Kraleti doesn't recommend plucking or pulling the hairs out. “If there is a gray hair you must get rid of, very carefully cut it off. Plucking can traumatize the hair follicle, and repeated trauma to any follicle can cause infection, scar formation or possibly lead to bald patches.”
When your strand turns gray or white, the pigment cells in the follicle surrounding the hair have already died. "In other words, plucking a gray hair will only get you a new gray hair in its place," says Gillen, so any plucking is pretty much pointless since you're simply delaying the inevitable.
Despite the claims made online and by product marketers, it's not possible to reverse white hair if the cause is genetic. Once your hair follicles lose melanin, they can't produce it on their own. As melanin production slows, your hair turns gray, and then white when melanin production has completely stopped.
Graying is a gradual process; according to a study by L'Oreal, overall, of those between 45 and 65 years old, 74% had some gray hair, covering an average of 27% of their head, and approximately 1 in 10 people had no gray hairs even after the age of 60.
The one word answer to this question is “no”! Plucking white hair does not give you more white hair. Each of your hair strands grows out of a single hair follicle. So if you pull out the white hair only one hair can grow back in its place and possibly it will be white too.
And while it may seem intuitive that stress can accelerate graying, the researchers were surprised to discover that hair color can be restored when stress is eliminated, a finding that contrasts with a recent study in mice that suggested that stressed-induced gray hairs are permanent.
It can be a shock to find your first gray hairs on your head, especially if you're only in your 20s. But women's expert Dr. Kirtly Parker Jones says a few gray hairs is perfectly normal, even for women in their late 20s and early 30s. However, stress, genetics and other factors can play a role.
Genetics
If you notice white hair at an early age, it's likely that your parents or grandparents also had graying or white hair at an early age. You can't change genetics. But if you don't like the way your gray hair looks, you can always color your hair.
Typically, white people start going gray in their mid-30s, Asians in their late 30s, and African-Americans in their mid-40s. Half of all people have a significant amount of gray hair by the time they turn 50.
This is when you notice hair appearing to turn grey, when there is a mix of dark colored and grey or white hair. As the person grows older and the body's ability to produce melanin begins to slow down, all the hair in the body turns grey or white and this when you begin to see all white hair.
Vitamin B-12 deficiency is one of the most common causes of prematurely graying hair. Researchers have noted that vitamin B-12 deficiencies are often concurrent with folic acid and biotin deficiencies in people whose hair has started to turn gray early.
Coconut oil is a good white hair treatment oil. Massage it onto your scalp and hair every other night; shampoo off the next morning. Use clarified butter or ghee twice a week to massage scalp and hair. Twice weekly, apply onion juice onto your scalp, shampooing it after 30 minutes.
Electrolysis is a good treatment option for treating unwanted white hairs on the face and body. It's a permanent solution to remove light and fine or red hairs that are otherwise impossible to eliminate with other treatments like laser or IPL because the lack of pigment.
As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. When there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, that strand of hair will no longer contain as much melanin and will become a more transparent color — like gray, silver, or white — as it grows.
Though, ageing is the primary reason of grey hair but premature greying of hair in early 20's or 30's is now common. Genetic factors, stress, lack of nutrition, chemicals, smoking or any underlying disease like anemia can also lead to premature greying of hair.
A new study shows that stress really can give you gray hair. Researchers found that the body's fight-or-flight response plays a key role in turning hair gray. Your hair color is determined by pigment-producing cells called melanocytes.
Often people think grey hair will inevitably make them look old, but, as Paul Falltrick, Matrix Global Design Team Member points out, this isn't necessarily the case. "Grey shades can be stereotyped as ageing, but a clean-looking grey is stunning" he says.
Premature graying may be reversed with vitamin B12 supplementation only if vitamin B12 deficiency is the cause. If you are graying due to other factors, such as genetics, zinc deficiency, medications, your gray hair cannot be reversed.
Gray hair grows when hydrogen peroxide builds up in your hair follicle. "This causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out," says Debra Jaliman, MD, a dermatologist in New York and spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology. Gray hairs are thicker and wirier, so your hair gets coarser as they multiply.
Smoking. Lifestyle choices like smoking also come into play. Lighting up is known to speed up skin aging and can cause premature grays. A 2013 study found that people who smoke cigarettes have more gray hair before age 30.
A strand of hair can appear gray when it contains a decreased amount of a pigment called melanin, and it can look white if there is no pigment at all. Gray hair occurs with normal aging because the hair cells on the scalp produce less melanin; in children, early graying tends to be inherited.
For men having white hair was a sign of distinction, hinted at nobility, and was even a sign of virility. It couldn't have been more different for women. It was a sign of their deterioration with age, and the end of their fertility.