Hair turns white (or gray) because the strands lose pigment over time due to a decrease in melanin. Melanin is produced by cells called melanocytes, which are found in hair follicles. As we age, these melanocytes slow down and may stop functioning, causing hair to grow colorless. Each hair follicle functions independently, which is why white hairs appear gradually, not all at once. The process only becomes permanent when the supply of stem cells that regenerate melanocytes is also depleted. Genetics plays a major role, influencing when the first gray hairs appear. On average, graying begins around ages 30 to 40, varying by population group. Factors such as stress and smoking can accelerate the appearance of gray hair. Diet, sleep, and antioxidants may have an indirect protective effect, but there is no strong evidence of prevention. Premature graying has also been linked to iron and vitamin B12 deficiencies. In some rare cases, hair may temporarily regain its pigmentation, especially when there are still active stem cells. Reducing stress can, in specific situations, slow down or even partially reverse the process. However, there is no proven treatment to prevent or completely reverse gray hair.
George E. Johnson, the pioneering Chicago entrepreneur whose eponymous company transformed Black haircare in the U.S. with brands including Afro Sheen, Ultra Wave and Classy Curl, died Monday at age 99, according to news media reports.
Johnson, who was born in a sharecropper's shack in Mississippi and moved to Chicago with his mother when he was 2, died at his downtown Chicago condo of natural causes, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, citing his son, John Edward Johnson.
The New York Times, citing his second wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, reported that Johnson died of a respiratory illness.
The Johnson Products Company was founded in 1954, catering to African Americans' evolving tastes in hairstyles, fashion and cosmetics in an era when U.S. companies and advertisers paid little attention to Black consumers.
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The business, which Johnson co-founded with his first wife, Joan Johnson, who died in 2019, grew to command nearly 80% of the Black haircare market by 1960, and in 1971 became the first Black-owned company listed on the American Stock Exchange, now known as NYSE American.
With a marketing campaign that echoed slogans and imagery of the era's Black Pride and Black Power movements, the company became the exclusive sponsor of the television music show "Soul Train," helping the Chicago-based weekly program grow from a local broadcast into a nationally syndicated hit.
The company's own business roots illustrated the difficulties minority entrepreneurs faced at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement.
Johnson, who started as a door-to-door cosmetics salesman after dropping out of high school, launched his own venture with a bank loan of just $250 he secured by telling a white loan officer he wanted to borrow the money for a family vacation.
The first bank he approached rejected his application for a business loan, according to the Chicago Sun-Times and BlackPast.org, an online encyclopedia devoted to African American history.
"I knew this request (for a vacation loan) wouldn't rattle (the loan officer's) belief that he was superior to me. Nor would it challenge his stereotypes of Black men as subservient or unintelligent," Johnson recounted in his 2025 memoir, "Afro Sheen."
Some of the company's first major brands, including Ultra Wave for men and Ultra Sheen for women, were introduced as hair-relaxing products designed for home use, to achieve straight and wavy hair styles popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.
As Black Power consciousness gave rise to an increasing preference among Black people for a more natural hair texture and look that did not seek to mimic the styles worn by white people, Johnson's company adapted with the advent of its Afro Sheen Blow Out kit in the late 1960s, according to BlackPast.org.
The company's Classy Curl helped consumers achieve the "Jheri curl" perm first popularized by white hairdresser-chemist Jheri Redding.
Johnson's venture began to struggle as it faced competition from large haircare and cosmetics companies such as Revlon that sought to grab market share in the increasingly lucrative African American hairstyling business.
After the Johnsons divorced, ownership of their business changed hands a number of times before a majority African American investment firm acquired the business in 2009 from Procter & Gamble.
