Redheads probably won't go grey. That's because the pigment just fades over time. So they will probably go blonde and even white, but not grey.
The worry about going gray now has a concrete number to obsess over—and it varies depending on your natural hair color. A new survey reported by the Daily Mail says ladies should start worrying in their 30s: specifically, ages 30, 32, and 35 (for redheads, brunettes, and blonds, respectively).
Thanks to genetics, gingers tend to retain their red hair colour for a lot longer, skipping out the greying stage that most other people experience.
Simply put, achromotrichia is the absence of pigment in the hair. But while non-redheads gradually go grey and then perhaps to fully white hair, redheads actually retain their ginger colour for a lot longer, skipping out the greying stage.
2. Your ethnicity makes a difference. Caucasians tend to go gray earlier — and redheads earliest of all.
Typically, white people start going gray in their mid-30s, Asians in their late 30s, and African-Americans in their mid-40s. Half of all people have a significant amount of gray hair by the time they turn 50.
Grey hair and genetics
The average age for grey hair varies greatly, and one of the main causes of grey hair in your 20s is genetics. The age at which a person's hair turns grey is influenced by the IRF4 gene, and one specific variant (rs12203592) is a marker for premature greying.
Why do people sometimes appear to be younger than others of the same age? The culprit turns out to be an innocent-sounding gene, MC1R, responsible for producing, among other things, locks of fetching red hair as well as pale skin, researchers have discovered.
Redheads Look Older Than They Are
That wasn't because redheads had more wrinkles, which you might guess since they're more prone to sun damage. The researcher showed the MC1R gene variant correlated to thinning lips, sagging skin along the jawline, and other visible signs of aging.
Redheads actually have less hair than most other people. On average they only have 90,000 strands of hair while blonds, for example, have 140,000. However, red hair is typically thicker so it still looks just as full.
Researchers think that the ginger gene, known as MC1R, may cause the temperature-detecting gene to become over-activated, making redheads more sensitive to the cold.
According to research published in Current Biology, people with the MC1R gene, aka the gene that produces red hair and fair skin, tend to look several years younger than their non-ginger counterparts.
We found that redheads were significantly more sensitive to cold pain perception, cold pain tolerance, and heat pain tolerance. Heat pain perception threshold was also lower, but not significantly so, in redheads.
Lifespan: up to 20 years in captivity, 5-10 years in the wild.
The skin of a redhead is thinner compared to others and is derived from the ectoderm. Teeth enamel is also derived from the ectoderm and thus is thinner than usual. Since the enamel coating is thin, the inner layer of tooth-dentin is more visible and offers a yellowish appearance.
Red often fades to pale pink, however, this may change if you started with a more orange-toned dye which may fade to a more peachy hue.
About 1–2% of people of European origin have red hair. Especially female redheads are known to suffer higher pain sensitivity and higher incidence of some disorders, including skin cancer, Parkinson's disease and endometriosis.
REDHEADS are significantly less likely to age badly.
According to their findings, those who carry a variation of the MC1R gene responsible for red hair, look around two years younger than they actually are.
Most (natural) redheads will have brown eyes, followed by hazel or green shades.
Ireland has the highest per capita percentage of redheads in the world -- anywhere from 10 to 30 percent, according to Eupedia, a website that explores European genetics and ancestry. They are almost equally prevalent in Scotland and other pockets of Celtic pride.
Previous studies had shown that redheads inherit two versions of the MC1R gene that leads to red hair – one from their mum and one from their dad. Although almost everyone with red hair has two copies of the red-haired version of MC1R, not everyone carrying two red-haired versions is a redhead.
What Causes Redheads to Have Sensitive Skin? The mutation of the MC1R gene (the gene that regulates your skin pigmentation,) gives redheads their red hair. Unfortunately, the gene mutation also causes redheads to have thinner skin than most people.
Just like the hair on the head, the hair on the rest of the body, including the pubic area, is subject to graying. As people age, their skin produces less melanin. Melanin is the pigment responsible for giving skin and hair its color.
Nearly one in 10 people over 60 years of age is "naturally blessed" to have not a single grey hair on their head, says a new research conducted in more than 20 countries.
It turns out you can blame Mom and Dad, at least a bit. Scientists say they've identified the first gene for gray hair. The variant, dubbed IRF4, is also associated with blonde or lighter-colored hair. That makes sense, because melanin is the pigment that paints hair with the chestnut, golden or raven hues of youth.