Did you grey later, earlier, or about the same time as you parents?

[antler_tines]

I was wondering when you started to grey and how? Mine has started around my temples, I found my first grey hair when I was 19. Now I'm almost 28 and it seems every week I have new baby greys popping up. Both of my parents didn't start greying until there 40s. Heck my grandmother on my dads side still has quite a few brown hairs. I can't say that I'm any more stressed then my parents, I'm sure they were more stressed by a long shot. I know they say stress doesn't really cause grey hair so I am at a loss. I think on my moms side there were quite a few people who greyed early, so maybe thats where it comes from. I'd like to hear what others experiences have been :) I do dye my hair with henna, its not that I don't think grey hair is beautiful but I feel like I'm too young to have grey temples :P

[caromarpie]

My first grey was at around 20. My mom was around 46 and my dad was all white at 30 so I think I am in the middle of both. But I do dye mine because I am not ready to see so many of them on my head

[restless]

I found my first sparklies at 25. As far as I can remember, my mom didnt have any greys at all in her blonde hair when she was in her 50s and my dad started to go a little grey in his beard in his late 40s. The hair on his head is still brown to this day and he´s now in his mid-fifties. However, I did ask my father about where my grey hair might come from and he replied that people on his own father´s side get grey hair early so I assume thats where I got it from. I dont mind though, I think its pretty. Like natural high lights in my golden middle brown hair.

[Federica]

I found my first grey very early, at about 12-13, but it was just one hair so I don't know if it counts.
I started to see some silver hair when I was 18 on the sides of my head, and now that I'm 25 I notice that every month there are new ones all around (I think that 10% of my hair would be white if I wouldn't dye).
I think it's genetic, because also my parents have gone silver very early, but fortunately none in my family is bald so at least I think I won't loose my hair :)

[which.chick]

I had some grey hairs (like, maybe 20) at 30. At 43, I have visible streaks of grey but it's still way less than half. From a distance of about 10 feet my hair is still "brown". My mom didn't get visibly grey at the temples until her 50's and she's still (at 71) only about half grey. Dad was almost entirely grey (no brown hair left) by 43. My one grandma's hair (Dad's mother) was pure silvery white by 30 (and she never dyed it, ever). My two brothers are *probably* more grey than I am. One's 2/3 bald but what is left is about half grey. The other is not balding but dyes his hair some dumb orange-blond color because his wife thinks it makes him look younger.

[verenikiscoma]

Probably when I was 25, thank you genetics.... My dad had gone completely white by the time he was 18. My mum started around the temples when she 40 or so, my sister started out at around 19/20...I have one patch that has ten or twenty hairs that come out white on my forehead and then the odd ones scattered around. My hair is quite dark so the contrast used to upset me a lot, and then I discovered henna and indigo... Now I use my little white patch as an indication of my hair growing, when it's time to do my roots I know my hair is longer so I take out the measuring tape!

[torrilin]

There are pictures of me as a newborn baby, being held by my 29 year old dad. Total salt and pepper grey. By the time dad was 40, pure white was a better descriptor, and he's spent the past 20 years being mistaken for a platinum blonde. I'd love to have my hair go grey like that, but... I'm almost 37 and have no greys at all. So, I'm definitely greying later than dad did.

My mom did not start developing grey at her temples until she was about 50. Where dad's grey hairs are visibly a bright white or silver sort of color, mom's look more creamy or blonde. Her hair has always been a very solid dark brown, so they do stick out a tad. My hair is a lot more variably colored than hers, and my hair naturally ranges from platinum blonde to her dark brown. So I *could* be going grey earlier than her and having it hide in the blonde parts of my hair. But since I'm not really getting blonder with age so far, and my blonde bits still vary a lot with sun exposure, I tend to think not.

So, for now, I don't know.

[antler_tines]

Yeah its weird how sometimes the early greying can seemingly skip generations or be present in say your parents cousins and then you get grey hair. :) Its kind of a fascinating subject.

[arcane]

My Mom started in her early 20s, now she's in her early 50s and most of her hair is pure white grey, though she has a patch on her crown that is still her natural dark brown. She dyes it though. Dad started getting some greys in his early 40s (at least that's when they became visible). I noticed my first greys this past year at 28, just about 4 or 5 of them in one spot in my bangs. I have my Dads hair colour and no more have popped up at all. Dad says he thinks he saw a few greys in his 20s but he didn't really look, and they blend well with his hair, so I hope I grey like him. As my Mom was essentially all grey in under 3 years. Though she has the pure white grey hair that her Mom has and I do like that look a lot so if I end up greying like her it won't bother me that much.

[lapushka]

My mom went gray, slowly but considerably in her 40s, by her late 40s, in big sections. My dad started about the same age, but grayed slower, with gray more sprinkled throughout. He's now almost 70, and he's still got gray just sprinkled throughout. He's about 40 to 50% gray, I think. It's the same way I'm going gray, even though with me, it started in my 20s but the process is extremely slow. I'm about 2% gray (barely noticeably sprinkled throughout) and I'm in my early 40s.

[Anje]

Hard to say at this point. I think I'm probably on a similar schedule to my mother -- scattered grays in the late 20s, but it's not moving that fast. She's probably not more than 50% gray yet in her late 50s. We both seem to not have grays at the temples primarily, and I might be getting the same back-of-head streak. I hope so. :) I can't speak as much to how/when my dad grayed. What I saw was mostly in the ears/temples area, but that was pretty much the only place he had hair.

[summergreen]

I got the first greys at 30, but I'm pretty sure neither of my parents started greying until their 40s at least. They both had much darker hair than me, I don't know if that makes any difference to when you start greying.

[dwell_in_safety]

My father is just now starting to get a few scattered grays at 46, and at 50 my mother has a large gray streak at the top of her head that her part typically splits down the middle, with a few more sparkles here and there throughout the rest of her hair. At 23 I don't have any grays yet. I do have one random blonde hair that wasn't blonde before, but it's definitely a golden color, not gray. It does sparkle very visibly against my dark brown hair, and I really like it.

When I start to go gray, I will be using Manic Panic or whatever equivalent dye is around, religiously. I don't expect that to happen until I am 35-50, using my parents as examples. My mother started to get some gray when she was about 40, but it's spread very slowly. I don't expect her to be fully gray until she's in her 60s. My father may not ever be fully gray. His father isn't at 73.

[ladonna]

My mom and aunt only had a few grey hairs at 50, but they both have pale colored hair, not sure about father family. I'm almost 31 and have 10-15 grey hairs, I use henna/indigo but maybe 5 are dye resistant. The hairs are a really pretty bright shiny white, no one is able to see them except for me or they are just lying lol.

[vindo]

I am not greying yet (I'm 31), and my mom did not grey very early either. She had about 20 grey hairs in her late 40's. Now at 56 she has some greys all over (she dyes her hair).

[Almendra]

I'm 25 and I haven't gray hair. My mom is 63 and she has just a few in the front and in the back. I don't know when she start to get them (she dyes her hair). But my father is other history. He is 55 years old now and his head is almost white. My sister's hair is like his. She is 21 and she already has a couple of grays.

[kitschy]

My dad was gray when I was born, he was 38. My mom didn't go gray until her 60's. I went gray later than my dad, yet earlier than my mom.

[Prettychild]

I started getting my first greys at the age of 6. My mum starting getting lots of grey hair in her mid thirties. Of course I had my sparklies but when I hit my mid-thirties my hair starting turning quite dramatically. Almost 40 now and my hair is like 50% pure white.

[BlazingHeart]

I think I started younger than either of my parents. Found the first one around 17-18. I think my dad's brother was the same, though he went noticeably silver pretty young. But I turn 30 next month, and I have so few that they are not really visible. I think at this point, I have about the same number my dad had at the same age, though his were much more visible because his hair is/was brown-black. My parents are in their mid-50s now. Dad has thick chunks of silver, Mom is probably around 10% white.

[jasper]

My mom hasn't greyed yet, darn her. So I am ahead of her there. I must take after my dad, who it completely white by now.

[Alun]

Probably about the same as my mum and all her family, i.e. in my 40s, which I tend to think of as premature, although I've known people (not related to me) who were entirely grey in their 20s. My dad didn't go grey until he was in his 60s (he's now 86 and still relatively healthy), and his father died somewhere in his late 70s without having grey hair!

I might add, slightly changing the subject, that my dad has a bald patch at the back of his head, but I understand that appeared when he was about 30 (about when I was born, LOL!), and every other male in my family has/had a full head of hair, including me, although I am much older than he was at the time.

I also might add that I seem to have picked up genes for looking youthful from both sides of the family, and was frequently mistaken for younger than my real age, until the grey hairs appeared, and then that stopped suddenly!

(The avatar pic is from 2004, just before I joined LHC, and doesn't show how grey my hair is now, but I have hennaed it since, and will again. Sadly, the length has grown very little.)

[chen bao jun]

Don't know.
My dad died at 70, he had maybe 10 or 11 greys (not 10%, 10 grey hairs), his mother went grey but it took her until her 80's to be maybe 40% grey, my dad's family just greys very late. My mother started going grey in her 50's and got a white streak down the middle. She says she would not have dyed it had it been all over, but she hated the 'skunk look' so filled that in. She is completely grey now, she is 83. I am 56 and I do have some grey. It's all in the middle of my head like my mom. It's so little though that people assume my hair is dyed. It must be unusual, I guess, for people in their 50's to have so little gray. I don't know if I am going to get the skunk streak like my mom or be like my dad and only very slightly grey 14 years from now (when I hit 70).
I don't know what's 'normal' though. I really thought that my friends my age weren't very grey yet either until recently. But conversations with people have convinced me that hair dye is good nowadays. These are the same conversations in which it was revealed that my hair is naturally the way it is, apparently I was assuming that they were natural and they were assuming that I was dyeing...
I have three siblings ranging from age 48 up to me, none of us is grey. My half sister went grey very young though (in her forties).
Me, my dad and brothers all have unusually abundant hair. sometimes I wonder if we grey slower because there is such a volume of hair that it just takes long for it to look grey.
I am never going to dye. I actually like silver hair.

[teela1978]

My Dad's family grays early and I seem to follow that side of the family. My mother didn't have much gray till her mid 40's, my dad was mostly gray by his mid 30's. I've got a couple good streaks at 35, started seeing them at 16!!!

[lunalocks]

My first gray I found in my 30's. By the time I was 40 I had maybe 3. At 50 there were a few at the temples, then a few more. I am 57 now, and have them at my temples and bangs and a few are creeping down past my ears.

My grandmother did not have any gray hairs until she was in her 70s and died at age 96 with more dark hairs than gray. My mother, now 96, still has dark brown hairs and light brown hairs and even golden hairs (which she never had before) in her white hair. I just have good hair genes, at least in terms of gray.

[raingirl]

My mother had black hair and my dad was a red head. Neither had grey at all until very late, like late 50s, early 60s. I'm 35 now and I don't have any grey at all that I can see. I thought I had some, but I have white-blond hair and the ones I thought might be grey when I was growing out my henna near the roots now blend in to the same white-blond colour as the rest of my hair. My sister turns 50 next month and she has no grey either.

[dulce]

My parents in their 80's still were salt 'n pepper and not completely gray,at 60 I have a mix of a bit of white,some gray and lots of natural brown still,so am following my parents late in life graying and their uneven gray pattern.

[swords & roses]

I think I'll end up averaging or passing the two of my parents. My mom started graying at 14. My dad started balding at 13, but he didn't start graying until maybe his late 20s or early 30s. They are 48 & 49 now. Dad is more gray than brunette any more, & mom is maybe only 25% gray. I'm almost 27. I think I've only stumbled across one or two clear hairs in my life. I'm not sure if those count as white/gray. But when I do start graying, I'm definitely keeping the long hair! No one here ever does, and I think it looks so good! I'm also hoping my hair goes stark white when I get older, but that's highly unlikely as a brunette with a bunch of salt-&-pepper relatives.

[nakima]

I would say I noticed a few grey hairs at abt age 37 I think my dad was in his 40's and not sure abt my mom she always colored hers lol and my grey hair came in in streaks now their white and my hair looks highlighted but I still color mine as well but the white hair wont take the color. looks kinda cool :)

[Marika]

My mom is now 60 but I have no idea how much grey she would have if she didn't dye her hair. I've actually never seen her natural hair color!:bigeyes: She says it's dark brown so I assume she would be quite grey. I'm 31 but I think I don't have grey hairs yet.. It's hard to tell though because my hair is ashy dark blonde like my dad's. I'm not in contact with him so I don't know his 'hair situation' at all!:p

[katelinn]

My dad was definetly fairly grey when I was 14, and h1e wouldhave been 38. My brother takes after him as he is also pretty grey at 38.I am 35 and have found a few coarse grey hairs on top. I might have more fine hgreys but they mix really well with my blonde hair so you can't see them really.

My mum dyes her hair blonde, so I don't know how grey she really is, she is 57.

[katelinn]

Ops, duplicate post.

[rags]

I started finding silvers (and mine are silver not grey) when I was around 19. By the time I was 25 I had an inch wide "Rouge" streak in the front where my bangs would be if I had them (well, it's still there in my siggy. That's an older pic - lots more silvers nowdays).

My mother and father both didn't find any grey hairs until their 40's and didn't look salt and pepper till their late 50's. My mother is now 70 and I have almost as much silver as she does now (I'm late 40's). However, my mother's brother went completely white by the time he was 30, and several other of her relatives did, so I assume I got a bit of "early greying" genes from them.

[sumidha]

Definitely earlier- my dad had a little at his temples in his late forties but didn't start to go majorly grey until his 50's. My mom was 52 when she died and just starting to get a little white at the temples. I'm 28 and my white (not grey, at least) hairs are starting to come in around my temples.

I don't mind them, and I don't intent to keep dyeing them away, to me those white hairs are reminders of all the **** I've survived. Kinda like battle scars. :)