Gray hair comes down to melanin, or rather the lack of melanin. Melanin is the pigment that gives hair its color. Gray hair has reduced melanin, while white hair completely lacks it.
People use “gray,” “white” and “silver” interchangeably to describe hair that is turning or has turned. Its appearance — whether it looks, gray, white or silver — depends on how much natural color, or pigment, remains, experts say. Hair that has lost all its color typically appears white.
Genetic factors, stress, hair dyes, and other factors may contribute. The human body has millions of hair follicles or small sacs lining the skin. The follicles generate hair and color or pigment cells that contain melanin. Over time, hair follicles lose pigment cells, resulting in white hair color.
Differences Between Gray, White, and Silver Hair Colors
Hair appears to be the various shade of silver when natural cool colored dark hair becomes predominately white. White hair color is seen when the entire head of hair has lost all the pigment that gives hair its color.
When there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, that strand of hair will no longer contain as much melanin and will become a more transparent color — like gray, silver, or white — as it grows. As people continue to get older, fewer pigment cells will be around to produce melanin.
Gray hair comes down to melanin, or rather the lack of melanin. Melanin is the pigment that gives hair its color. Gray hair has reduced melanin, while white hair completely lacks it.
In time, everyone's hair turns gray. Your chance of going gray increases 10-20% every decade after 30 years. Initially, hair is white. It gets its natural color from a type of pigment called melanin.
While at first glance silver and white gold may appear to have a similar hue, silver has a grayish-white hue, whereas white gold has a distinctly white shade.
Silver grey hair will look best on olive and fair skin with yellow undertones. If you have a pink tone, your skin may appear red and irritated with a cool grey hue. So for you, it's better to go for a peachy colour such as Metallic Rose Gold.
How does silver shampoo work? Silver shampoo is designed to maintain vibrancy in grey or silver hair. Purple is opposite yellow on the colour wheel, this means the deep purple formula in the silver shampoo targets and eliminates yellow tones and brassiness to liven up the bright shades.
Don't assume that grey hair makes you look older
Hair naturally loses pigment as we age, but stylist Paul Falltrick points out that the notion that grey hair makes you look older is increasingly becoming a misnomer: "Grey shades can be stereotyped as ageing, but a clean-looking grey is stunning" he says.
To keep your gray hair bright and shiny, switch out your hydrating shampoo for a clarifying shampoo once a week. This helps to remove impurities and product build-up. Follow the clarifying shampoo with a purple-based conditioner (more on this in a minute).
A white/grey streak is known as a Mallen streak and it's an example of poliosis – which in short means an absence of melanin in the hair, which results in the trademark white streak.
As you get older, your gray hair may take on a brassy color. Coloring your hair with a silver color will brighten the gray and tone down the brassiness.
Warm skin tones, for example, look beautiful when silver hair has a very slight peachy hue to it. Cooler skin tones, however, really pop against silver hair with a bluish shimmer to it. Neutral skin tone? You're lucky and can pull off a whole range of silver shades!
A moisturising shampoo to make sure that hydration is maintained, and a purple-blue shampoo to use once a week. Grey hair tends to turn slightly yellow due to external factors such as pollution, wind, sun. The purple shampoo will counteract those unwanted effects and keep the hair looking clean and shiny.”
White gold is stronger and more durable than silver. The combination of metals give white gold its color and durability. Without it, pure gold is just as soft as pure silver. Additionally, white gold may be rhodium plated, which gives it a shiny top layer.
How can you describe the difference between the color silver and gray? Silver is not really a color, but gray is. Silver generally means it has metallic reflectivity, which goes beyond color. If you have to pick a color to represent silver, a light gray is your best best.
Silver or metallic gray is a color tone resembling gray that is a representation of the color of polished silver.
If you are blond, your hair might turn white at some point. However, some blonds don't go completely white – their hair simply turns a lighter shade. Others find that as their hair turns white, their blond hair looks darker and duller against the whites.
Gray hair develops as melanocytes decrease in number, but exactly when those cells begin to wane differs for each individual. However, there are some general trends. According to the article, “graying typically begins in the mid-30s for Caucasians, the late-30s for Asians, and the mid-40s for Africans."