Monday, March 9, 2015

got a surprise....

My hair has such a mind of its own, i've sometimes joked that it is a separate entity ... and a highly capricious one at that.  If it doesn't "want" to be styled in the way i try to do it, it simply won't GO or STAY there.  I don't have the "hair talent" that my eldest sister does, so i usually just give up and let it have its way (thank dog for scrunchies and clips).  ;-)  The other day it decided it wanted to be parted on the other side from the usual;  i went along with that decision.

Then i noticed....  Usually when i let it part itself differently, the non-brown hairs gleam forth in all their glory.  And my grey hairs are not the genteel dark grey that my husband's were in the beginning, no.  They're SILVER -- they practically glow in the dark.  Maybe silver isn't the right word either;  think preternaturally light-emitting vintage-scifi robot platinum!

When the new parting revealed hairs that hadn't been exposed to the light of day since, oh, the last time my mane got the bit in its figurative teeth, there was a truly surprising lack of the metallic glint i anticipated.

How is that possible?!  ...I googled....

There's a surprising lack of scientifically sound information on exactly WHY hair goes grey (or doesn't).  One oh-so-brilliant website proclaims that hair greys because you're OLDER -- why didn't i think of that?!  :-P  The more scholarly ones say that it happens because the two types of melanin no longer go into the hair as it sprouts -- YA THINK?  Of course, the reason for THAT is not mentioned.

On "natural health" sites, there's a huge list of practices and supplements credited with nurturing hair growth, keeping it "healthy" and of the original color.  Beyond saying "X is required for the hormones that encourage growth" though, not much useful information is to be found.  In the comments sections, everybody has HEARD that such-and-such helped so-and-so, but it's just like the seeing of ghosts -- one's aunt's college-roomate's brother-in-law saw one once....

So when i noticed the shortage of silver threads among the brown, the only thing i could do was reflect on what's new in my world -- and THE thing it could possibly be was only obliquely supportable through the literature.  I left the internet and consulted the book that might offer support for my hypothesis.  Even it didn't have SPECIFIC info about grey hair -- just general hair allusions.

A previous book in my collection had hinted that carnitine might influence the color, but in my experience it had no impact;  it might have slowed greying, but there's no way to know.  The people in my family whom i most closely resemble are/were grey-resistant themselves.  And it surely didn't take two or three years for C's follicular benefit to manifest....

No, it HAS to be something i began last fall, because i haven't added (and stuck with) anything else very recently.  It has to be the gelatin.

Again -- though gelatin is actually proven to increase hair thickness, there doesn't seem to be data on its effect on color.  Looking up "hair" in "Nourishing Broth" mostly yields "hair, nails and skin" and doesn't mention the grey at all.

It's been about five months that i've been stirring a tablespoon of Great Lakes gelatin into my morning coffee, pretty much every single day (when i'm out of town i occasionally miss a day).  I had also bought and tried out GL's collagen but i didn't "feel it" the same way, so i only use that a few days at a time when the current gelatin container runs out, to use it up; when the new order arrives i go back to the orange cannister.

I was thoroughly prepared to have to use gelatin for quite awhile -- MONTHS -- before i saw improvements in certain areas, like joints and gut, but i wasn't hanging in there in hopes that i could discontinue touching up my grey!  Consider it just a positive side-effect -- hell, consider it a VERY pleasant surprise!

15 comments:

  1. I, personally, would be PISSED if I lost this silvery gleam to my hair. PISSED, I tells ya. LOL

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    1. :-) i hear ya, sister! the part i object to is the silver-brown conflict....

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    2. The funny thing is, I dyed my hair for as I did because I hated the look of auburn mixed with gray/white/silver. Ends up, all my auburn went taupe, which goes really well with the silver and gray and a little white. ;)

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  2. There definitely is a genetic component to it. My Mom was 86 when she died and my hair was whiter than hers and I was 60. Took after Dad's side. I like my hair going white.

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    1. genes do make a difference! :-) my husband started going grey in his mid-20s! he claimed to have earned them....

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  3. Sshh my hairdresser and I share a secret !

    All the best Jan

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    1. the only secret in my case was the exact mixture David used to whip up before putting it on my head.... ;-)

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  4. Hmmmm.. Gelatin.. that is very interesting. I've noticed when I eat salmon or take fish oil supplements, my hair is very smooth. I have lots of hair, so that helps me look less 80's style... LOL.

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    1. good fats in the diet are WONDERFUL for skin and hair, in my experience -- i've never noticed omega-3 being specific for that, though. :-) my hair is very fine (runs in the family) but thickly-planted.

      when i tried the no-poo experiment using baking soda (or Dr Bronner's soap) followed by vinegar, it seemed significantly thicker and heavier ... and i only needed to wash it about once per week. this habit, which i followed for about a year till much travel made it inconvenient, seemed to readapt my scalp's "need" to be cleaned very often, so i shampoo between once and twice a week these days. :-)

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  5. I started to color my hair at 27, an early grayness runs in my family, on a plus side, it coexists with a serious delay in a skin aging. I think I will take it.

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    1. yes, your situation seems a lot better than the other way around! :-) did you have many pimples in your teens or twenties? i'm curious -- my skin was pretty clear in my teens, but i broke out quite a bit as an adult ... coincidentally when i was eating very low fat!

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    2. I did have pimples, not at a very young age, but in my 20-s. I realized many years later is was mostly due to a Rosaciea (an autoimmune condition) which got obviously better on a LC diet together with asthma, eczema and the rest of conditions which accompany different stages of a metabolic syndrome. I think that Rosacea is a very important visible health marker which normally gets ignored or misunderstood.
      I was in a car crash at 20 years old, my health got worse after that, it took at least 7 years to recover.

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  6. Interesting. I've been occasionally putting a tablespoon in my natural calm or making some kombucha "jello" but haven't been systematic about consuming it. I have plenty of grey hair to experiment on :)

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    1. gelatin (and/or home-made broth) seems to be one of those things that takes a LONG time to show benefit, but if we're patient and persistent it seems to pay off. i think that's why my method seems to work -- i have the habit of dissolving a tablespoon of gelatin powder into about a quarter-cup of filtered water, then i add coffee to it and drink it while it's hot so it doesn't thicken up on me. that way, i don't have to schedule EATiNG a high-glycine food during the day. it's pretty quick and easy to DO ... but you might have to wait half a year to see results. :-/

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  7. I've been taking a "Hair, Skin & Nails" formula multivitamin for almost 3 mos now; can't really tell if it's helping much (biotin, glucosamine, A, C, & E) - overall I FEEL better, but can't dissect out which aspect of my regimen is helping the most (revamped supplements w/alpha-lipoic acid, a green tea extract capsule, the multivitamin w/extra C, twice a week Vit D)
    But I'm not stressing about my grey either - just mainly trying to improve thinning texture, poor nail quality...

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