A touch of gray

It is official. I have completed another full rotation around the sun—my 31st— and thus I am a year older. I love this time of year, not only because of my annual birthday cake, but also because of all the changes. Temperatures are cooler, snow is in the mountains, and leaves are starting to show their brilliance. It is all of these autumnal happenings and end-of-season beauty that make me love October.

When I was growing up, my sister and I gave my dad a hard time about saying his hair color was listed as "black" on his driver’s license when clearly he was going gray. He responded by saying he was not going gray, rather, his hair color was salt-and-pepper and they would not let him put that on his license. Well, now that I have made many trips around the sun, my hair is also starting to turn a wee bit salty. Is it because my daughter is now 2½ years old or because a shock of salt-and-pepper hair equals wisdom?

It turns out hair growth is much more complicated than the vegetative growth seen in a Chia pet, which is how I often think of hair growth. Each strand of hair emerges from its own follicle and involves three stages: a growth stage that lasts 2-7 years; a shut-down stage that lasts 10-20 days, and then another growth stage. If, however, the subsequent growth stage sputters, there is a good chance hormones are acting on the follicle causing hair growth to slow, or maybe even stop for good.

Before one is able to see brown, red, or blonde hair, the growth that begins within the follicle is pure white. Hair does not pick up color until it leaves the follicle, and the mechanism for color is generated by melanin. Melanin is a pigment that not only gives color to hair but to eyes and skin as well.  There is dark melanin called "eumelanin," which determines brown and black hair color, and reddish/yellowish melanin called "pheomelanin," which determines red and blonde hair. The amount of melanin we carry determines color, something we cannot control.

A child's hair color often resembles that of his or her parents', which is no coincidence. The amount and type of melanin we acquire is dependent on what we get from our parents. Genetics—not those loveably unruly 2 year olds—likewise determines when one's hair makes the transition to salt-and-pepper.

This is the part of the story that becomes a scientific gray area. Scientists know a reduction of melanin causes hair to change color, and that the timing of the change is similar within families. Yet they do not know why melanin levels decrease. There is speculation like increased levels of hydrogen peroxide but as yet no definitive answers.

So, like me seeing one more round of autumn colors, my new shade of salt-and-pepper hair just signifies that I am getting older. I did not need my hair to tell me that though. I get the hint from my students whenever I try to act cool and hip.