Natural redheads, has your hair dulled/darkened with age?

[Anje]

I'm curious, because I'm pretty sure I've observed this phenomenon in myself and a few others.

As I understand it, from a eumelanin perspective, a redhead is a very light blond, and as more eumelanin is added, the red shifts auburn, then to warm chestnuts and chocolates before hitting black. Then we have a liberal helping of phaeomelanin which gives the red.

So I'm wondering if, just like many folks who are blond as children darken to dark blond or even a full-on brown, do you also have an increase in eumelanin with age that has darkened your red?

(Here, I'm not dealing with the seasonal changes in red... There's another poll for that.)

[Red Rapunzel]

Dear Anje,

As a naturally red-headed sexagenarian, I feel qualified to answer your question about red hair darkening with age: My own experience indicates the answer is a resounding "no!" My own red hair has become much lighter as I get older even though I almost never go out in the sun. That is also the experience of my red-headed aunt who became quite a strawberry blonde in her later years. The tendency, I think, is for red hair to lighten with age and then finally become a different kind of grey - a creamier, blonder type of grey than most end up with.

[Anje]

Interesting. I've heard that redheads gray by turning "buff" for a while first. I'm not sure I'll be one of them. My dozen or two grays seem to be sparkly white.

[invisiblebabe]

Is there a cheese option?

I'm not a natural redhead, but I wish I were!

[SimplyLonghair]

I was strawberry blonde as a child and went to a slightly darker red as I have gotten older, but my sister who was auburn, just went brown loosing all of her red. Many in my family get sandy as they get older, but many go more auburn or brown. I have alot of redheads in my family. Of the cousins and there are 14, 11 of them are redheaded. We are Scotch Irish and Cherokee mix.

[ratgirldjh]

my best friend has waist length red hair and i've known her for over 20 years.

her hair used to be much richer red - now she has silver hairs mixed with the red and it looks more strawberry blonde.

[Wavelength]

I was a bright strawberry blonde as a little girl. My hair darkened slowly over the years. By the time I was in high school I was more of a light auburn (but still had a lot of red). By the time I graduated university, you couldn't see the red unless I was in bright sunlight.

So yes, in my case the red went darker over time. My grandmother was a redhead who remained so until she went grey, but my mother was a brunette and so was my father. I have a cousin on my mother's side who was like me, started off a redhead but now she's a brunette. She likes her hair better now though, because her siblings used to tease her as a child about being the "adopted redhead".

[Riverboat Red]

Hi there! I'm an old-timer delurking to answer. :-) Yes, my naturally red hair is darkening with age (quite a lot, actually, when I looked at some old LHC pics I posted back in 2002), and like you said, my gray hairs are particularly sparkly.

[freznow]

My mom's red hair has certainly dulled with age. She was definitely completely red before, now it looks almost brown (with silvers mixed in.)

[Sam-I-Am]

I am only 26, but my hair has pretty much been the same color since the day I was born. It has darkened a bit since coming to LHC, but I think that is because it is consistently moisturized versus when I was a kid, it was always dry and frizzy, which made it look more coppery.