I’ve just turned 40 and, like many of my friends, am just starting to go gray – although in the oddest way. All of my friends began to gray at the temples (which I always thought looked very cool) and it spread from there. I, on the other hand, am going gray (OK, I prefer “silver”) at odd random locations over all my scalp, and it’s not concentrated in any one area. I’m afraid that in six months I’m going to look like a spotted owl. Is it supposed to work this way? Anyone else in the “senior” crowd experience this? What’s next, random hair loss?
I’m 34 and my hair has odd gray strands here and there. It’s not that unusual. I have a friend who’s had gray hair since’s been 9. It’s in strands and streaks
You made it to 40 and you’re complaining ?
Actually I’m 30 and the chest hair has been graying for 2 or 3 years. The hair on my head, what there is left of it, started getting a few gray hairs last year.
Anyhow back to the OP. My maternal grandfather worked gray in all over at the same time. Isn’t this what they call salt and pepper graying ? My paternal grandfather was always gray and had no hair at the temple for as long as I remember. If his sons, including my father, are any indication I’ll be ending up the same way. My father and his brothers also seem to be gaining gray in an uneven manner but it’s hard to tell if it’s at the temple since they all have receded (receding) hair lines. I believe there has been a couple threads back a long time ago on this. I remember it was mentioned that some people believe these traits come from the mother’s side. I beg to differ, my hair and it’s receding state would indicate just the opposite. My maternal grandfather had more hair at 65 than I have now.
I started to go grey at 14, which I thought was pretty cool at the time, but the older I got, the more grey I got - the salt and pepper kind. I thought it was odd, since the only other prematurely grey member of my family was my brother-in-law, so for years I attributed by silver locks to the use of high quality drugs during my formative years.
A few years ago, a greying friend told me my hair color was a result of my Black Irish heritage. I had always heard my grandfather was “Black Irish,” but I was never sure what the hell that meant. I called my bro-in-law and yes, his forebears were also said to be Black Irish.
I tried to do some research on the BI, but according to the Internet (and Cecil, of course), the Black Irish only exist in the minds of Americans. I guess it’s one of those wossnames, grey areas.
What annoys me is my EYEBROWS going grey before I have that much visible grey on my head! Seriously, I have these annoying white streaks in my eyebrows. I’d feel silly as hell dying my eyebrows, and do I use hair dye or the stuff for beards and mustaches?
Don’t try to dye your brows, hon. It’s too easy to have it drip accidently and get in your eyes.
Go to a professional. They know how to do it safely. It’s not allowed in some states, though. We do brow dyeing but we follow very strict guidelines.
MaryAnn
“I don’t care if it’s the queen!”
There is stuff just for beards and mustaches.
I had a few gray hairs show up when I was 25. 14 years later I have a few more. The color dosen’t bother me, but the wiriness does. What I’m enjoying is that by brother, who is a year younger than me, is losing his hair and I still have a full head of hair. he is pissed at this.
The chest hair is what bugs me. My scalp hair, which is still very long, has some sporadic gray hairs but they don’t disturb me. My chest hair, which is also thick, is gray above the nipples and dark below. Frickin’ drives me crazy. The sife doesn’t seem to mind, though. There’s no substitute for a loving woman.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I’ve made it to 29 without seeing one, and neither of my biological parents have even a trace of gray hair in their early 50’s. I’m never going gray. I have no receding hair at all, and have a baby face.
My wife, on the other hand, started getting gray at around 24 or 25. Her mother was completely gray at 35. My wife is always complaining that we are going to end up looking like George and Barbara Bush, where people will think she is my mom. I don’t think that’ll happen though… her mom looks young other than the gray, and her grandma looks young for her age too. Actually, I think it’d be cool though. Anytime someone said something indicating that they thought she was my mom, I could get some pretty fun reactions out of people by grabbing my wife’s ass, or planting a wet one on her. 
Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.
Wait & watch your pubic hair turn grey. Have you ever tried to pluck a pubic hair?
Honest, I’m not trying to hijack…
I’m starting to get a few gray hairs - I was sitting on the couch, and my son was sitting on the back of the couch behind me, brushing my hair. Yes, he does this every once in a while - don’t ask me, he asks to do it.
Anyway, all of a sudden, I feel this pinch and he’s yanking out my hair!! I asked him what the heck he did that for - he says, “Mommy, I just wanted to pull the gray ones out for you.” SO, who was sitting at the dining room table, doesn’t miss a beat - says, “You’d probably better stop, kiddo. She’ll be bald by the time you’re done.”
Yes, HE slept on the couch…
I always thought the random gray patch was kind of cool. I call the right chin portion of my beard my “Holden Caufield” spot. Look on the bright side of being a spotted owl, the courts will keep your house from being cut down by a timber company.
My beard is going gray/white along the sideburns, but not much of anywhere else. I have a niece who has a gray spot at the back of her head at age 12.
KalEl, my suspicion is that you have been exposed to plaid kryptonite.
Bucky
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.
You guys are lucky—I love gray hair, and only have five or six of 'em. My sister went 1/3 gray by the time she was in her early 40s; both of our parents colored their hair for so long we can’t tell WHEN they started to gray!
By the way, there is nothing sexier or more dashing than a silver-haired gent.
I’m 32 and am already profoundly salt-and-pepper gray, and getting moreso all the time.
Seems to be a curse from my mother’s side – many in her large family were premature grayers.
Strangely, though, my three brothers have not grayed at all. Two are older than me, and the youngest is nearly 29.
What gives? (We all look quite a bit alike and are clearly brothers, so the Postman or Milkman theories aren’t likely, thanks.)
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known” - Michel Gyquem de Montaigne
I’ve got flecks throughout, but the grey is mainly on the temples. My father, OTOH, who wore a sort of a pompador, developed a distinct, ~1.5" wide skunk stripe slightly offset from center that preceded the rest of the grey by about 15 years.
I had a friend who had no grey on his head by the time the left side of his handlebar mustache had gone completely silver.
Whoa, after reading all the postings thus far, I figure I’d better quit bitching about my dozen or so gray hairs. I started with a tuft of gray on the upper left side of my head when I was 24 or 25, and for years that’s all it was. Then, in the last decade or so, I’ve noticed a half-dozen random grays here and there, but nothing major. What pisses me off is that my brother, who’s a year older, has no gray at all. My dad didn’t get any gray until his early 50s, so I think I’ve inherited my mom’s graying pattern. I’m not ready to go “au naturel”, though, so I’ll keep coloring my hair for a while yet. I’m not vain, but I’m only 35 there’s something unsettling about gray hair before 45 or 50, I think.
aseymayo, I think “Black Irish” refers to the touch of Spanish blood picked up in Ireland when the Spanish Armada was wrecked in a storm off of Ireland while fleeing the English fleet. The mainly Catholic Irish sheltered some of the shipwrecked Spanish Catholic sailors, nature took its course, and black-haired dark skinned Irish people resulted.
I’m 22, and I’ve got dark brown hair with sparse grey all over, mostly in the back.
I first noticed it after getting way too close to a fire I was trying to extinguish. I singed the hairs on my arms, and the ends of the hair on my head. Since then, some of them have been coming in grey. Maybe they were before too, but I didn’t notice it.
Bucky—
You have a sharp wit AND a graying beard?
[Eve swoons on her Empire couch, while servants rush about with scented fans and smelling salts]