Grey hair takes time
The myth that extreme stress can turn your hair grey or white overnight has helped to sustain the story that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white as she waited for her fatal appointment with the guillotine during the French revolution.
The scientific truth is different with dermatologist Dr Jack Green, of St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, saying that there was no way that all the hairs on a person’s head could change colour overnight, apart from using a bottle of hair dye. “We don’t subscribe to the point of view that if you’re under stress then you are going to go grey,” he said.
Hair colour is determined by the amount of melanin pigments produced by stem cells called melanocytes with the melanin pigments being either dark brown/black or yellow blonde to red. As people age fewer melanocytes are replaced and new hairs growing are depigmented and appear grey or white.
The overwhelming influence on a person’s hair colour is still genetics so if your parents are both blonde or redhead – or brown or dark haired – then the strong odds are that the children will have those colours and only go grey naturally over time.
