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Hey guys,
I've noticed I have several white hairs in my beard. I've noticed them for a couple years but just assumed they were vellus hairs. However, they have the same thickness and length as my other beard hairs, which leads me to believe my beard is already turning grey at age 22. Is this kind of color variation normal? I really can't tell if they're white or blonde, especially because of varying lighting, but they really look white to me. The photo I've attached is the most pronounced area, but there are more throughout, around the chin area.
They look blond to me. I know a few people who have brown hair on their head but some blond or red ones on their face. As for their being gray trust me I know a gray hair when I see one..LOL
Also the thickness would be different, gray and white hairs have a very different texture to them they're more wire'y. Mine stick straight out so unless I'm growing a longer full beard like bill I'll have to keep it a short goatee.
Kevin
My experience (with my own hair) has been that you never know what will happen next, so just sit back and enjoy the show! Until I was 4 years old, my hair was blond and curly. Then it got black and straight. It got wavier and wavier and eventually it got downright kinky:
My beard tended to be just as kinky as my hair, but perhaps with tighter curls. I never let it get long enough at first to know for sure, but I could stick my afro pick in it and it would just stay there. My beard has always had very coarse hairs, while my hair has always had very fine ones.
I first grew out my beard beyond an inch or two about five years ago, and I cut it back when it got very tangled due to the kinks in it. By this time, my hair had become a mixture of wavy and curly. This is just before I cut it back:
Soon after that my hair and beard both got very straight, and my afro pick would not stay put if stuck in my beard at all. It would just fall out. This photo was taken less than a year ago:
What motivated me to try growing out the beard that second time was that my hair had gotten much straighter and I hoped my beard would have, too. It turned out I was right!
As for "gray vs. black", the color change did not especially match the times the texture changed. All transitions were gradual as gray hairs got more numerous and black ones got less so. The curliness tended to grow downward with my hair, though. For awhile it was straight above my ears and still quite curly down below them.
On the back of my head my hair is still almost all black! No one sees it, though, because the gray hairs from higher up cover it up. People are surprised when I lift that hair up to show them I still have black hair. By the way, I got my first gray hairs, four of them, in my beard 33 years ago, and as I said I still have some black hairs. I even have a few in my beard. This is all a lifetime process, so as I suggested, just sit back and enjoy the show!
I had a friend who had a completely gray mustache at age 22, by the way, while the rest of his hair was black, so gray hair can come very early for some people, and some men never get any gray hair at all. Most commonly, gray hair shows up in facial hair before head hair, but that won't necessarily be the case on everyone.
Bill
Your shirt is awesome Bill, just wanted to let you know that. Where did you get it?
The tie-dye I got at a street vendor's booth at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair. The eagle shirt I got at a truck stop in Michigan. The bandanna I'm wearing with the eagle shirt I got at a gas station in Idaho. You never know where you will find cool threads. You just gotta keep your eyes open!
Bill
Thanks for the info, both of them look great, I was referring to the eagle shirt in particular though, really good looking shirt.
Yeah, I wondered which one you meant, so I just gave info on both. Thanks for answering that question. Glad you like it!
That the rocks on the shirt closely match the rocks in the photo are, of course, purely accidental, but that similarity I later realized adds to the coolness of the photo.
Bill
I mentioned how my hair changed from curly to straight as it grew out. I just found the photo above that shows that well. It was taken three years ago today. You can also see in this photo how my beard had already become mostly straight, while my hair was only straight for the newest half (the top half) of my strands.
Since that photo was taken, my hair has gotten grayer. It seemed to get gray all over at the same time, but the straight to curly transition line moved down my head.
Bill
Pretty much every man who doesn't have black hair has those weird pale-blond hairs right under their lower lip.
Beards commonly turn gray/white before head hair does. I wouldn't worry about it.
I wouldn't think that you are graying at all. At 22 it's more likely that those hairs will darken up as you get older and your beard fills in. I have those same blonder thinner hairs in my beard, but they seem to be thickening up and getting a bit darker as I get older.
I don't think it's actual greying.
I've had, and still have, several of those blonde/translucent hairs around my lower lip.
Hair and beards are a slow changing pastorale of colors/textures that's fun to watch as the years go by!
- Oren