We have all heard the myth that if you pull out a gray hair, even more will grow – up to seven for each and every one. Is that really true? Of course it’s not!
It happens to everyone sooner or later – you look in the mirror and there they are, the merciless reflection of your first gray hairs. If you’re blonde, they’re much less noticeable and far easier hidden, but it’s a shock for everyone anyway. What to do? Our first instinct would be to pull it out as soon as we find it, but we often hesitate because of an old wives’ tale that even more gray hair will grow if we do.
Well you can relax: this superstition is just that and plucking out a gray hair will not trigger the growth of others. The reason is simple: a hair root contains just one hair and that will always be the same, so the most that can regrow there is just one hair. Pulling it out, however, causes a minor trauma that can lead to two things. The first is that more sebum will be produced and the hair will grow thinner. The second? Even worse! The trauma will no longer allow the same hair to grow. So pulling out gray hairs is never a good idea.
And when it comes to gray hair, there are another couple of myths to debunk… Stress will not turn hair gray, but can do something much worse… it can cause hair to fall out! And lifestyle doesn’t matter much when it comes to your first gray hairs, but genetics does: look at your parents and your grandfathers to get an idea of when you will have gray hairs and will be able to start plucking them out!