The tip of the hair was grey but the part closer to the scalp was pigmented. They saw hairs that had initially turned grey but that then started expressing their natural colour again. Earlier this year, a team of researchers published the results of a study in which they looked at plucked hairs from 14 healthy participants. His case is a dramatic but rare example of repigmentation. There is the striking case of a 68-year-old Japanese man whose hair was practically all white, but following the administration of a therapeutic antibody for persistent inflammation of the skin, half of his hair reverted back to its natural black colour. When our hair has lost its pigmentation, the colour can come back.
While scientists can’t agree on a clear age cut-off for what constitutes premature hair greying, they have discovered a number of risk factors for it, which include smoking, certain vitamin deficiencies, and genetics, because premature hair greying can run in families. Europeans and their descendants tend to go grey before Asians and Africans, and some people’s hair goes grey prematurely at a much younger age. You may have heard of the 50-50-50 rule-that 50% of us will have had 50% of our hair turn grey by the age of 50-but a large study reveals this to be an overestimation, with between 6 and 23% of people sporting a half-and-half by the age of 50. From the Latin, we have canities (pronounced “kuh-NISH-eez”), while the Greek language gave us achromotrichia, which literally translates to a lack of colour in the hair. The Scrabble crowd will be delighted to know that there are two scientific names for this greying of the hair. There comes a time, however, when this pigmentation starts to wane and our hair looks grey. Our hair has cells that are dedicated to producing these pigments: they are called melanocytes. The relative quantities of these two pigments will decide our natural hair colour, from jet black to brown to blond to red. The colour of human hair is due to the ratio between a couple of molecules: the black-brown eumelanin and the reddish-brown pheomelanin.
Whether a pill can slow down the greying of our hair depends in part on what we know about why our hair goes grey in the first place. Their product came to my attention recently and I was asked, “What do you make of this?” It’s aspirational but it also tries to be relatable. There’s a contemporary vibe to the Arey website, a casual minimalism that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The way they market their supplement reminded me of hims, the wellness outfit that wants to be goop for men. The company is called Arey, a name derived from the French word for stop, arrêt, although the pronunciation is different. The company’s proposition is bold: “delay the grey.” Why put up with grey hair when we could pop a new pill to “replenish body with the vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants” it needs to hold onto our natural hair colour? The banner image shows an elated young woman with dark hair streaked with reddish-brown, basking in the sunlight. The website has a subtle grey background.