There are a lot of things about hair that we don’t know. Most of us are half the time mostly concerned about how to grow our hair long or how to style it. We have rounded up some of the not so well known facts about hair for you.
Hair Biology Facts
Hair Follicles Form When Fetus is 5 Months Old
Hair follicles are the foundation of hair growth and all of them are formed when a fetus if 5 months old. Therefore, it is impossible to change the number of follicles on your head, because they were formed while you were still in the womb.
Composition of Hair
Hair is made up of 6 compounds; it is comprised of 50% carbon, 21% oxygen, 17% nitrogen, 6% hydrogen and 5% sulfur.
The blow drying process changes the hydrogen bonds, which then alters your hair’s shape. Water does the same; it changes the hydrogen bonds and this is why humidity affects hair.
The cuticle, which is the hair’s outer layer, lays flat and it protects the hair’s inner layer from damage. The cortex, which is the hair’s middle layer, is comprised of long twisted protein strands.
Hair Contains All Your Information
Hair strands carry information about your genetic identity and substances in your bloodstream as well as those that have been in your bloodstream. However, gender is the only thing that cannot be determined from a hair strand.
Hair Can Cover The Whole Body
If allowed to, hair could cover the whole body with exceptions. Hair cannot grow on the soles of your feet, lips, palms of your hands and mucous membranes.
Hair is one of the Body’s Fastest Growing Tissues
After the body’s bone marrow, hair is one of the body’s fastest growing tissues.
Hair Color Facts
Hair gets its natural color from pigment and this color fades with age. Eventually, with old age hair loses its original color and turns white/gray. Caucasians acquire gray hair faster, which the average age of 34 while Africans and Asians gray much later from around the age of 47.
Black hair is the most common hair color. People with Blonde hair make up 2% of the world’s population while people with red hair make up 1% of the world’s population.
Averagely, people with black/brown hair have 100,000 strands of hair on their scalp. Redheads have the least strands of hair at 80,000 strands while Blondes have the most at 120,000 strands.
Scotland has the highest population of redheads, with 13% of the country’s population being redheads.
Historical Facts About Hair
Amongst all primates, human beings have the thinnest hair. This is because when the evolution process saw us start to stand erect few of our body hair was exposed to the sun. The head being fully exposed to the sun retains hair in plenty.
Egyptians kept their hair black by dying it with henna. Egyptians are also historically the first people known to get rid of unwanted body hair.
To wear a beard in 1705, Russian men had to pay a beard tax instituted by Peter the Great.
Women in ancient Rome used pigeon dung to dye their hair blonde. Venetian women used horse urine to dye their hair Blonde. Blonde hair was associated with prostitution in ancient Greece.
Higher foreheads were ‘in’ during the Renaissance period and women plucked off their hairlines to acquire a higher forehead.
At a certain time, before the 19th Century, women rarely washed their hair. They made do with brushing their hair every night, which got rid of the old oil in hair. However, it was also the reason why many women started suffering fro scalp diseases and thanks to innovators such as Madam CJ Walker scalp issues became a thing of the past.
Madam CJ Walker was the first to create hair care products specifically for African-American hair.
Did You Know Facts
1. Men’s hair grow faster that women’s hair. Men’s hair also tend to be denser than women’s hair.
2. No matter how much you cut your hair, this doesn’t really influence its growth in general. The hair follicles are responsible for hair growth and even if hair is plucked from the roots new hair continues growing from healthy follicles.
3. Split ends cannot be repaired and they can affect the overall health of hair strands. Therefore, the best way to manage them is to cut them off.
4. The average rate of hair loss is 100 strands per day.
5. Hair is very strong and a single strand of hair can support 100 grams weight while your entire head of hair can support nearly 12 tons in weight.
6. 4 to 7 years is the average lifespan of the hair on your head while that of a single hair strand is 5 1/2 years.
7. Balding is more prominent in people of European and African decent compared to people of Asian decent. Baldness is also inherited from either the father or mother’s side of the family.
8. Egyptians are historically the first people documented to have started removing unwanted hair.
9. Hair has a number of uses other than being on your head. It can be used to absorb oil, case in point being the Cusco Busan San Francisco oil spill in 2007.
10. On average it will take you 3 years to grow out your hair to shoulder length and 7 years to grow it to waist length.
11. On unconventional uses of hair; it is also considered a trinket/memorabilia for some people. Hair, that of a lost loved one, was used to fashion jewelry such as watches, pendants, and brooches during the Victorian Era.
12. Though weakest when wet; hair is at its most ‘stretchy’ length when wet and can stretch up to 30% in length without damage.
13. 90% of people who are right-handed have their cowlicks growing in a clockwise direction.
14. Natural hair parts are caused by hair streams, which is an effect created when the follicles of your hair slope in similar directions.
15. Alopecia is what hair loss is referred to in medical terms. Hair transplants are the only effective methods of reversing hair loss.
16. Scientists established that people with high IQs tend to have higher levels of copper and zinc in the hair.
17. Your hair, as well as fingernails, will continue to grow even after death.
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