# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Do you have early gray hair ?

## ntindeo

The first time I noticed white hairs on my head was at the age of 17. The proportion of white hairs became evident after the age of 24, and after 33-35 the proportion of white hair became prevalent. Slower, but the same thing happened with facial hair.

My father went through these phases at similar ages, already having gray hair after the age of 30. Grandma from the father side went through the same early stages of hair whitening.

Searching the forum I did not find any discussions about the possible genetic inheritance of the gray hair that appeared at a young age. 
I did this poll for that. So, your hair turned gray early and you have parents / grandparents who early turned to gray hair?

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## Davidtab

Yes, I am in the same case as you, very early white hairs, like my paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather. Good thing about it, generally if you have early white hairs, you won´t became bald.

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## ntindeo

> Yes, I am in the same case as you, very early white hairs, like my paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather. Good thing about it, generally if you have early white hairs, you won´t became bald.


It is very possible. I don't have baldness. My father is not bald even at the age of 81. Although my grandfather had baldness at 50, but not gray hair!

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## ntindeo

And I noticed another thing. Although I quickly turned to gray hair after age of 20, I noticed that girls do not dislike it. It probably gives us a more mature look.  :Good Job:  :Smile:

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## Davidtab

I agree!!😃😃

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## matty74

My dad has darker hair and it only has been recently turning grey and he's 68. My mother is 67 and she's still blonde

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## [email protected]

But, do you like having grey hair? I don't think I was terribly early transitiioning into grey maturity, I was middle-thirties, but I never regretted it. I like the look and, while I'm no Sean Connery, it provides a certain gravitas that I like. 

I would never consider hiding the grey. Would you?

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## matty74

My beard is reddish with grey streaks in the middle. I don't mind it, a younger waitress complimented me on it last week. :)

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## Angela

I started going grey in my thirties and have been dying my hair since then. I didn't think I would be one of those people, as my father just became light brown with age, with a few silver hairs, and my mother just had some streaks of white at the temples. I seem to have gotten the genes from my father's mother, who was completely white by 50.

I'm sick to death of coloring it, hate to sit in beauty parlors for an additional hour fifteen and more once a month (in addition to the time for shampoo and cut), and resent the expense as well. 

I've been contemplating letting it go white, or mostly white, as the white is in the front and sides. To test it out, I ordered a silver wig, you know, sort of like Meryl Streep as Amanda Priestly in "The Devil Wears Prada". I figured I love the clothes. I'll add the hair and jazz everything up. :)

Alas, I looked like the ghost of Christmas future. I'm just too pale for it, not enough melanin and not enough pinky/red undertones in my complexion either, I guess, and I realized that part of the reason Meryl Streep could pull it off is because they put tons of eye make up on her, and likewise tons of foundation and powder, and blush, and lipstick. Not about to start doing that, so...I'm stuck.  :Sad: 





Meryl Streep has never looked so good, imo, but, like me, she doesn't have the patience. Except for her political opinions, she's my spirit animal. :)

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## Duarte

I think it is a natural tendency that the first white hairs appears on the beard and that the beard hairs to grow much grayer over time than the hairs on the head. At thirty I had some white hairs on my beard and I had not white hairs on my head. The first strands of white hairs on my head appeared much later than in my beard, and now I accept them naturally. I don't care much about my beard. Many times I shave completely my beard and go months without it. But as my beard is very bushy and grows very quickly, with only two weeks without shaving I'm already completely bearded. Gray hairs both on beard and head? We need to learn to deal with them and especially to know that over time they will become increasingly abundant. I confess that there was a time when these white threads bothered me a lot. I have a Mediterranean biotype and I am not much different from the typical stereotype: I have abundant hair all over my body. But, in my specific case, the gray hairs is restricted to my head and my beard.


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## Davidtab

I´ve never had the temptation of painting my hair!! I like it this way!!. My first white hairs appeared in early twenties. I am 43 years old by now and I have 50% white hairs and 50% brown hairs in my head and beard, even in my chest. I have more white hairs in the right side of my body than in the left side.
Meryl Streep is a really attractive and interesting woman. I like white hairs mixed in most women of my same age, seem women sure of theirshelves and surely with personality and high intelligence and education, and I like women of this way.

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## ntindeo

Of course, I was pleased with my hair becoming gray since the middle of the age of 20. Nothing to hide. This feature highlighted me among people of my age, like a distinguished person.  :Grin:

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## ntindeo

> Yes, I am in the same case as you, very early white hairs, like my paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather. Good thing about it, generally if you have early white hairs, you won´t became bald.


I found 4/5 SNPs related to baldness which indicates that I have a high risk of balding, even before the age of 40! But I did not start balding even in my mid-50s. I think it may be possible that gray hair is related to the balding as long as both are caused by a change in the functioning of the follicles from which the hair grows, but from a certain cause in some people it may only manifest as a graying hair. Who know?

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## Angela

There's a lot we don't know about all these physical traits. 

White hair can also be caused by stress. Barbara Bush apparently went completely white over the course of a few days when her baby daughter died of leukemia. The same thing happened to my grandmother. You might need a genetic predisposition, however.

I know of no studies about it, but anecdotally it does seem to me that people who go white early don't as often go bald.

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## italouruguayan

Stress certainly has its role. I am 52 years old and my hair is almost completely gray. This started at age 25 ... at the beginning of that year my hair was completely dark, but at the end of it I had a lot of white hair on the front ... I think that many problems that happened in my family had their incidence ....

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## dominique_nuit

> Yes, I am in the same case as you, very early white hairs, like my paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather. Good thing about it, generally if you have early white hairs, you won´t became bald.


I started going gray at a ridiculously early age, even before age 18, if memory serves. I also have very thick, slightly wavy hair, and will never go bald. I am pretty sure this all via my maternal grandfather.

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## Angela

It's during discussions like this that I'm reminded I'm the only woman posting here on a regular basis. That's a topic for a completely different thread. :)

Normally, I'm not even aware of it. 

I don't know a single woman who has let herself go white. I personally would love to, just to never have to sit in a salon again every 3-4 weeks to get it colored. Even reading for an hour and a half doesn't save it for me. At least with haircuts I could go every other month. As I said, however, I tried on a wig with white hair around the face and dark hair in back, which is how mine would look, and there was no difference between the white of the wig and the white of my skin. I looked like a ghost. :) Even my husband, who keeps saying I should let it go, didn't like it, and my children were appalled. So, that's it: I'm doomed. :)

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## bicicleur

My father had dark hair and only in his sixties he got some gray hairs mixing in.
My hair colour is light. I'm 61 now. Only since some 5 years my temples turn grey. When I shave, I sometimes trim a few hairs there.
And in my eyebrows I have a few greys. I pull them out when these become to long and obvious.
I'm fine like that. I'm glad I still have all my hair. Well .. some starts to grow on places where it isn't supposed to grow.

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## ntindeo

Maybe I am not too American, and not much more gigolo, lol!  :Grin: ... But this guy stole my hair from the age of ~ 35.

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## shinyDust

I come from a liemage of people who's hair rarely grays or falls.
My grandpa died at 62 with barely visible small thin threads of hair.
It's kind of bizarre to me
My dad is 46 and still no signs of gray hair and he doesn't even have wrinkles yet. M mom however is just 44 and looks as if she's hit the 60s already.
I guess some people are bound to age faster than others.

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## torzio

> Stress certainly has its role. I am 52 years old and my hair is almost completely gray. This started at age 25 ... at the beginning of that year my hair was completely dark, but at the end of it I had a lot of white hair on the front ... I think that many problems that happened in my family had their incidence ....


I agree with stress.....my father was never stressed and did not start to get grey until in his mid fifties.....i at 45 and my youbger son at 33 , while older son has no greys......younger son is the one with children,

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## bigsnake49

I have very few gray hair and I am 66. My father is 97 and he's not totally white. My wife has been gray since her thirties and so did her father. Neither lost their hair at all. My brother in law is graying in a natural progression. I have a lot of grey/white in my beard since I had a lot of red in it before.

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## Jovialis

I have had some gray hairs since my late-twenties, some more now.

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## bigsnake49

The principal of my kids elementary school was the most beautiful and classy older woman I ever met. Steel gray, thick and strong hair paired with flawless skin and piercing blue eyes. Very classy and dignified she had the bearing of a patrician. But she also knew the first and last names of not just all the kids in the school and their parents when they dropped off their kids at school. She wore her gray and later on white hair as if it was natural, as if she was born with it. I could not imagine her without gray hair.

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