Never going grey?

[McQuarry]

Hey! I hope I'm not repeating anything that's already been said or asked, but I couldn't find anything through the search function and it's something I've been curious about for a long time.

So, my gran didn't go grey at all until she was 87, at which point, after a very bad illness (bad enough that it was a bit touch and go), the front half of her hair very suddenly started growing in snowy-white. She did, however, get progressively lighter, eventually ending up being a light strawberry blonde in her late 70s and 80s, having started off with a very rich, dark auburn. So I was wondering - how unusual is that? It's impossible to tell if an older lady or an older gent has been dyeing their hair or not unless it's clearly unnatural. (And on a related note, when gran went to have her hair cut, the hairdressers NEVER believed her when she said it wasn't dyed. Not even once.)

I've heard it somewhere that all sorts of redheads, dark to light, often skip the grey stage and go straight to white, but of the other gingers in my family related to gran (me, my brother, two cousins and an aunt) three of the five have some sort of white or grey in bits and pieces, so at least for us that's not necessarily a given. And even if it were, it doesn't explain how gran went nearly nine decades without so much as a grey or white streak.

So does anybody have any more information or anecdotes?

[vpatt]

My friends aunt was in her eighties with jet black hair. She didn't like it because she said it looked like it was dyed but it was her natural color.

[Robi-Bird]

One of my aunts hasn't greyed but instead her hair has gone platinum blond. She dyes it a darker blond because she doesn't like platinum.

[RavenRose]

My grandmother is in her 80's now. Has natural auburn color, and it generaly just lightened over the years, got some salt in her mid 60's, and didn't go fully gray until mid 70's. My mom is in her early 50's and just starting to get some sparkles...

[MsPharaohMoan]

I didn't realize these hairs came in different colors but it makes sense, I have a few that are bright gold. I guess it just depends on whether you have hairs that sparkle? To classify a sparkle...

[vendethiel]

I know a lady in her 70s who only has a light dusting of gray at her temples and the rest is her natural dark auburn. Her mother's hair is completely white, however, so I have no idea what that means. :)

[squirrrel]

My Dad's Mum was still mostly jet black when she was in her eighties, and my Mum tells me that her granny (who she remembers having classic length hair at least) had hair that never went grey until she developed dementia, was taken into care, and they cut it short so they could look after it more easily. I was wondering if that was partially to do with the length, though my Dad's Mum kept her hair short...

[LiiAme]

My grandpa (mom's side) had pitch black curly hair until his late-70s. He started going grey after undergoing chemo. I wish I could have my natural colour until that age, but my dad's genes are interfering a little with that dream :)

[lapushka]

My dad just turned 69 and has white hairs sprinkled through his black hair, it's about 50% gray, but he's gone gray in sprinkles instead of big chunky streaks. I like that, and it looks as if I'm headed the same direction. My mom is gray all over and is almost 70 - she dyes it a light/medium blonde, you almost barely see roots.

[Lindenare]

My great-grandmother had a blonde streak in her hair until the day she died. She was a natural blonde and somehow that one lock held its color while everywhere else went white. Neither of my parents had any gray/white hairs until their fifties.

[DollyDagger]

My dad at age 75 when he died had very few gray hairs that you could easily count on your hands. His friends used to tease and accuse him of colouring it.

[Nique1202]

There's rightly no such thing as grey hair, it's just that the slightly translucent white hairs look greyish when contrasted with plain brown tones, which is why brunettes are the only ones who appear to go grey. The red pigment in redheads' and auburnettes' hair is separate from any brown pigment, so their hair tends to fade through rosy-red into blonde into white rather than looking grey as they lose first the brown pigment and then the red. Blondes tend to go straight into white as they have almost no pigment to begin with or to contrast with.

[DollyDagger]

nique1202 Excellent point ! Very true..."grey" hair is a misnomer and optical illusion :)

[pailin]

There's rightly no such thing as grey hair, it's just that the slightly translucent white hairs look greyish when contrasted with plain brown tones, which is why brunettes are the only ones who appear to go grey. The red pigment in redheads' and auburnettes' hair is separate from any brown pigment, so their hair tends to fade through rosy-red into blonde into white rather than looking grey as they lose first the brown pigment and then the red. Blondes tend to go straight into white as they have almost no pigment to begin with or to contrast with.
This is exactly what I saw in my dad. He's white now, but he basically just when from blondish/brownish through lighter shades of blonde and then white.

[McQuarry]

Aha! Thanks folks, this has been really interesting! And Nique1202, thank you very much, I didn't know any of that. So my takeaway is that Gran actually did go grey, in some sense, or at least went through the same process. Mum will be really interested to hear about this, it's been a family mystery, haha.

[Christine_O]

My whole family, except my sister and dad, started out life white blonde. We went through darker blonde where my younger brother stayed. My older brother and I turned mediumish brown. He is now 60 and I'm 59, and neither of us has started to grey. My younger brother hasn't started to change color either. My sister started with black hair (Imagine Mom's surprise!), which turned to dark auburn. She started to grey in her 30's like our father. Mom's in her 80's now and is salt and pepper.
Note from my avatar that I'm wearing auburn. I've hennaed, but I had a terrible struggle with whether to do it because I've had such trouble with people assuming that I colored my hair. This is a picture of my virgin hair last month.
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19126&d=1442868417