How Nature Colors Hair

Two types of pigment (called melanin) in the hair bulb create hair color, which is produced below the skin, deep in the dermal fat about 1⁄4 inch from the surface of the skin. The colors you see are imprinted on the cortex of the hair fibers; the cuticle that covers the hair bundles is clear.

These two pigments affect your hair in the following ways:

Eumelanin, the most common pigment, controls black and brown colors (slightly different dominant genes)

Phaeomelanin has a red color to it; all humans have some degree of red pigment in their hair, except for people whose hair is stark white

The amount of eumelanin in the hair determines the darkness of the color in the following way:

• Brown eumelanin in large quantities will make the hair dark brown.
• Brown eumelanin in low quantities will produce a blond color.
• Black eumelanin will make the hair black.
• Black eumelanin in very low concentrations will create gray hair.

Most hair colors are a balance between brown, black, and red pigment, based upon the amount of these pigments that blend together. Northern Europe has more blond-haired people than anywhere else, and Scotland has the highest redheaded population (up to 10 percent of Scots are redheads). The rest of the human race has dark pigment granules. If you bleach your hair, you oxidize these pigments and they lose their color.

If you have no pigment-producing cells (as happens as some people age), your hair will be white. Albinos have no pigment granules and have white hair — even their eyebrows and eyelashes.

Phaeomelanin is a robust pigment with a strong impact on the hair. It’s hard to get hair with a high percentage of phaeomelanin to respond to dyes and bleaches. Salon operators know that when people bleach their hair, their natural red pigment lingers, so it’s not unusual for bleached hair to show a red or orange tinge (particularly in blonds) and over time turn orange and various shades of yellow with exposure to light.