Grey hair? Not so much.

L'Oréal Paris has the hair industry rethinking its 50 rule” when it comes to great hair, with a new study finding strands of grey are less common than previously thought.

CosmeticsDesign.com reports that the 50/50/50 rule of thumb, which states, at age 50 years, 50 per cent of the population has at least 50 per cent grey hair” is misleading.

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The report concludes: Calculating the percentage of people showing at least 50 per cent grey hair coverage at 50 years leads to a global range of six to 23 per cent, according to ethnic/geographical origin and natural hair colour - well below that expressed by the ‘50’ rule of thumb.”

To reach the findings, L’Oréal assessed the natural hair colour of 4192 healthy male and female volunteers using a sensorial expert evaluation.

The study, published online in the British Journal of Dermatology, also confirmed previous research that people of Asian and African descent had less grey hair than those of Caucasian origin, at comparable ages.