from within such claims seem completely unfounded. No herb, herbal extract, vitamin, mineral or dietary supplement or their combination have been proven to date to reverse the graying process. Scientists on all continents are relentlessly searching for such substance but nothing is currently available yet and any such claims are purely made up to sell their overpriced products. However, in some instances in people suffering from vitamin B deficiency a dietary increase of vitamin B intake can help reverse their gray hair.

2) Progressive hair colorants do not reverse the graying process either. All they do is to color your hair from outside. Their claims of reversing gray hair naturally are due to the fact that they use no artificial pigments and therefore are not suitable for all colors and shades. However, for people whose hair is in the shades of black and white that is between blond and black but not brown or red these products really make the impression of reversing their hair color naturally. This is different from hair colors that always change your original color to a certain degree. If your hair color is between blond and black progressive hair colorants will not affect the color of your pigmented hair which gives you very natural impression. Additionally, progressive hair colorants, as their name indicates, change your hair color gradually which appears to be more natural than a sudden change you get from regular hair dyes.

However, to conclude, there is no product available yet that can really reverse your grey hair naturally as most people would understand such statement.

The scientists have found out recently that the lack of enzyme catalase can cause white hair. This enzyme is present in many living organisms and its role is to enable the conversion of hydrogen peroxide in water. Hydrogen peroxide is an aggressive chemical substance often used to bleach hair. The lack of this enzyme has been shown to lead to gray hair as there is too much hydrogen peroxide building up in our hair follicles and thus we bleach our hair from within. If too much damage is caused to our hair follicles by hydrogen peroxide other enzymes that are responsible for repairing this damage are in short supply. And what makes matters even worse is that the lack of these enzymes called MSR A and MSR B leads to disruption of the production of the enzyme tyrosinase, which is needed for hair pigment production. This is a vicious circle speeding up hair graying process.

Although this discovery is extremely revealing it is not conclusive that the lack of enzyme catalase it is the only factor causing gray hair. There are some people living in this world who suffer from a complete lack of the enzyme catalase (this syndrome is called acatalase) and yet their hair does not seem to be all white. Hence, there must be some other contributing factor to the final formula that causes our hair turning prematurely gray.

The most common way of dealing with gray hair is to cover it. It may not seem to be the most elegant solutions to many people but it is the most effective way of getting rid of your gray. However, many people believe they can turn the clock backwards and reverse their gray hair naturally. Although no herb, vitamin or mineral has ever been shown to reverse gray hair the business with guaranteed products that promise you impossible is booming. Most of such products will contain B vitamins as premature gray hair in some individuals can be caused by vitamin B deficiency. The problem with extra intake of vitamin B is that it will not help an average gray hair sufferer as most of us have no deficiency in B vitamins.

However, there is one herb, Fo-Ti also known as He shou wu that you can find in almost any anti-gray hair pill on the market. This herb is also widely available in chemists shops as a herbal supplement. The story of Fo-Ti’s positive impact on graying hair goes more than 10 centuries back as Mr He, an old Chinese villager used this plant to reverse his gray hair. He was about 60 years old at the time and had no children. The story goes that he managed to reverse his gray and fathered children at a very ripe age and lived to be 130. Ever since gray hair reversing properties are attributed to it. Fo-Ti is not only valued for its ability to reverse white hair as it been used in China as a youth tonic for thousands of years. The truth, however, is that is not effective in reversing gray hair at all and any product you buy, containing Fo-Ti as its prime active ingredient is a waste of your time and money. The only effect from taking Fo-Ti pills will be slight diarrhoea and a possible weight loss.

Gray hair is widely associated with aging. In some people the first gray hair can emerge as early as in their teens. This is considered as premature and in many of those people it will inevitably lead to developing large gray areas in their late twenties and often turning their hair almost completely gray in their late thirties. If person’s hair is more than 50% grey by the age of 40 it is considered premature. Many people believe that premature gray hair is caused by unhealthy lifestyle, bad diet, extreme stress or vitamin deficiency. Although in some people this assumption may reflect the truth, in the most cases premature gray hair appears to be genetically determined as it does not seem to be influenced by any external factor. Despite that many premature gray hair sufferers reach for vitamins and nutritional supplement pills hoping to improve their condition.

But there are so many products claiming to reverse gray hair out there so why should not you try them. The fact is that they won’t do anything to reverse your graying process nor stopping it. There is no existing empirical or scientific evidence proving that any vitamin or nutritional supplement can slow down the graying process, let alone to halt it. However, there are people suffering from chronic vitamin B deficiency and in those patients vitamin B shots or extra intake of B vitamin can improve their condition. But no vitamin can help reverse gray hair in a normal healthy person.

It needs to be made clear that genetically determined, premature gray hair has not been found to be associated with any other health condition and no matter when your hair starts turning gray this will not have any impact on your overall health condition or life expectancy. Nevertheless, none of us wants to turn gray at an early age. So if vitamins cannot help you what can? The answer will not please you but there is nothing you can do at the moment to halt or reverse the graying process naturally and the only remaining option is to color you hair. There are plenty of options that were and will be discussed on this blog, but for god’s sake do not believe that a couple of vitamin pills can reverse your gray hair. You are wasting your money and making a fool of yourself.

The main methods of non-surgical hair replacement today involve the use of hair systems and hair loss concealers. Various types of hair systems such as full wigs, hairpieces, hair extensions, toupees and weaves can look extremely authentic and have been used for ages to cover bald spots and typically with good rates of success. However, their main weaknesses are high maintenance costs and, in a number of situations, the discomfort of wearing them. Hair loss concealers and hair thickeners on the other hand have been around for a shorter period of time and have often been looked down upon for being incapable of withstanding adverse external conditions and for appearing unnatural. This seems to be no longer true as many of them have greatly improved recently, both in terms of their authentic appearance and their resistance.

There are three existing types of hair loss concealers: those that simply paint your scalp to match your hair colour, then there are hair thickeners that thicken your hair by coating and penetrating the hair and trapping moisture and volume-building proteins inside the hair shaft and, lastly, there are concealers that apply microfibers that cling to your hair like branches to the trunk of a tree, increasing the hair density. Some products combine two of the aforementioned approaches and paint your scalp and thicken your hair at the same time. All of these products come in various forms, such as a powder, cream or a spray. Hair loss concealers do not contain any ingredients that would help treat and improve hair loss condition but some of them allow you to continue with a topical hair loss treatment such as minoxidil.

Microfiber-based hair loss concealers can be usually applied in as little as 30 seconds versus a minimum of five minutes needed for hair thickeners. However, microfibers are less water-resistant and it is quite difficult to apply them precisely and thus they are not very good for creating an authentic-looking frontal hairline. Their main strength is that they are unrecognisable in your hair, even with a very close inspection. Hair thickeners, especially those that also colour your scalp, are extremely water-resistant and excellent for creating fine frontal hairlines but they take longer to apply. They cover your scalp with a layer of colouring substance, which makes it impossible to apply any topical hair loss treatment. Their main weakness in comparison to microfibers is that in direct sunlight it can become visible to the sharp eye that the scalp has been painted.

The common weakness of all chemical substances used for concealing hair loss is the limited choice and authenticity of available shades. Some hair loss sufferers use a combination of two different products simultaneously to overcome the weaknesses of individual products and to achieve the most authentic shade, texture and appearance. Most often a combination of a hair thickener and a micro fibrous concealer is used. The results of such combinations are typically excellent. If you decide to try any such combinations, make sure that you apply the scalp-painting, hair loss thickener first and then use the microfibers to mask the remaining imperfections. There are many products in all three categories of hair loss concealers and you may need to test several of them in order to identify those that best match you hair colour and style of application.

Grey hair can be stubborn and difficult to cover. If you try to colour it, it sometimes turns a smoky unnatural colour and in other cases it simply does not cover your grey at all. So, how do you get 100% grey hair coverage each and every time you colour your hair?

The key seems to lie in choosing the right colour for your hair type. There are several types of hair dyes including temporary (washes out with a single shampoo), semi-permanent (washes out gradually over about four weeks) and permanent hair colours (will not wash out at all). The main difference of each type of hair dye is the strength of the developer used. Colour developer is the ingredient that is responsible for pushing the colour beneath your cuticle layer so that it cannot be easily washed out.

In grey hair, this cuticle layer is extremely compact and difficult to open making it hard for the colour to penetrate inside the hair strand. If you do not succeed at doing this, the colour will wash out very easily and fade over the next few shampoos. To make sure that you get the pigment into the hair strand, use a permanent colour with at least 20 volume hydrogen peroxide as the developer.

Difference in hair colour is given by the amount of pigment that is in the hair strands. Blond hair has the least amount of pigment, then there is red followed by brown and black. Grey hair is lacking pigment altogether. In order to get your colour back into grey hair, you need to go through all of the stages depending on what colour you want to achieve. If you want blond hair, the process is quite simple. All you need to do is use a golden colour. If you want brown hair, on the other hand, you will need to choose a colour with a red or warm base so that you can get a natural looking brown. If you use a green or ash base, you will end up with a greenish or smoky cast.

When covering grey, you should also leave the colour on for the maximum amount of time allowed by the instructions. Doing so will give the colour sufficient time to deposit in the stubborn and coarse grey strands. The only time that you can save on time is if your hair is 30% grey or less. In those cases, the grey hair will absorb enough colour to make it look like you have natural highlights and you can avoid the rest of your naturally pigmented hair going too dark. So, if you have had poor results when it comes to covering your grey, try to follow these tips to get complete coverage and you will have beautiful results every time.

There are three major ways to renew your hair colour in order to cover your grey. You can choose to go to your hair salon and have your hairdresser provide a professional hair colouring. This involves washing, bleaching and then adding your colour of choice – none of which is good for your hair. The second choice is to buy a colonisation kit at your local drug or department store. Again, it will normally involve first bleaching your hair and then adding the colour of your choice. And again you are beginning your process by harming your hair. Thirdly, you can choose to purchase a single-chemical colonisation process. This usually works by applying it during your shower, letting it stay on your hair for as long as you want the colour-depth to return, and then rinse it out. This is not nearly so damaging to your hair as the bleaching processes.

The downside to any of these processes, including both the above and most of the other alternatives out there, is that they are only changing the colour of your grown hair and after a week or so you are beginning to have visible growth of your grey hair. After two weeks it becomes noticeable, making renewing your chosen colonisation process necessary, renewing the damage you are causing to your hair. It is not natural and must continue to be used to keep your chosen colour looking natural and keep your roots coloured. None of it is natural and all of it is damaging, more or less, to your hair.

Would not it be nice to renew your original hair colour naturally? There are several herbal tonics and rubs/shampoos out there which say they will restore natural hair colour. You choose any of them at your own risk. However, some are more risky than others. Any natural colour restoration system which depends upon either being a rub or a shampoo sounds more like an artificial dye job. You need to seek out the ones that are taken internally. Tonics and teas would appear to be the most effective of all natural hair colour restoratives - but do they really work?

A word of caution is required here. There are many such teas and tonics available claimed to restore your natural hair colour. However, there is no scientific evidence at the moment that any existing medicine, diet, herb, supplement or natural product such as tonic or a herbal tea can prevent or reverse greying hair. It is not possible yet to revive the dead pigment producing cells at the root of your hair and if you decide to buy any product promising to change the colour of your hair naturally you are most likely wasting your time and money.

Premature gray hair and hair loss are some of the most common known genetic conditions. Restoring lost hair remains to most of us a distant dream. However, there are some existing options for replacing lost hair and several of them may seem surprisingly effective even to the most skeptical hair loss sufferer. The three main methods of hair restoration known today include surgical hair restoration, non-surgical hair replacement and therapies for regrowing hair using pills and topical applications. The main technique of surgical hair restoration today is hair transplantation, whereas wigs, hair system, hair loss concealers and hair thickeners are the most popular aids used to replace the lost hair by non-surgical means. The non-surgical camouflage is obviously the quickest and the least expensive method of replacing lost hair, though not tremendously popular, as many people believe that hairpieces and concealers cannot withstand rain and wind and do not look natural. In spite of this common belief, some of them are extremely resistant to external influences and can appear very authentic. Hair systems and concealers are often the only options of restoring lost hair for people suffering from non-hereditary forms of hair loss such as unpredictable alopecia areata.

Surgical hair restoration happens to be clearly the most expensive method of restoring lost hair but also the most elegant solution. It can only be used in people suffering from hereditary baldness and burn patients. Hair transplant candidates are required to have sufficient hair density at the back of their scalp and many women suffering from female form of hair loss with its typical diffuse balding pattern do not meet this condition. Hair restoration surgery has made great strides in the past twenty years or so with the introduction of the two main techniques used today - follicular unit transplantation and, more recently, follicular unit extraction. These advances in hair transplantation enable the grouping of hairs very close together, which gives modern hair transplants a completely natural look. The main weakness of hair transplant surgery, besides the cost and the pain involved, is the limited supply of donor hair and the need for multiple surgeries to achieve the final change. Furthermore, patients have to commit themselves to the use of finasteride or any other adequate medicinal hair loss therapy for the rest of their lives to prevent further loss of their existing hair.

Hair loss pills and topical applications do not, despite great scientific advances and the discoveries of recent years, provide satisfactory hair restoration results yet. The two most commonly prescribed hair loss drugs, finasteride and topical minoxidil, can be effectively used to reduce hair loss but their ability to regrow lost hair is relatively limited. Their effectiveness generally declines sharply in the later stages of the balding process. There is no existing medicinal or natural hair loss remedy that can deliver adequate visual results comparable to either hair transplant surgery or non-surgical hair replacements such as hair systems and hair loss concealers. Although there are some promising medicinal hair loss drugs currently under development, especially in the area of genetic research, the ultimate pill for baldness is not expected to become commercially available within the next fifteen years or so. Other advances in hair science, such as hair multiplication or the generation of new hair follicles in wounds, also hold out some promise but it seems that hair transplant surgery will in the next ten to fifteen years remain the most complete method of hair restoration.

At some point in our lives we will all experience the onset of gray hair. Contrary to popular belief gray hair is not always related to person’s old age. The first gray hair can occur in our teens but some individuals will not be bothered by gray hair until a very ripe age.

Everybody is different but the pigment in our hair follicles is generated in the same way. The cells in our hair follicles called melanocytes generate pigment called melanin. This gives our hair its characteristic colour. When these melanocytes stop producing the pigment the result is white hair. The white hair blending with your pigmented darker hair gives the impression of gray hair. In reality the gray hair is not gray but white.

The main reason for our hair behaving this way is heredity. If your mom or dad started turning gray at a young age then the chances are you may also suffer from premature graying.  Obviously, age plays a big part in the graying process. The pigment in the hair shaft is generated from the cells at the base of the hair’s root and as we grow older these cells start producing less pigment until they cease producing the pigment altogether and we end up with white hair.

Gray hair can also be the result of a medical condition. If you are deficient in B vitamins or suffer from a thyroid imbalance your hair can also start going gray prematurely. However, the sudden appearance of gray hair is not due to psychological shock or trauma. Studies have shown that if this happens then it is typically caused by telogen effluvium. What happens here is that the pigmented hair stops growing and starts shedding before it effects the growth of gray hairs, giving the impression of hair turning gray overnight. Telogen effluvium causes hair thinning but seldom leads to complete baldness.