General Facts about Hair
Here is an article I found about the basics of hair, enjoy:
Scientists claim that human beings will increasingly loose their hair, resulting in a totally naked being. Many hundred years have however to pass by until this awful prophecy will become true. Until then we have enough time to study and understand the life of hair. Hair is actually dead material when it leaves it’s root – otherwise it would hurt very much when your hairdresser works with his scissor. Most people know about this fact, but did you know about other facts: On a normal scalp there are about 100-150 thousand hair fibers. A blonde head of hair has usually much more fibers than red or dark haired heads. Hair consists mainly of keratin, which is also responsible for the elasticity of fingernails. A single hair has a thickness of 0.02-0.04mm, so that 20-50 hair fibers next to each other make one millimeter. Hair is strong as a wire of iron. It rips after applying a force equivalent to 60kg, after it stretched itself for about 70%.
The root of a hair fiber sticks in a bag in the skin. The fiber is pushed out of this bag about 0.35mm per day, making an average growth rate of 1cm, or half of an inch, per month. The growth rate is however very much related to the individual person, his age, his diet etc. Healthy hair has an average lifetime of 2-6 years. After a rest period of three months the single hair falls out, and a new fiber starts to grow out of the bag. The lifetime depends on circumstances and person, too. The lifetime of hair is responsible for the maximum of hair length you can have. Waist length hair takes about 6 years to grow out from a short hair cut, periodic trims included. If your hair has a lifecyle of 2 years, you will never achieve a nice waist length mane.
Different pepople have different colors of hair: Black, blonde, and brown. What makes the color of hair different? The answer lies in melanophore. The hair roots contain pigment cells called melanin, which creates a black pigment. Melanophore is a chromatophore that sends pigment to new hair. The greater the amount of pigment sent to the hair, the darker the hair becomes. On the contrary, as the amount of pigment sent is reduced, the hair color turns brown and then blond. Some people believe that differences in hair color are caused by the differences in the intensity of ultraviolet rays contained in the sunlight, to which the hair is exposed.
Baby hair begins to grow around the third month after conception within the womb of the mother. {Trichocysts} are first formed. They develop into hair follicles as the fetus grows, then become downy hairs several centimeters long when the baby is born. The total number of hairs is determined before the baby is born. After that, the number of hairs never increases. It just decreases. The number of hairs greatly varies for each person, from sixty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand, and makes up one of natural characteristics of each person when they are born. We should take good care of our hair.
Human beings have about one million and four hundred thousand hairs on their body, with about four hundred and fifty thousand of them to be found above the neck. These hairs include about one hundred thousand hairs on the head and about thirty thousand hairs taken up by mustaches, beards, or whiskers. The figure below illustrates average lengths of the hair (when it is left to grow naturally) and growth rates per day. The hairs on the head grow by about one centimeter per month and reach a length of around 70 centimeters if they are not cut. Hair grows at a faster rate in the spring and summer than in autumn and winter.
Average length and growth rate per day :
Hairs on the head 70cm / 0.35mm
Eyebrows ‚Qcm / 0.15mm
Mustaches (beards or whiskers) 28cm / 0.4mm
Armpit hairs ‚Scm / 0.3mm
Pubic hairs ‚Ucm / 0.2mm
