Hair Colour

Your hair colour is determined by your genes. These genes have been passed down from your parents and their ancestors. Although for the most part your hair colour is a hereditary trait, some exceptions that are associated with disease or congenital anomalies can cause a change in your hair colour.

Understanding that your hair colour is determined by your genes is only the beginning. Scientists are continually studying the mechanisms that genes and regulatory molecules use to send signals telling hair follicles what colour to produce a hair. Similar molecular controls are also used to determine the pigmentation of skin. Therefore, it makes sense that a fair-skinned person will have lighter hair and a dark-skinned person will have darker hair. All hair can lose pigmentation and become grey or white as people age.

Melanocytes are responsible for genetic signalling that controls skin and hair pigmentation. These are specialized cells that are found in hair follicles and the skin. As the name suggests, a melanocyte’s purpose is to synthesize the pigment melanin. Melanin is what gives colour to our hair and skin.

Melanosomes are sub-cellular organelles that are found in melanocytes. These are what create melanin. There are 2 types of melanosomes: elliptical or oval-shaped melanosomes that specialize in creating brown and black eumelanin and sheroidal or round melanosomes that create yellow and red pheomelanin.

Melanocytes are located at the base of a hair follicle. This is where new hair starts at the beginning of the anagen or growth phase of the growth cycle. Melanin is produced only during the growth phase and is “turned off” during the catagen and telogen phases of the growth cycle.

Colour is not produced in the hair shaft in the earliest stages of hair growth. Therefore, the tip of a newly formed hair is colourless. As the hair grows and continues developing in the hair follicle, pigment enters the core of the shaft, which is found under the protective layer of keratin.

Both the brown/black as well as the yellow/red pigments can be synthesized, but typically, only one type of melanin is active at the same time. However, both types can work together to create variations of hair colour. The intensity of your hair colour is usually determined by the amount of melanin in the hair fibre.

Grey hair is created when the melanocytes start to become inactive and the creation of melanin dwindles. Once no more melanin is produced, white hair is produced. White is the absence of colour.

Scientists are continually studying the genes that they believe are involved in the pigmentation process. Cells that are located in the dermal papilla at the base of a follicle in mice have been found to signal melanocytes and therefore synthesize melanin. Bcl-2 is another gene that is found in both mice and men and is shown to be associated with the survival of melanocytes. Once this gene was forced to “shut down”, the hair on the mice that were studied lost pigmentation within the second week of the hair growth cycle.

We are not there yet, but we may soon be able to alter our hair colour genetically as well as stop the aging process that turns our hair grey or white.

Brian Kessler

Manager at The Toronto Hair Transplant Clinic

Brian is the manager of the Toronto Hair Transplant Clinic. He is experienced in managing different businesses and people. After the loss of their house in the fires of Fort McMurray, Brian and his family relocated to Toronto. Brian has not only moved to a new city, but also into a new position where he enjoys being able to help others who struggle with hair loss. He is also a patient of the THTC and a hair transplant recipient of 2,200 grafts.

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