Dyeing turns hair gray more quickly

[snopes]

Comment: My aunts started coloring their hair at an early age. The two
that did it most frequently now have the most grey hair. They now think
that the chemicals in hair color cause hair to turn grey quicker. Is this
true?

[GenYus234]

I would imagine dying causes a whole bunch of changes, but I don't think it does anything to your hair color.

[erwins]

Could the fact that they colored their hair more frequently have had something to do with the fact that they were greying faster? And then the coloring does its job of covering the grey until they stop using it and they are shocked to discover they have gotten more grey over the years?

[Dasla]

Well I rarely colour my hair and have no grey at all and my Mum started colouring her hair at a young age and is now almost completely grey.


Wait turning grey early is why she started colouring her hair so young and this is the first thing I thought of when I read about the aunts,

[Roadie]

I started greying in my early 30s. I had rarely curled, permed, or even blew my hair dry. And I had never colored or bleached it. I color it now but even that took until my late 30s.

[Sue]

I've no idea if it's true or not but I never coloured my hair until I was in my 40s and starting to go gray. My daughter on the other hand has been colouring her hair since she was about 13-14 just for fun and now, in her mid-20s has so much gray she is only colouring it to cover the gray - it's not so much fun anymore.

[DevilBunny]

It can't be true. The hair you originally started dyeing has long died and fallen out and been replaced by other hair.

Even if dye did grey out strands of hair somehow, your hair would slowly recover its colour over a couple of years as the damaged hair was replaced, unless the argument is that dyeing damages the follicles themselves.

And if dyeing was able to do permanent damage to things that far down in the dermis, I suspect your hair going grey wouldn't be the first thing you'd notice.

[Avril]

Yes, the dye would have to somehow damage the follicle. But I don't know that that is so dreadfully far-fetched. It may also correlate to other things people do that do damage the dermis--people who dye their hair might be more likely to tan?

Still, I don't buy it myself.