Going gray

So, the other day I noticed a gray hair in my amazon-like forest of chest hair. Isn't it a bit early. I mean I'm not quite 40 yet. Then my wife kindly told me I had another three, or four, or five...I told her to stop counting...on my back.

"You know, if it was all gray, it wouldn't look like you have any hair on your body!"

Great, the kind of support one can count on from one's spouse. Do they sell gray dye at the 24 hour pharmacy? Probably not.

This got me wondering, why does our hair turn gray? My parents used to blame it on the stress I caused them as a child. Apparently, that's a load of bunk. Here's the follicle on my unscientific research.

Hair follicles contain pigment cells, which in turn produce a chemical called melanin. This gives the growing shaft its colour. When the pigment cells die, the hair turns gray. I did learn that it may take more than 10 years for all the hair to turn gray.

One other fact. The average scalp has 100,000 to 150,000 hairs on it. And for those of you who know me, I'm not all that average.

Yes, there was a time when my head didn't look like a clear cut:

15 years later