Questions of Hair - How and Why

[worldlyman]

Some guys will have and keep a very thick head of straight black hair...yet shave for years and never get close to having a full beard, sort of a diffuse fuzz. Not that it's a bad thing, it sort of complements the face a bit.

And the odd gray or white hair that is plucked out, why are there some times...that the root returns to black?

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

I would like to help you, but not sure exactly what your question is. The plucked grey hair that returns as a black root. How can you be sure that it is the same follicle and not an adjacent hair follicle?

[worldlyman]

I would like to help you, but not sure exactly what your question is. The plucked grey hair that returns as a black root. How can you be sure that it is the same follicle and not an adjacent hair follicle?

Because the hair is half black and half white...with the bulb or root end being black. It's just interesting though, that little phenomenon because my family history is that graying doesn't begin until mid 60s. I was just wondering if some people have a mysterious "fountain of youth" hormone that helps them stay younger for an extra 15 years or so. Or if some follicles simply regain an ability to produce pigment after a growth cycle or something like that.

I kept a sample of it in a ziploc a couple months ago:



Regarding the inability to grow a full beard, it's a general type question. I can't seem to grow one despite my decades of shaving my face. My scalp is still full of the same thick black hair I've had since high school but my face is relative facial sparse and I'm 41.

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

I have seen some increased pigmentation or decrease in the amount of gray hairs after laser treatments. I suppose it is possible for a hair follicle to not generate any pigment in one growth cycle, and something stimulates the melanocyte cells that are associated with that follicle to produces a hair with pigment in the next growth cycle. If you find that "fountain of youth" hormone
please share it with the rest of us.