My grey hair started coming in when I turned twenty-two. I remember starting at my scalp in the mirror, totally perplexed to see the roots of my hair growing in sans pigment. As luck would have it, my father’s side of the family has a history of going grey early, a fact that I was not made aware of until it was revealed that my aunt had been dying her hair since her twenties. The jury is still out on whether or not stress can cause grey hair, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it could be the cause of premature greying.

Three years in and the shock has completely worn off, although I will admit that I’m looking forward to the day when I have enough grey hair to make it look cool and stylish. It took almost a full year for full strands of grey hair to appear randomly in throughout my hair, and now that they’re here I actually quite like them, apart from the texture. My hair is naturally curly but grey hair is much more wiry, brittle, and dry. It’s difficult to work with and I often just have random grey hairs sticking out of my head at any given moment.

One of the most annoying things about going grey in my early twenties was having to hear people reassure me that they didn’t see any grey hair, even though I knew it was there. I’ve never been ashamed of my grey hair and I found it frustrating having to plead my case to the jury of my peers simply because they felt they were doing me a favor by ignoring it. Regardless, there’s no hiding them now. I reckon that once I have a bit more grey hair I’ll go lighter with the rest of my hair, but until then I’m going to enjoy my silver streaks.