So what do you think? Does the alopecia areata explanation do it for you, or do you think something else was going on? Let me know below and check out my PATREON site for extra perks at www.patreon.com/historycalling
I have a condition where in my hair turned silver in my twenties, it was just by my temples, now I am young looking forties something with brown and silver hair. Previously this happened only to the men on my mom side of the family, but then my mom began to silver early, then when I became a young adult it happened to myself. It is a silvery shiny color, it really stands out against my dark brown curly hair.
I am writing this comment BEFORE I have watched this video. Like your channel btw. It’s your accent. My wife loves South African and I the Irish. Anyway, my hair turned white over night. This was coupled with a very and I mean very stressful event in my life. When I finally fell asleep, my hair was white. I will be honest and say that this happened to only parts of my hair but that part was brown on the day before and is completely white to this day. I could imagine being scared of having your head cut of could certainly do that to hair, it happened to me.
Yes I have alopecia areata, the first time it happens I was in my 20’s in a very stressful relationship and having many medical issues including being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, one day I bumped my head on a door frame, next morning a large clump of my very dark coloured hair was white/silver, a couple of days later I had several bald patches and was diagnosed with alopecia , I’m in my late 40’s now and it’s reoccurred 5 times, always during times of high stress and physical illness. To this day It is still white in the exact same place and the rest still dark, although I have a few extra greys popping up on my crown this year. It’s also forever thinning (each year it feels finer and finer)
My auntie's very brown hair turned white over just a few days when she heard her husbands ship went down in the second world war. Certainly all my memories of her when I was a young child was of a very young looking woman with white hair.
My therapist told me many of her patients who went through traumatic events got whiter or grey hair earlier in there life. Same with me. I dye my hair since I am 25 years. I would therefore say I can support your arguing that it appeared white or was white/grey after the haircut and after been under so many stressful episodes during her lifetime
3 года назад+68
My grandmother suffers from a form of alopecia: when she was a young mother, she lost all of her hair in a short span of time. Later in life, a few strands of white hair started growing around her head (but never on the top). It's hereditary and it can skip a few generations. Every time that my hair falls a bit more than usual, everyone goes crazy thinking that I'm getting alopecia. I think that it's the best explanation for Marie Antoinette's condition and I don't think it happened overnight. Maybe she has a family history - her mother wore wigs and her grandfather became bald quite young, popularizing the use of wigs on the Vianese court.
That's interesting. I hadn't looked at her family, but I wonder if you're correct about it being genetic. As all of Marie Antoinette's children died without having children of their own, we can't know if it's something she would have passed on. It would be interesting to look at her siblings and their descendants at some point though. I'm sorry to hear about you and your family's struggles with this too. I hope the gene hasn't passed to you.
In the seven books I've read on Marie Antoinette all mention her hair loss either directly or indirectly. The enormous stress thrust upon her that only escalated would cause any woman or man to prematurely lose their hair. I had surgery a few months ago and was under a great deal of physical pain along with some depression. My hair started to fall out. Strands of hair would land on my keyboard and I had to wipe my keyboard almost everyday. I had grey hair around my temples and sideburns prior but during that time and it almost doubled. High levels of stress and physical pain, both of which Marie Antoinette suffered from can cause this and do cause all sorts of illnesses and can ultimately kill you.
My bf was in a terrible motorcycle accident and broke his shoulder, femur, and ankle. His hair started to prematurely turn white in a matter of days from what I can only assume was extreme pain/stress on the body. He never went full white but his hair never went back. I also have a friend who turned grey when he was in high school. Could be either one of those things. Either way, I think it’s actually really distinctive and attractive.
Very interesting and informative video on Marie Antoinette's hair. With everything that she was facing and all the stress taking a toll on her hair and body, It's a wonder that she had any hair at all.
I know there are genetic components to this, but she must of been graying prior to execution. Given that she had light blonde hair, wigs and of course a hair dresser(s) I find it highly unlikely her hair went white overnight. We have to remember there were many tall, crude and hateful tales made about this woman. Her family's demise; tragic.
Oh absolutely. The grey hair had been coming in for a number of years before her death. I think the story is apocryphal too, but it's such an unusual tale I wanted to share it and see what people made of it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
It's absolutely possible. I had a traumatic experience and my hair developed a grey and white streak on the right side of my head almost immediately. Just one of the "great" legacies it left me with
Fie! Her hair was chestnut color but due to being locked up in a dank dark dungeon with not much to eat for those few years caused her hair to turn white. She also became partially blind. Malnourished, no sun and terrible Trauma caused this transformation .
A Woman I worked with about 10+yrs ago developed alopecia. I was after a horrid car crash, her mom suddenly died & So many other things in about 4-6mth period. A Dear Cousin of mine lost her hair due to Cancer. It came back Curly!
My grandpapa's hair turned white when his son was missing in action in 1941. He had my uncle write to the red cross and the Vatican to find out where he was. Unfortunately my papa died shortly before they found out my uncle John was killed at the battle of Tobruk . my uncle is buried in libia - and we all believe papas spirit went to be with his eldest son x
This reminds me of Mary Queen of Scots because before she was executed during the years of being in prison, her hair became white and short because she been locked up for nearly 19 years.
I have a friend who had a bout of alopecia when he was 23. The hair on his crown fell out, looking very much like male pattern baldness. When the hair grew back this doctor told him he was lucky that it was growing back in the same color. Most of the time it grows back white. When I was in high school I did a report on the sharp shooter Annie Oakley. During a tour through Europe, the train derailed and her hair turned from dark brown to white as snow. It didn't say it was instantaneous or if it took days to develop. Trauma to extreme stress has been shown to turn someone's hair white throughout history. So I believe that it is possible that Marie Antoinette's hair could have turned white leading up to her execution.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to visit Versailles. I toured the queens apartments where there was a beautiful portrait of thecqueen in her youth. She had a fine red ribbon tied round her neck. The guide said it was prophetic in a way, considering she was to lose her head.
I had a college classmate lose pigment in a patch of her scalp in a moment of great stress, making one strand on her hair grow white. I always supposed something like that had happened to Marie, stress destroying the stem cells in her hair that generate pigment, and while being able to conceal it with dye might've made anyone out of her circle not know it would've become obvious once her hair couldn't be consistently dyed, even more once it was cut short and only undyed parts remained
I changed from blond to brown in less than three months after the birth of my first child. At age 19, I shed little hair during pregnancy and a lot right after. All the blond fell out leaving the brown and the change was startling. Add a stress induced medical condition and I can definitely see the possibility.
So interesting story, my great grandfather lost his 2 youngest sons in ww2 within a month of each other. His mourning was so intense, his full head of hair went from dark brown to white in just weeks. He still had a lot of hair, it just came in white. We have pictures to prove it. When I was 27 I left my ex and took my 4 littles with me, I then found out about more abuse that was happening with my kids and I had a severe immune response. The hair around my face went grey within months. I have a solid 3 inch band that is grey/white. The rest is red. So I know it can happen. I am pretty sure it’s an auto immune response to trauma. Great story!
My dad is an immigrant who lost his hair early, in his twenties. I don’t have any memories of him with hair, and he claims this is from the stress of moving to a new country where he didn’t know any of the language.
Thanks. Interesting. If I remember correctly... Baron Marbot who wrote books about his service with Napoleon, Describes his Meeting Marie when he was a student before the Revolution and years later was at, and described her execution. He thought well of her and thought her execution could have beed stopped if anyone would have spoke up for her..but realized all were too afraid the mob would turn on them, himself included. .
I remember my Mum telling me of a relation of hers (grandfather?? great uncle??) going white "overnight" due to stress, although the details are very cloudy in my mind. So I believe your explanation of alopecia areata could well account for his changing hair colour, too. Unfortunately my Mum is no longer with us, so I can't ask her to tell me again. (I wish I'd listened more carefully, or written down the details: you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!). Even his eyebrows changed colour. I think it was due to the death of his son, but I'm not sure.
Yes, there are quite a lot of stories like yours so there does definitely seem to be something to it. I've read some here in the comments though that can't be explained by alopecia acreata, which is even more fascinating.
It could be. Autoimmune diseases exacerbate with stress. As it is healthy people lose hair during stress. People with autoimmune diseases is ten times more, especially in Marie’s case. The people kept yelling obscenities at her. Her children were taken away from her. And worse they turned her son against her. In her trial her son accused her of incest. That must’ve been a devastating blow. I think she was looking forward to the guillotine to end her suffering. The Marie Antoinette I learned in history was made up. She was used as a scapegoat. She didn’t deserve this.
I know. I feel terribly sorry for her too. She certainly seems to have had an episode of something like alopecia areata in 1791 at any rate (if Madam Campan's story is to be believed).
Very late comer to this video, but there are auto-immune disorders that can destroy the pigmenting cells (even more so during times of stress and sickness) add that with stress induced hairloss of pigmented hair and one’s hair could look quite white pretty quickly. I don’t believe it would be “overnight” but I can see it happening in a span of a few short months as all the regrowth is primarily of the pigment-damaged follicles.
Every time I hear this story I think of my brother who had brain surgery and along the scar he had several hairs that came out striped like individual raccoon tails. Pigments are weird @_@'
Oh wow, I've never heard of something like that before, but it's fascinating. I hope you were a nice sister though and didn't call your brother a racoon as he recovered from brain surgery! :-)
@@Heothbremel Haha! Well, that seems like good sibling behaviour. I hope he's all better now and has grown to love his stripe (if he still has it). Thanks for watching and commenting.
I was born with something called "poliosis," which is also sometimes referred to as a "mallen streak." My hair is naturally chesnut brown, but there has always been a large patch in the middle of my head that is white. As it grew out of the middle of my head, it presented for most of my life as 2 streaks, one on each side of my central part. I also have patches of white hair on both my arms & on one leg. The streak on my head is large quite large, but my 2 brothers both have one tiny white spot on each of their heads as well. My mom was told that we were all imprinted with these pigment-free patches, because she has Sjogren's disease (an autoimmune illness) & that I probably have it more severely, bc my mom was experiencing a very bad "flare" while I was in utero. This is not the end of my "weird hair" issues, though. I am now 37, was recently diagnosed with my own autoimmune disease, & over the last 3-4 years, my hair has turned almost entirely white. It's not gray; it's white. The original streak is now positively lost in a sea of matching hair that did kind of seem like it was turning white in patches, but that never fell out. It didn't happen instantaneously, but it did occur quite rapidly & I'm rather young to be almost fully white-haired. When I asked my doctors about it, my family doctor said, "That's from your autoimmune disease," which was vague, & when pressed, she said that she couldn't elaborate further, she just "knows it's a sign of an autoimmune disease." And my hematologist said, "Hmm. Interesting," but didn't have an explanation. I am scheduled to see a rheumatologist & plan to ask him if he knows what has caused this. I put this here to A.) provide a firsthand account of a 30-something year-old woman's hair turning white rapidly (though not overnight) & B.) Ask if anyone reading this knows the reason this has occurred, and C.) to ask if Marie Antoinette was ever mentioned to have had a mallen streak earlier in life. I'm not sure how my own initial streak fits into my current situation, but it'd be fascinating to me if she had one, too, & then also later went white drastically & prematurely.
Maybe the overnight statement was still an exaggeration for dramatic effect. But stress can destroy the stem cells responsible for hair colour within days, affecting the roots of hair growing afterwards, not the strands you already have. So you could really see rapid changes from brown to white within a few weeks or months depending on hair-length and it would certainly be a drastic difference if all her hair had just been cut and only newly grown hair remained. Plus as you say, the sudden lack of cosmetics and the alopecia you make a very good case for.
I completely agree with the Alopecia explanation. But pregnancy also thins the hair due to hormonal changes so that would have accelerated things also.
I believe her hair turned white much earlier. Madame Campan, her lady-in-waiting, mentioned that her hair became white shortly after the disastrous flight to Montmedy in June 1791, due to the incredible stress she underwent. If you see contemporary illustrations of Marie-Antoinette taken from life during the revolution, you'll notice that her hair color was much lighter compared to earlier depictions from before the revolution. Of course, up until her imprisonment and execution, she did have access to a wide variety of powders, including white powder, which may explain why it looks lighter in some paintings, but it's more than likely possible that her hair turned lighter overtime due to immense anxiety and wained health in later years.
I've been "going gray" since shortly after my 25th Bday, &I certainly didn't have anywhere near the stressors Marie did!! I also have Alopecia. (Both the early graying, and the Alopecia, are hereditary on my Maternal side, &Paternal as well...) Plus I have Autoimmune Disease....so I was doomed! 😉 Essentially all of your points were totally "on the mark" regarding possible causes for Marie's hair issues. Wonderful Video! 🖒🖒💕
*Possible Spoiler Below* In Chapter 149 of the popular manga series “Beastars” Legoshi a wolf awakens one morning and sees blood on his mattress and assumes that he had eaten and devoured his rabbit girlfriend Haru in his sleep during the night. His fur immediately turns white and he begins to break down crying before it’s revealed that Haru is in fact alive as she walks into the room completely unscathed and alive a minute or so later. The stain was in fact just spilled tomato juice that Haru recently spilled I feel the writer, Paru got inspiration from this.
Alopecia I would say, I think you have nailed it, just to add history has been less than kind to her, Id like to think people see her in a better light nowadays.
There's no natural mechanism by which a hair can change color along its entire length. The expression could be due to the queen's shearing before her date with Madame l'Guillotine, but tat's not how it's mostly thought of. The way most people think of it, i.e. that a severe fright or trauma can simply cause cause you entire head of hair to go white, is bollocks.
My mother had white hair by 30, as did I and my sisters. But we could dye it. My hair was originally blonde coming from the Netherlands, so it was not noticeable when at 50, I stopped dying it and it became white. I did have a male friend who was in a terrible car accident when I was 16. Everyone in the car died except him. He was driving. Very sad. Within a few months his hair was completely white. The body is a mystery.
I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope she gets better. I know Khloe Kardashian suffered from alopecia after her father passed away and she recovered, so it's definitely possible.
@@HistoryCalling actually it probably won't. Its a symptom if an autoimmune disorder in which the bodies own immune system attacks the hair follicles seeing it as an invader or sorts. She had it when she was 2 but it grew back around 4. But after her first child a year later it started falling out again. She's decided to.just go with it. It is what it is. Also my uncle mark has the same disorder. And its a mutated gene. In the 1950s there was an anti nausea medication for pregnant women. Which mutated that immune system gene causing his hair to also do the same thing. So at the end of the day you got to realize its just hair and life goes on.
@@MagdaleneDivine Ah, I see. I'm sorry. While I obviously wish for her sake that she didn't have to deal with this, it sounds like she has an amazing attitude about it. Please wish her all the best for me. Thanks for sharing the info. about the mutated gene and the anti-nausea medication too. I was unaware of that.
My grandmother’s hair began to go white when she was in her teens. She dyed it for a long time but then stopped and it had been completely white for years when she died at 56. I imagine that once she stopped coloring it it probably seemed to go white pretty quickly.
Something to keep in mind to this time period was the use of pomade and talcum powders many women (especially men) used to make their hair appear pure white. It was not only a show of elite status but also a means of drying any oils in the hair as hygiene was not a particular high priority. Many of Marie's wigs were powdered as her own hair would have been. Considering how long she would have been doing this while at court, being imprisoned, I'm pretty sure this luxury would most definitely have been denied to her. That being the case, hair loss and alopecia can result. Not to mention the prolonged use of wigs, WILL actually exacerbate any hair loss issues one is attempting to hide. I know this first hand.
Marriage and death do that to ya, no joke. I had thick bushy hair, then my sister died, then I got married, then a son 4 years later, then my hair just went from thick to bald on top, hair still on the sides & back to gray beards. I will however say on my mom's side they all turned gray early....but my aunt dyes her hair & is in denial of her gray early genes. :) lol
When you think about it for a second, if the shock happened the day before, her hair should have only had a barely perceptible (if at all) third of a millimeter of white at the root… A far cry from the dramatic change we picture when first hearing it someone’s hair suddenly turned white!
My grandmothers best and long time friend, who we called Aunt May, when told at age 15 that her mother who raised her was actually her sister , her hair turned white literally over night. So yes , I can believe it. When, we were buying our home my husband developed alopecia in one spot, my aunts remained white all of her life documented through photos.Eventually my husbands hair went back to his natural color.
1982 - My neighbor had a brain aneurysm which required her to have all of her hair shaved off for the surgery. She was in her sixty’s and had been coloring her gray hair for years. When her hair grew back after the surgery it was coal black and curly.
This is very late to the party, however my family has alopecia as well as other autoimmune diseases. If you try to track alopecia in a family, you also need to consider other autoimmune diseases. Having said that, my family has a very strong history of autoimmune diseases. My greatgrandfather went to the barn one morning and found himself face to face with a bear. His hair "turned all white" which we had always attributed to him losing all the colored strands of hair. Note: when I say strong autoimmune, I am talking RA, MS, Lupus, Addisons, Hashimotos, Graves, Severe allergies, and so on. In our family, one autoimmune disease or the other will strike. Both parents, every sibling, Aunts and Uncles, we all have one autoimmune disease or another, many times more than one. As a side note, I got my first gray hair when I was 19 years old. Not related to stress, my hair just gradually greyed over the years.
Hmmm. A couple of weeks after my father died suddenly when I was 23, I had a couple of substantial patches of white hair on the back of my head, in my very dark hair. they grew out in about 18 months and never came back. Now I'm 54, and my hair is greying, but not where those patches were.
At 48 years old my hair was about 20-30% grey. I discovered my husband had a double life, a mistress for 24 years of our 29 year marriage. Our divorce took roughly 6 months. By the end of our divorce my hair was 90% white. Honestly, I didn’t think I would be able to live…..but that was 3 years ago. I’m alive and thriving. I put a 20 minute golden toner on my hair once a month and yes blonds do have more fun!
"Once there was this boy who got into an accident and couldn't come to school but when he finally came back his hair had turned into bright white. He couldn't quite explain it, the cars had smashed so hard." Anyone remember this song? 😃
Not really the exact same, but my grandfather was in a farming accident in his late teens/early 20s resulting w a head injury serious enough they were unsure of survival. While it didn't happen overnight of course, from that point on his hair grew in stark white. Although pictures we have of this time are all in black/white, you can clearly see a man in his early 20s with stark white hair. I do not think Marie Antoinette had a traumatic brain injury or we would of known. But It can happen very quickly, and the shorter the hair the more obvious of course.
Great video-and sound theory. I don't think she suddenly went white but I certainly believe one can turn grey or white due to stress over a short period. I'm in my 30s but began turning grey at 26-I've had a lot of trauma in my life-and coincidently 26 was the year I became disabled with primarily fibromylgia and ME, and had to give up my dreams of pursuing my Phd. Luckily I have a huge thick nest of Irish hair-it just goes grey! I also think the cosmetics they used wouldn't have helped. I'm sure you're aware but the wonderful Suzannah Lipscomb did a documentary on Hidden Killers and though it focusses more on the Victorian 'remedies' for beauty the toxins they put on their skin and hair wouldn't have helped underlying issues or indeed stress-and MA certainly had stress! I think as well some witnesses tend to exaggerate such events to make the subject more martyrised or fasinating! Love your channel-distracts me from pain! xxx
I knew a lady that had red hair gave birth to her first child a son she asked why the mirror was covered and she went to look her red hair was now white and she was a young mother She told this to several people that was in common company myself being one there Her hair however didn't fall out and never went back to shade of red
I disagree with this. I witnessed this in a 24 hour period on March 7, 1985. My grandfather, a half Cherokee/Choctaw NA died of prostate cancer at the age of 64. All my life he had jet black hair, sleeked back with a pencil-thin mustach, which I later learned he drew on with an charcoal eyeliner pencil. I always thought he looked like Charles Bronson (late actor), because he did. As a man of pure NA blood, he had no body hair on his arms, chest, or legs. Just the most beautiful jet black hair, that he let me comb when I was little while we played "beauty shop." I adored him. I was there when he died and at his wake the night before his funeral. However, as the immediate family walked past his open casket before we left the church to head to the Cemetery, his hair was pure white. I was dumbstruck. He didn't look anything like the man I knew my entire life. I asked the funeral director (a long-time family friend) what happened to his hair. He replied that this is sometimes the case with individuals who die of specific cancers. It's a chemical reaction within the body and its response to drugs still in their system at the time of death. In some cases, the body, though dead, the cancer is not for up to 24 hours. Especially if they have liver cancer, which is what happened to my grandfather. As a result, some people's hair color can change.
First of all, I'm so sorry to hear about your fiance. That's absolutely terrible. Second, what a strange thing to happen to your hair. Are you a natural blonde, or did it go from your natural colour to white, then to blonde?
My sister has dark brown hair, she started getting white hair at 22 not even grey! Lol I’m older, and medium blonde and found my first white hair at 43 🤷🏼♀️ I’d have more I know I would, you just can’t see them in blonde as easily
Also if you'd seen her in better times and then just before her death, it would have made a great impression on anyone. Add a touch of embellishment, et voila!
I descend from this beauty. There is an other possible explanation. This happened to a person I knew. Tertiary syphillis caused his hair to fall out in short order.
I saw "ghosts" from a young age and hear ghostly voices whispering to me, basically never went outside, and became heavily depressed in my teens. Around my mid-late teens after an encounter with a "ghost" I woke up to find my hair had begun to turn white at the roots. I'm doing a lot better with my mental health these days and haven't seen or heard anything paranormal for at least 4-5 years, and I now realise what I saw and heard probably was just in my head. Still, the white streaks in my hair remain and haven't really grown or shrunk over time, there's just this upside down vaguely heart-shaped patch where my hair is now permanently white. I don't know if it was because of fear or stress or depression or what, but it definitely happened to me.
U can't switch the color of ur hair? I turned my hair pink in 20 minutes. If I was gonna be beheaded and I knew it....I would die my hair Grey for sure.
So what do you think? Does the alopecia areata explanation do it for you, or do you think something else was going on? Let me know below and check out my PATREON site for extra perks at www.patreon.com/historycalling
I have a condition where in my hair turned silver in my twenties, it was just by my temples, now I am young looking forties something with brown and silver hair.
Previously this happened only to the men on my mom side of the family, but then my mom began to silver early, then when I became a young adult it happened to myself.
It is a silvery shiny color, it really stands out against my dark brown curly hair.
I am writing this comment BEFORE I have watched this video.
Like your channel btw. It’s your accent. My wife loves South African and I the Irish.
Anyway, my hair turned white over night. This was coupled with a very and I mean very stressful event in my life. When I finally fell asleep, my hair was white. I will be honest and say that this happened to only parts of my hair but that part was brown on the day before and is completely white to this day. I could imagine being scared of having your head cut of could certainly do that to hair, it happened to me.
Yes I have alopecia areata, the first time it happens I was in my 20’s in a very stressful relationship and having many medical issues including being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, one day I bumped my head on a door frame, next morning a large clump of my very dark coloured hair was white/silver, a couple of days later I had several bald patches and was diagnosed with alopecia , I’m in my late 40’s now and it’s reoccurred 5 times, always during times of high stress and physical illness. To this day It is still white in the exact same place and the rest still dark, although I have a few extra greys popping up on my crown this year. It’s also forever thinning (each year it feels finer and finer)
My auntie's very brown hair turned white over just a few days when she heard her husbands ship went down in the second world war. Certainly all my memories of her when I was a young child was of a very young looking woman with white hair.
That's so interesting. There are stories like that that science still just can't explain.
Wow 😮
My therapist told me many of her patients who went through traumatic events got whiter or grey hair earlier in there life. Same with me. I dye my hair since I am 25 years. I would therefore say I can support your arguing that it appeared white or was white/grey after the haircut and after been under so many stressful episodes during her lifetime
My grandmother suffers from a form of alopecia: when she was a young mother, she lost all of her hair in a short span of time. Later in life, a few strands of white hair started growing around her head (but never on the top). It's hereditary and it can skip a few generations. Every time that my hair falls a bit more than usual, everyone goes crazy thinking that I'm getting alopecia. I think that it's the best explanation for Marie Antoinette's condition and I don't think it happened overnight. Maybe she has a family history - her mother wore wigs and her grandfather became bald quite young, popularizing the use of wigs on the Vianese court.
That's interesting. I hadn't looked at her family, but I wonder if you're correct about it being genetic. As all of Marie Antoinette's children died without having children of their own, we can't know if it's something she would have passed on. It would be interesting to look at her siblings and their descendants at some point though. I'm sorry to hear about you and your family's struggles with this too. I hope the gene hasn't passed to you.
In the seven books I've read on Marie Antoinette all mention her hair loss either directly or indirectly. The enormous stress thrust upon her that only escalated would cause any woman or man to prematurely lose their hair.
I had surgery a few months ago and was under a great deal of physical pain along with some depression. My hair started to fall out. Strands of hair would land on my keyboard and I had to wipe my keyboard almost everyday. I had grey hair around my temples and sideburns prior but during that time and it almost doubled.
High levels of stress and physical pain, both of which Marie Antoinette suffered from can cause this and do cause all sorts of illnesses and can ultimately kill you.
Hey, what's the situation of your hair now? Did your grey hair got reverse over period of time?
I'm 22 and have some grey hair cause I was in a relationship that stressed me out so much glad I'm out tho@@chitralalawat8106
My bf was in a terrible motorcycle accident and broke his shoulder, femur, and ankle. His hair started to prematurely turn white in a matter of days from what I can only assume was extreme pain/stress on the body. He never went full white but his hair never went back. I also have a friend who turned grey when he was in high school. Could be either one of those things. Either way, I think it’s actually really distinctive and attractive.
Very interesting and informative video on Marie Antoinette's hair. With everything that she was facing and all the stress taking a toll on her hair and body, It's a wonder that she had any hair at all.
Thanks Rhiannon. Glad you liked it.
I know there are genetic components to this, but she must of been graying prior to execution. Given that she had light blonde hair, wigs and of course a hair dresser(s) I find it highly unlikely her hair went white overnight. We have to remember there were many tall, crude and hateful tales made about this woman. Her family's demise; tragic.
Oh absolutely. The grey hair had been coming in for a number of years before her death. I think the story is apocryphal too, but it's such an unusual tale I wanted to share it and see what people made of it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I think this video was great, her memory lives on , her jewelry was recently auctioned , she continues to be relevant.
Thank you. I think so too :-)
I had a male co worker who’s black hair literally in weeks developed circles of white hair through out. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it.
That's fascinating. It's certainly a rare phenomenon, but it does happen.
It's absolutely possible. I had a traumatic experience and my hair developed a grey and white streak on the right side of my head almost immediately. Just one of the "great" legacies it left me with
Fie! Her hair was chestnut color but due to being locked up in a dank dark dungeon with not much to eat for those few years caused her hair to turn white. She also became partially blind. Malnourished, no sun and terrible Trauma caused this transformation .
Certainly possible, though her hair had gone suddenly white on a previous occasion too, before the Revolution.
@@HistoryCalling could be the time she lost a child from illness.
How bad do you think they starved her?
@@thiccredgyal3404 bread and broth. No sunlight. I'm sure she lost her appetite considering what she went through
A Woman I worked with about 10+yrs ago developed alopecia. I was after a horrid car crash, her mom suddenly died & So many other things in about 4-6mth period.
A Dear Cousin of mine lost her hair due to Cancer. It came back Curly!
it's always so bizarre for me that she had such rich and powerful family and yet she endured such cruelty anyway.
Great video. I've seen many adaptations of Marie Antoinette's execution, but never heard of this detail!
Thank you. Yes, it's a strange little story.
My grandpapa's hair turned white when his son was missing in action in 1941. He had my uncle write to the red cross and the Vatican to find out where he was. Unfortunately my papa died shortly before they found out my uncle John was killed at the battle of Tobruk . my uncle is buried in libia - and we all believe papas spirit went to be with his eldest son x
This reminds me of Mary Queen of Scots because before she was executed during the years of being in prison, her hair became white and short because she been locked up for nearly 19 years.
I have a friend who had a bout of alopecia when he was 23. The hair on his crown fell out, looking very much like male pattern baldness. When the hair grew back this doctor told him he was lucky that it was growing back in the same color. Most of the time it grows back white. When I was in high school I did a report on the sharp shooter Annie Oakley. During a tour through Europe, the train derailed and her hair turned from dark brown to white as snow. It didn't say it was instantaneous or if it took days to develop. Trauma to extreme stress has been shown to turn someone's hair white throughout history. So I believe that it is possible that Marie Antoinette's hair could have turned white leading up to her execution.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to visit Versailles. I toured the queens apartments where there was a beautiful portrait of thecqueen in her youth. She had a fine red ribbon tied round her neck. The guide said it was prophetic in a way, considering she was to lose her head.
It is possible for hair to turn white overnight. That happened to my cousin. She went to sleep and the next morning her hair was white.
I had a college classmate lose pigment in a patch of her scalp in a moment of great stress, making one strand on her hair grow white. I always supposed something like that had happened to Marie, stress destroying the stem cells in her hair that generate pigment, and while being able to conceal it with dye might've made anyone out of her circle not know it would've become obvious once her hair couldn't be consistently dyed, even more once it was cut short and only undyed parts remained
I changed from blond to brown in less than three months after the birth of my first child. At age 19, I shed little hair during pregnancy and a lot right after. All the blond fell out leaving the brown and the change was startling. Add a stress induced medical condition and I can definitely see the possibility.
So interesting story, my great grandfather lost his 2 youngest sons in ww2 within a month of each other. His mourning was so intense, his full head of hair went from dark brown to white in just weeks. He still had a lot of hair, it just came in white. We have pictures to prove it.
When I was 27 I left my ex and took my 4 littles with me, I then found out about more abuse that was happening with my kids and I had a severe immune response. The hair around my face went grey within months. I have a solid 3 inch band that is grey/white. The rest is red. So I know it can happen. I am pretty sure it’s an auto immune response to trauma. Great story!
In my opinion, white hair actually looks sick, not gonna lie
My dad is an immigrant who lost his hair early, in his twenties. I don’t have any memories of him with hair, and he claims this is from the stress of moving to a new country where he didn’t know any of the language.
I’m so beyond happy I found this channel….
Thanks Ivar. I'm happy you're here too :-)
Great history video I enjoyed it can't wait to see more soon your history videos are always enjoyable 😀
Great video, thank you! It seems that is the most likely explanation 💇♀️
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it :-)
Thanks. Interesting. If I remember correctly... Baron Marbot who wrote books about his service with Napoleon, Describes his Meeting Marie when he was a student before the Revolution and years later was at, and described her execution. He thought well of her and thought her execution could have beed stopped if anyone would have spoke up for her..but realized all were too afraid the mob would turn on them, himself included. .
Thanks for another lesson.
My pleasure! :-)
I remember my Mum telling me of a relation of hers (grandfather?? great uncle??) going white "overnight" due to stress, although the details are very cloudy in my mind. So I believe your explanation of alopecia areata could well account for his changing hair colour, too. Unfortunately my Mum is no longer with us, so I can't ask her to tell me again. (I wish I'd listened more carefully, or written down the details: you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!). Even his eyebrows changed colour. I think it was due to the death of his son, but I'm not sure.
Yes, there are quite a lot of stories like yours so there does definitely seem to be something to it. I've read some here in the comments though that can't be explained by alopecia acreata, which is even more fascinating.
It could be. Autoimmune diseases exacerbate with stress. As it is healthy people lose hair during stress. People with autoimmune diseases is ten times more, especially in Marie’s case. The people kept yelling obscenities at her. Her children were taken away from her. And worse they turned her son against her. In her trial her son accused her of incest. That must’ve been a devastating blow. I think she was looking forward to the guillotine to end her suffering. The Marie Antoinette I learned in history was made up. She was used as a scapegoat. She didn’t deserve this.
I know. I feel terribly sorry for her too. She certainly seems to have had an episode of something like alopecia areata in 1791 at any rate (if Madam Campan's story is to be believed).
Very late comer to this video, but there are auto-immune disorders that can destroy the pigmenting cells (even more so during times of stress and sickness) add that with stress induced hairloss of pigmented hair and one’s hair could look quite white pretty quickly. I don’t believe it would be “overnight” but I can see it happening in a span of a few short months as all the regrowth is primarily of the pigment-damaged follicles.
This is so interesting and I’ve just subscribed ❤️
Great videos! 🙏
Thank you :-)
Every time I hear this story I think of my brother who had brain surgery and along the scar he had several hairs that came out striped like individual raccoon tails. Pigments are weird @_@'
Oh wow, I've never heard of something like that before, but it's fascinating. I hope you were a nice sister though and didn't call your brother a racoon as he recovered from brain surgery! :-)
@@HistoryCalling I waited till he was better to tell him, but then he wanted to see and I think we ended up cutting a hair off to show him XD
@@Heothbremel Haha! Well, that seems like good sibling behaviour. I hope he's all better now and has grown to love his stripe (if he still has it). Thanks for watching and commenting.
I was born with something called "poliosis," which is also sometimes referred to as a "mallen streak." My hair is naturally chesnut brown, but there has always been a large patch in the middle of my head that is white. As it grew out of the middle of my head, it presented for most of my life as 2 streaks, one on each side of my central part. I also have patches of white hair on both my arms & on one leg.
The streak on my head is large quite large, but my 2 brothers both have one tiny white spot on each of their heads as well. My mom was told that we were all imprinted with these pigment-free patches, because she has Sjogren's disease (an autoimmune illness) & that I probably have it more severely, bc my mom was experiencing a very bad "flare" while I was in utero.
This is not the end of my "weird hair" issues, though. I am now 37, was recently diagnosed with my own autoimmune disease, & over the last 3-4 years, my hair has turned almost entirely white. It's not gray; it's white. The original streak is now positively lost in a sea of matching hair that did kind of seem like it was turning white in patches, but that never fell out. It didn't happen instantaneously, but it did occur quite rapidly & I'm rather young to be almost fully white-haired.
When I asked my doctors about it, my family doctor said, "That's from your autoimmune disease," which was vague, & when pressed, she said that she couldn't elaborate further, she just "knows it's a sign of an autoimmune disease." And my hematologist said, "Hmm. Interesting," but didn't have an explanation. I am scheduled to see a rheumatologist & plan to ask him if he knows what has caused this.
I put this here to A.) provide a firsthand account of a 30-something year-old woman's hair turning white rapidly (though not overnight) & B.) Ask if anyone reading this knows the reason this has occurred, and C.) to ask if Marie Antoinette was ever mentioned to have had a mallen streak earlier in life. I'm not sure how my own initial streak fits into my current situation, but it'd be fascinating to me if she had one, too, & then also later went white drastically & prematurely.
Maybe the overnight statement was still an exaggeration for dramatic effect. But stress can destroy the stem cells responsible for hair colour within days, affecting the roots of hair growing afterwards, not the strands you already have. So you could really see rapid changes from brown to white within a few weeks or months depending on hair-length and it would certainly be a drastic difference if all her hair had just been cut and only newly grown hair remained.
Plus as you say, the sudden lack of cosmetics and the alopecia you make a very good case for.
My hair turned white when my son became a teenager🙄
Haha, I'll bet there are lots of parents with similar stories :-)
Oh and I love your videos.. Thank you..
You're very welcome :-)
I completely agree with the Alopecia explanation. But pregnancy also thins the hair due to hormonal changes so that would have accelerated things also.
Please do more MA videos! she and Frederick the Great are my favourite historical figures.
I'd love to. She's fascinating.
This story certainly became timely in the US in 2022.
I believe her hair turned white much earlier. Madame Campan, her lady-in-waiting, mentioned that her hair became white shortly after the disastrous flight to Montmedy in June 1791, due to the incredible stress she underwent. If you see contemporary illustrations of Marie-Antoinette taken from life during the revolution, you'll notice that her hair color was much lighter compared to earlier depictions from before the revolution. Of course, up until her imprisonment and execution, she did have access to a wide variety of powders, including white powder, which may explain why it looks lighter in some paintings, but it's more than likely possible that her hair turned lighter overtime due to immense anxiety and wained health in later years.
I've been "going gray" since shortly after my 25th Bday, &I certainly didn't have anywhere near the stressors Marie did!! I also have Alopecia. (Both the early graying, and the Alopecia, are hereditary on my Maternal side, &Paternal as well...) Plus I have Autoimmune Disease....so I was doomed! 😉 Essentially all of your points were totally "on the mark" regarding possible causes for Marie's hair issues. Wonderful Video! 🖒🖒💕
Yes I have seen this happen to someone in shock from the death of her Mother!
*Possible Spoiler Below*
In Chapter 149 of the popular manga series “Beastars” Legoshi a wolf awakens one morning and sees blood on his mattress and assumes that he had eaten and devoured his rabbit girlfriend Haru in his sleep during the night. His fur immediately turns white and he begins to break down crying before it’s revealed that Haru is in fact alive as she walks into the room completely unscathed and alive a minute or so later. The stain was in fact just spilled tomato juice that Haru recently spilled
I feel the writer, Paru got inspiration from this.
Alopecia I would say, I think you have nailed it, just to add history has been less than kind to her, Id like to think people see her in a better light nowadays.
There's no natural mechanism by which a hair can change color along its entire length. The expression could be due to the queen's shearing before her date with Madame l'Guillotine, but tat's not how it's mostly thought of. The way most people think of it, i.e. that a severe fright or trauma can simply cause cause you entire head of hair to go white, is bollocks.
My mother had white hair by 30, as did I and my sisters. But we could dye it. My hair was originally blonde coming from the Netherlands, so it was not noticeable when at 50, I stopped dying it and it became white. I did have a male friend who was in a terrible car accident when I was 16. Everyone in the car died except him. He was driving. Very sad. Within a few months his hair was completely white. The body is a mystery.
My daughter has this condition.
I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope she gets better. I know Khloe Kardashian suffered from alopecia after her father passed away and she recovered, so it's definitely possible.
@@HistoryCalling actually it probably won't. Its a symptom if an autoimmune disorder in which the bodies own immune system attacks the hair follicles seeing it as an invader or sorts. She had it when she was 2 but it grew back around 4. But after her first child a year later it started falling out again.
She's decided to.just go with it.
It is what it is.
Also my uncle mark has the same disorder. And its a mutated gene. In the 1950s there was an anti nausea medication for pregnant women. Which mutated that immune system gene causing his hair to also do the same thing.
So at the end of the day you got to realize its just hair and life goes on.
@@MagdaleneDivine Ah, I see. I'm sorry. While I obviously wish for her sake that she didn't have to deal with this, it sounds like she has an amazing attitude about it. Please wish her all the best for me. Thanks for sharing the info. about the mutated gene and the anti-nausea medication too. I was unaware of that.
i got 3 paches of white hair in a few days cause of anxiety and stressful moments and a doctor told me thats what we called Marie Antoinette Syndrome
“BUT.....but, but, but” (this was absolutely adorable at time stamp 2:03)
My grandmother’s hair began to go white when she was in her teens. She dyed it for a long time but then stopped and it had been completely white for years when she died at 56. I imagine that once she stopped coloring it it probably seemed to go white pretty quickly.
I’m 33 and started going grey around 28 - around my temples and at the back of my head.
Very interesting
No I don't agree, My hair turned grey white overnight due to a trauma.
Something to keep in mind to this time period was the use of pomade and talcum powders many women (especially men) used to make their hair appear pure white. It was not only a show of elite status but also a means of drying any oils in the hair as hygiene was not a particular high priority. Many of Marie's wigs were powdered as her own hair would have been. Considering how long she would have been doing this while at court, being imprisoned, I'm pretty sure this luxury would most definitely have been denied to her. That being the case, hair loss and alopecia can result. Not to mention the prolonged use of wigs, WILL actually exacerbate any hair loss issues one is attempting to hide. I know this first hand.
Marriage and death do that to ya, no joke. I had thick bushy hair, then my sister died, then I got married, then a son 4 years later, then my hair just went from thick to bald on top, hair still on the sides & back to gray beards. I will however say on my mom's side they all turned gray early....but my aunt dyes her hair & is in denial of her gray early genes. :) lol
Im commenting to prod the algorithm on your behalf.
When you think about it for a second, if the shock happened the day before, her hair should have only had a barely perceptible (if at all) third of a millimeter of white at the root…
A far cry from the dramatic change we picture when first hearing it someone’s hair suddenly turned white!
My grandmothers best and long time friend, who we called Aunt May, when told at age 15 that her mother who raised her was actually her sister , her hair turned white literally over night. So yes , I can believe it.
When, we were buying our home my husband developed alopecia in one spot, my aunts remained white all of her life documented through photos.Eventually my husbands hair went back to his natural color.
1982 - My neighbor had a brain aneurysm which required her to have all of her hair shaved off for the surgery. She was in her sixty’s and had been coloring her gray hair for years. When her hair grew back after the surgery it was coal black and curly.
I believe that with all the stress she went through it was possible that it hastened the premature gray enough to make it look white...
She had a halo or corona witch made her hair look white. She was also humiliated before.
This is very late to the party, however my family has alopecia as well as other autoimmune diseases. If you try to track alopecia in a family, you also need to consider other autoimmune diseases.
Having said that, my family has a very strong history of autoimmune diseases. My greatgrandfather went to the barn one morning and found himself face to face with a bear. His hair "turned all white" which we had always attributed to him losing all the colored strands of hair.
Note: when I say strong autoimmune, I am talking RA, MS, Lupus, Addisons, Hashimotos, Graves, Severe allergies, and so on. In our family, one autoimmune disease or the other will strike. Both parents, every sibling, Aunts and Uncles, we all have one autoimmune disease or another, many times more than one.
As a side note, I got my first gray hair when I was 19 years old. Not related to stress, my hair just gradually greyed over the years.
Hmmm. A couple of weeks after my father died suddenly when I was 23, I had a couple of substantial patches of white hair on the back of my head, in my very dark hair. they grew out in about 18 months and never came back. Now I'm 54, and my hair is greying, but not where those patches were.
I so hope there are more MA videos coming! I think she’s had a bad rep long enough.
At 48 years old my hair was about 20-30% grey. I discovered my husband had a double life, a mistress for 24 years of our 29 year marriage. Our divorce took roughly 6 months. By the end of our divorce my hair was 90% white.
Honestly, I didn’t think I would be able to live…..but that was 3 years ago. I’m alive and thriving. I put a 20 minute golden toner on my hair once a month and yes blonds do have more fun!
omg ur from northern ireland!!
I am indeed :-)
My grandfather talked about a similar event when his neighbor was about to be executed by the Nazis.
"Once there was this boy who got into an accident and couldn't come to school but when he finally came back his hair had turned into bright white. He couldn't quite explain it, the cars had smashed so hard." Anyone remember this song? 😃
Not really the exact same, but my grandfather was in a farming accident in his late teens/early 20s resulting w a head injury serious enough they were unsure of survival. While it didn't happen overnight of course, from that point on his hair grew in stark white. Although pictures we have of this time are all in black/white, you can clearly see a man in his early 20s with stark white hair. I do not think Marie Antoinette had a traumatic brain injury or we would of known. But It can happen very quickly, and the shorter the hair the more obvious of course.
All I know is that a family friend had her hair turn white in under a month after watching her sons die
Great video-and sound theory. I don't think she suddenly went white but I certainly believe one can turn grey or white due to stress over a short period. I'm in my 30s but began turning grey at 26-I've had a lot of trauma in my life-and coincidently 26 was the year I became disabled with primarily fibromylgia and ME, and had to give up my dreams of pursuing my Phd. Luckily I have a huge thick nest of Irish hair-it just goes grey! I also think the cosmetics they used wouldn't have helped. I'm sure you're aware but the wonderful Suzannah Lipscomb did a documentary on Hidden Killers and though it focusses more on the Victorian 'remedies' for beauty the toxins they put on their skin and hair wouldn't have helped underlying issues or indeed stress-and MA certainly had stress! I think as well some witnesses tend to exaggerate such events to make the subject more martyrised or fasinating! Love your channel-distracts me from pain! xxx
Antoinette's blonde hair actually turned grey/white overnight after the failed Flight to Vareness
I knew a lady that had red hair gave birth to her first child a son she asked why the mirror was covered and she went to look her red hair was now white and she was a young mother She told this to several people that was in common company myself being one there Her hair however didn't fall out and never went back to shade of red
I disagree with this. I witnessed this in a 24 hour period on March 7, 1985. My grandfather, a half Cherokee/Choctaw NA died of prostate cancer at the age of 64. All my life he had jet black hair, sleeked back with a pencil-thin mustach, which I later learned he drew on with an charcoal eyeliner pencil. I always thought he looked like Charles Bronson (late actor), because he did. As a man of pure NA blood, he had no body hair on his arms, chest, or legs. Just the most beautiful jet black hair, that he let me comb when I was little while we played "beauty shop." I adored him.
I was there when he died and at his wake the night before his funeral. However, as the immediate family walked past his open casket before we left the church to head to the Cemetery, his hair was pure white. I was dumbstruck. He didn't look anything like the man I knew my entire life. I asked the funeral director (a long-time family friend) what happened to his hair. He replied that this is sometimes the case with individuals who die of specific cancers. It's a chemical reaction within the body and its response to drugs still in their system at the time of death. In some cases, the body, though dead, the cancer is not for up to 24 hours. Especially if they have liver cancer, which is what happened to my grandfather. As a result, some people's hair color can change.
Is it coincidence that the ad for this video is for Loreal hair color......?
My temple hair was white when I come back from the hospital when my fiance died. After a few days, it was blonde.
First of all, I'm so sorry to hear about your fiance. That's absolutely terrible. Second, what a strange thing to happen to your hair. Are you a natural blonde, or did it go from your natural colour to white, then to blonde?
Interesting
Untrue . . .
Almost 70 % hair turned grey/white at 28 after my mom died . . . . A dramatic change from sorrow
My sister has dark brown hair, she started getting white hair at 22 not even grey! Lol I’m older, and medium blonde and found my first white hair at 43 🤷🏼♀️ I’d have more I know I would, you just can’t see them in blonde as easily
It happens!
I think it was alopecia.
I'm sure that she had more things to worry about than her hair going white. I think her roots just came through and they cut the coloured bit off.
Her hair went white due to eating too much cake.
Also if you'd seen her in better times and then just before her death, it would have made a great impression on anyone. Add a touch of embellishment, et voila!
I’ve been going grey since I was 12. My hair is almost entirely grey now that I’m 27 😂
❤❤❤
I descend from this beauty. There is an other possible explanation. This happened to a person I knew. Tertiary syphillis caused his hair to fall out in short order.
Marie Antoinette had no descendants. All of her children bar one died in childhood, and her only surviving daughter died childless
I saw "ghosts" from a young age and hear ghostly voices whispering to me, basically never went outside, and became heavily depressed in my teens. Around my mid-late teens after an encounter with a "ghost" I woke up to find my hair had begun to turn white at the roots. I'm doing a lot better with my mental health these days and haven't seen or heard anything paranormal for at least 4-5 years, and I now realise what I saw and heard probably was just in my head. Still, the white streaks in my hair remain and haven't really grown or shrunk over time, there's just this upside down vaguely heart-shaped patch where my hair is now permanently white. I don't know if it was because of fear or stress or depression or what, but it definitely happened to me.
Soon you'll find Normal Food Disgusting, and you may become a Cannibal with red iris
U can't switch the color of ur hair? I turned my hair pink in 20 minutes. If I was gonna be beheaded and I knew it....I would die my hair Grey for sure.
My hair is Gray
My Aunt, her sisters, and her two daughters were snow white by the time they were 18. Genetics.
Naww she was just locked up and had no wigs n coloring available or 1000 hairdressers n servants
It is called canetia
That what happens when eating to much cake
I thought the age you are when going grey was down to genetics.
Whyte it twas upon her death. A fityng faite for a sinner such as shye!
The lip cracking is so annoying in this video