Help with grey hair in 20s?! :(

[stephy190]

Ok so I know grey hair can be a nice style but I really like having my natural brown colour and I am only 27 but lots of greys in clumps now! Got first grey at about 21. Is there any way to slow this down? And save the rest of my hairs?

It's got to point where it's noticeably grey areas.

Anyone have any experience please share!

Was thinking vitamins or something in case I have deficiencies? I also have a tendency to get stressed. But now I'm stressing more! Don't wanna have to start dying my hair this young. Help!

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I got my first grey hair at 21. I promptly began dying my hair. Later, of course, I regretted it but by then it was too late. I'm not sure what advice to give you. But I love my natural colour now.

[florenonite]

Maybe something like senna would be nice? It would turn the greys golden rather than blending them into your natural hair colour, but that could be nice and wouldn't damage your hair.

I'm 30 and started noticing white hairs about six months ago. Thankfully I already henna so those hairs just end up extra sparkly :p

ETA: I meant to say that the age your hair starts to go grey at has more to do with genetics than anything else, so if your parents went grey young then there's your answer. If you have reason to worry about nutritional deficiencies, though, then definitely see a doctor.

[stephy190]

Your hair is beautiful on you but I don't think I'd suit it. I just want to keep my brown hair intact as long as possible. Did you find anything that helped stop it when it was happening?

[Aerya]

It could be deficiencies, but some people just go grey early. Having your levels checked is always good if it's been a while, so I'd start there. If there's nothing you could look into the different options of dyeing. I mean, I think grey hair is beautiful, I really do; but I'm in my 20s myself and I understand not wanting it just yet. Depending on how your greys are spread out, you could try to dye just the grey parts to match your brown hair? Or dye it all as similarly to your natural brown as possible, although I understand not wanting to alter your virgin hair too much.

[stephy190]

Yeah it's hard getting to doctors right now though:( it's probably not seen as essential. But I would like to get test done to see if deficient in anything. I have ordered multivitamins. So will start taking those. Yeah I suppose could just dye the worst patches maybe. Or henna maybe would be a good call just for an all over brown. Does henna cover grey?

[0xalis]

I hate to tell you this but it honestly probably is genetics. My wife has gray hairs already and she's 23, and her sister is in her late twenties and is extremely salt and peppery. Can we trade? I absolutely love silver hair and can't wait to get mine!

[Kalamazoo]

Hi. I'm 64. I got my 1st gray hair when I was 20. I've been using natural things to combat "premature grey", & I think I've been mostly successful; my hair still appears to be either light brunette or dark blonde ("blondette"). Besides using a wooden comb (made of neem, or sandalwood, or cherrywood, or lignum vitae), I do hair masks to make my hair grow faster. See "Does eating peppermint grow hair faster?", p.4. https://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=150332&page=4

You'll find I'm using several "blonde hazard" ingredients. Maybe just one of them is all you need.

When I start seeing some gray around my temples, I do another treatment. I change up the ingredients a bit each time.

ETA: P.S. Your hair looks simply amazing. Very lovely!

[Vacurlylady]

Hi! I don’t really have any advice except to say... I’m really not sure when my first grey appeared. Probably early 20’s. I started coloring my hair about then, not to cover them, but to try fun lighter colors than my natural. Of course, I have always been a very short pixie so I didn’t worry about the damage. That habit did not stop until I was almost 60. When I finally grew out my color, I loved not having to deal with coloring, plus I loved my natural. On this side of life, I wished I got to enjoy my transition gradually.

[stephy190]

I hate to tell you this but it honestly probably is genetics. My wife has gray hairs already and she's 23, and her sister is in her late twenties and is extremely salt and peppery. Can we trade? I absolutely love silver hair and can't wait to get mine!

Yes let's trade please!

[stephy190]

Hi. I'm 64. I got my 1st gray hair when I was 20. I've been using natural things to combat "premature grey", & I think I've been mostly successful; my hair still appears to be either light brunette or dark blonde ("blondette"). Besides using a wooden comb (made of neem, or sandalwood, or cherrywood, or lignum vitae), I do hair masks to make my hair grow faster. See "Does eating peppermint grow hair faster?", p.4. https://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=150332&page=4

You'll find I'm using several "blonde hazard" ingredients. Maybe just one of them is all you need.

When I start seeing some gray around my temples, I do another treatment. I change up the ingredients a bit each time.

ETA: P.S. Your hair looks simply amazing. Very lovely!

Ah thank you :) oh I will have a look at those ingredients :) I used to use peppermint oil on my scalp.

[Obsidian]

Does henna cover grey?

It does but will make your grey strands bright orange. Henna isn't brown, its orange.
You could use a henna/indigo mix to get brown. It wouldn't be damaging like box dyes.

[Dark40]

I've started getting my first gray hair when I was 18, and that's when I started coloring my hair, and I've been dyeing it ever since for the last 30 years! No, I've never heard of such thing slowing down the aging process.

[Aredhel]

I have clusters of grey in my hair as well (predominantly in hidden areas for now, thankfully!) and I'm only 28. I started getting my first greys in my very early 20's for sure. Initially there was a lot of panic when I started finding clusters, but I got used to them pretty quick.

[Amenahh]

You could dye the grey areas into some sort of highlights? So that you still keep a lot of your natural colour, and have the white hairs blend into the highlights look.
I'm not sure you can do much about not getting grey, it's mainly just genetics.

[Fimu]

Can't help you much because I have no knowledge how quickly your parents got grays and I don't have knowledge of or experience with graying delay with herbal stuff.

I have a few sparse white strands (so not really clumps) at the front side since my early/mid 20s, but I usually cut or pluck them off to utilize them as growth speed trackers.

My father has salt n pepper hair in his 60s (have to ask him since when he was graying) and my mother has sparse gray hairs at her edges since 50s or earlier. My 40-something brother doesn't have obvious gray hair so far I observed.

[florenonite]

Yeah it's hard getting to doctors right now though:( it's probably not seen as essential. But I would like to get test done to see if deficient in anything. I have ordered multivitamins. So will start taking those. Yeah I suppose could just dye the worst patches maybe. Or henna maybe would be a good call just for an all over brown. Does henna cover grey?

Yup, but it goes bright orange, and even the rest of your hair would get pretty red as it's hard to isolate hair with it. Senna (also called cassia) I think would be a better option, as it'd turn them golden, like natural highlights, and leave your brown hair alone.

Another option would be to try to match your greys with a henna/indigo blend, but I think that's harder because your hair is dark, but not so dark it won't take the colour up at all. Natural dyes depend on the colour of the hair to begin with, so to get it dark enough to cover your greys, you might just make the rest of your hair even darker.

If you don't care about using natural hair colouring but want something that won't cause damage, you could also use a deposit-only dye close to your natural hair colour. Unfortunately I think you're probably stuck with either dyeing your hair or embracing your greys, as it's likely genetics.

[enting]

Is it still at a stage where something like tea rinses (was it sage tea that helped darken hair?) might help? I know we have a thread somewhere about using various teas to tint different colors on hair. I don't really have experience with it myself, I hope someone who does can chime in.

[Iyashikei]

I can understand not wanting to lose the brown hair because it's lovely, but it's probably genetic. If you really don't want grey hair then you'll have to dye it.

That being said grey hair on young people can look great too. Here's proof if you want. https://www.boredpanda.com/young-women-natural-gray-hair-grombre/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Notice that some of these have been greying since childhood 🙀 I didn't even think it was possible for a 7yo to start growing natural grey hair already.

Also I'm on my phone so if the link doesn't work it's because of that.

[Lucy McLucyFace]

You could try cassia. It lasts about a month so you don't have to worry about regretting it and it would give you some cute blonde highlights in the areas where it's greying

[stephy190]

Will have to look into senna/cassia. No idea what they are! Buy will do some research. In certain lighting it is more noticeable I've realised but I don't think it's that visible in most lighting. But the panic has subsided a bit. Will start dying at some point when i cant deal with it anymore! Thanks all for help and advice :)

[Kalamazoo]

The stuff I'm doing turns my greys golden, & keeps my browns brown. So it doesn't look monochromatic, like dyed hair.