That will happen, I just didn't expect to see it so clearly.

[trinityvixen]

First off, thanks to everyone who jumped on my frantic post yesterday about THE MAY MOVIE XII. I realize it was late, but that's when it popped up. I spent a little while chatting with moonlightalice last night about why I hadn't seen anything at that theater until just that minute--had I missed it? Not been paying enough attention?--and she said, no, it really just popped up like that. Out of sheer curiosity, I will keep an eye on other theaters this week and see if more showings don't pop up in all the usual places. But still, bad form NYC theaters.

I discovered a gray hair today. Not my first by far, but definitely the coolest. I plucked it out and marveled at it a little. It's a hair from a follicle that has obviously just started to lose its pigmentation, as the lower end was still brown. But the progression of gray is erratic and quite beautiful. There are sections that are mostly gray, transitioning to a blonder color before going brown again. It's almost like my hair has stripes instead of there being a point at which the color faltered and ever after was gray. (Although the top part is decidedly gray at this point.) It's pretty, and I almost missed it at first (I thought it was neat enough to see the change from brown to gray) because you can't see the variation unless you turn the hair a certain way. Oh my, 30 years old and going gray. I knew I was old!

Speaking of gray, it's amazing how much more my older sister has that I never noticed. She's got luxuriously dark brown hair that's almost as thick as jethrien's (though not as dark), so they stand out, but she's barely got any gray for someone approaching 40. I'm luckier in that my hair is a lighter brown and will hide the gray better. Not as well as my blond sister or formerly-blond brother, with their saffron and sandy-color, respectively, but some, and better than my older or youngest sister for sure. In fact, my youngest sister has some gray, too! The reason I know this is we all went to our favorite hairdresser and she tattled. I love it.

Comments

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

You can officially say that managing this year's May Movie outing gave you gray hairs! ;P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I doubt, given the length of the hair, that it's just the May Movie what done it, but I'm sure such things hardly are a help.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

Can't stress do that? Actually gray hairs that have already grown in as their original color?

Or is that just an invention of horror movies? :P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Melanin, the pigment that gives us skin and hair color, is a protein. Short of bleaching, I cannot fathom how it would decolorize outside of the scalp. Your pigment-donating cells in the hair follicle are responsible for the color; as they die off, the hair loses its color, hence the gray. It's possible that a severe shock that somehow altered your hormone levels and killed off your pigment-forming cells might eventually cause all your hair to come in gray...

...but go gray all at once? Not without chemicals you don't.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

I too discovered my first gray hair the other day.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Not my first by a long shot, alas. I got my first ages ago when I was home at my parents' place and got out of the shower to notice a gray hair on my towel. Thinking it was a bit of stuff attached to the towel, I plucked at it hard only to find it was attached to me. Getting oooooold.

[avram]

A friend of mine started going gray in high school.

There was a point in my thirties where I had a patch of gray hair in an otherwise mostly-dark-brown head of hair. I was wearing it long, so this meant I had a gray streak flowing through it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Like Rogue!

I have a friend whose mother had a shock of white on all-black hair, and another friend whose mother had only the last bit of dark on an all-gray head. Streak graying is quite striking and attractive. My older sister has most of her gray seeming to come in around the same area, so she might luck into that coloration. My brother is doing the classic gray sideburns and around his temples, and it's more scattered. I'm similar in that. I should be so lucky as to end up with gray like my mother's, whose light hair and even distribution of gray kept anyone from noticing for many years after it started.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

My mom had that.

I've had an impressive increase in the gray in the last few months. It's still not noticeable at a distance, but it's stopped being clumps and started being shot through. I think I've only got another couple years before it gets really noticeable.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Patches of my beard have come in grey since my first year of college.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's part of the reason some folks I know are careful about shaving--because the facial hair gives it away more than the head-hair does.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I found a white curly hair growing out of my eyelid once! I feel sure I've had others, but since I've started playing with highlights, all my hair could be gray and I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Also, for some reason I never knew saffron was a shade of yellow -- I had it mentally tagged as a red. I blame Firefly.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Saffron threads are a vibrant orangey red. When steeped, they impart a rich slightly orangey yellow.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

You people are all old.

Signed,
Still blonde.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Just you wait, missy. It'll get you, too.