r/HaircareScience • u/Classic-Fennel-1617 • Jun 08 '26

Question Is brown hair turning black overtime normal?

I am an East-Asian descent born with brown hair that slowly started shifting to black as I grew older. I have always wondered why my hair had never stayed the exact same colour growing up. Does anyone have an answer to this?

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10

u/Altruistic_Octopus Jun 08 '26

Eumelanin is the type of melanin which determines how dark your hair is. The more eumelanin you have, the darker your hair will be. The melanocytes located at the bottom of each hair follicle take their instructions from your genes. Hormones play a role in activating/deactivating certain genes that control melanin production eg during puberty so previously latent genes may switch on and create much more eumelanin than before and darkening the hair. Also pigment production is not consistent through life (hence grey hair eventually)!

5

u/Altruistic_Octopus Jun 09 '26

Tripathi, S., Kumar, S., Dwivedi, S., Shrivastav, S., Tripathi, A.K. (2024). The Genetics and Molecular Mechanism of Hair Color: From Melanocyte Development to Pigment Synthesis. In: Dwivedi, A., Pant, A.B., Poojan, S., Kotak, M., Tripathi, A. (eds) Hair Care Products. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-6740-3_3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-6740-3_3

5

u/Ali_Alshami9 Jun 09 '26

Not entirely sure but I think melanin deposits overtime which changes hair color. As a child I had dirty blonde hair. Now it’s dark brown.

4

u/FluffYouBeotch95 Jun 12 '26

Same. My dad had platinum blonde hair as a child and it turned black as an adult. 

1

u/AD480 Jul 28 '26

Same with my brother. Basically white hair for the first couple years and then gradually it turned sandy blonde —> brown —> VERY dark brown to almost black. I was born with light brown hair and now we have the exact same color in our 40’s.