One color that hair can’t be is gray! One day the melanin in a strand of hair runs out. The hair turns white. The strand lying right next to it is still black. A few black hairs and white hairs lying next to each other look like a clump of gray. If you look closely you can see the separate colors.

Some people don’t get a single white hair until they are very old. Some people have white streaks as early as seventeen years old!

Sometimes hair gets darker as a person grows older. Blond hair can turn light brown. Light brown hair can turn dark brown. Blond or brown hair seldom turns black.

Hair can get lighter under the summer sun. If a girl wears her hair in a ponytail all summer she might find that the top layer is a different shade than the bottom layers. If she wears her hair in braids dark and light might streak through her hair.

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