How come hair gets color?

Answer

Dear Djowin,

thanks for your nice question!

Hair mainly consists of proteins. Proteins are small molecules of about a few nanometers (Wow! You already know what a millimeter is. Well, a micrometer is 1000 times smaller than a millimeter and a nanometer is still 1000 times smaller than a micrometer).

The main protein in hair is keratin. Different keratin molecules stick together and that’s how you get hair. Keratin, however, is colorless.

However, there are still molecules that occur in the hair, namely dyes. These dyes are made by the cells from which a hair grows (a hair follicle!).

Eumelanin occurs in dark hair (brown/black). Phaeomelanin occurs in red, blond, hair.

White or gray hair does not contain eumelanin and phaeomelanin.

As you can guess you can also have mixtures of eumelanin and phaeomelanin and then you get different hair colors.

I hope you are satisfied with this answer.