A common reason your hair might be turning white or grey is due to a pigment imbalance. Eyebrow pigment comes from the melanin your body produces. Sometimes your melanin levels can get low, which causes your hair to fade in color.
If your brows are mostly gray, dyeing them is the best fix. Ask your stylist if your salon offers the service (it's often free when you get your hair colored), or have it done at a spa. "Even if the hair on your head is silver or gray hair, I suggest dyeing brows light brown," says Petrescu.
Ariane points out that the “grey” hairs are actually white. When they start to appear in your eyebrows, her first piece of advice is not to pluck them. If you have already started to do this, don't worry!
All kinds of body hairs change colour when ageing hair follicles stop producing the pigment melanin that makes hair dark. Eyebrow hairs also change texture, grow bushier and longer with age. Their different structure may explain their different rate of greying.
Mix two teaspoons of coffee in two tablespoons of cold water. Now boil water and add that coffee solution. Mix well and let it cool. Use the mixture to rinse your eyebrows.
To make your eyebrows darker naturally, try applying olive oil to them every night before bed since olive oil contains vitamins that can help promote hair growth. You can also try moistening your brows with aloe vera for 30 minutes every day, which might make them thicker and darker.
As you age, the amount of melanin in your hair naturally declines, which causes your hair to appear gray and eventually white. Along with the hair on your head, your eyebrows and eyelashes can turn gray or white with age. The graying process often starts with a few hairs before spreading.
Pigment moving deeper into the skin – Over time, older pigment may move deeper into the dermis or hypodermis layers of the skin. When this happens the pigment may appear to the eye to change color. This apparent difference in color is due to the change in depth.
“Plucking a gray hair will only get you a new gray hair in its place because there is only one hair that is able to grow per follicle. Your surrounding hairs will not turn white until their own follicles' pigment cells die.”
Both types of thyroid imbalance are linked to eyebrow hair loss. Specifically, in hypothyroidism, a person may notice hair loss in the outer third of the eyebrow, which is the thinnest part that points toward the ears.
“While it depends on many factors, including the tweezers you use, how often you pluck and how traumatic it is for your hair, you won't be stuck with thin eyebrows forever,” says dermatologist Shilpi Khetarpal, MD. “Most of the time, they grow back.”
In a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, darker brows were found to make a person look younger, since we seem to (subconsciously) associate defined contrasts in facial features with youth. That makes sense, considering eyebrows do tend to lighten with age.
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.
There are no treatments that are proven to treat (or reverse) gray hair. For now, the best choice for people who want to cover their gray hair is to use hair coloring, which can be temporary or permanent depending on the type.
The human body has millions of hair follicles or small sacs lining the skin. The follicles generate hair and color or pigment cells that contain melanin. Over time, hair follicles lose pigment cells, resulting in white hair color.
Coffee grounds can actually make an effective brow tint that gives your brows a natural, defined look. All you have to do is mix the coffee with some other ingredients that you may already have in your pantry, and let the dye sit for less than a half hour -- which means you'll have envy-worthy brows in no time.
Unfortunately, there's little to no evidence that any of the ingredients in Vaseline, which is a brand name for petroleum jelly, can grow thicker or fuller eyebrows. However, Vaseline is very moisturizing and may actually help eyebrows look fuller and thick, even if they're actually growing at the same rate.
While upkeep may be more frequent due to fading color, henna is the best option if you are looking for a 100% natural way to darken your eyebrows, as even vegetable-based dyes contain some chemicals, Garcia explains.