The Top 20 Hair Facts!

Most people have around 100,000 hair follicles in their heads. You cannot increase them. You are born with it and no products can make it grow more follicles. However some people might have more due to genetic reasons. Some examples

• Red heads - 90,000 hair follicles
• Black hair - 110,000 hair follicles
• Blond hair - 130,000 hair follicles

Your hair turns gray because the pigment cells known as melanin in your hair follicles are not working properly. The hair bulb usually degrades in production as you age or when you are stressed.

Stress is a major cause of hair loss and can cause Telogen Effluvium.

Fact #3

Forty percent of women by the time they reach menopause will have female pattern (hereditary) hair loss. Over 50% of men by age 50 have male pattern hair loss.

Learn about menopause and hair loss.

Fact #4

As you age, the ANAGEN or growing phase shortens. If someone with a five-year ANAGEN can grow to a length of 60 cm before it enters the shedding phase. If their ANAGEN period drops to three years as they age, their hair will then grow only to shoulder length before it falls out or is brushed out.

Fact #5

Usually people will only notice that you are balding when you have lost almost 50% of the hair in your scalp. When you reach that stage, it might be too late to recover back all your hair.

See Preventing Hair Loss for solutions now.

Fact #6

When you are born, you have around 1000 follicles per square centimetre. When you reach 25, it falls to around 600 per square centimetre but can vary depending on the individual. By your mid 30s to 40s, your hair follicles will reduce to around 300 or less. After that, there won't be any significant drop.

Fact #7

Each follicle can grow many hairs over a lifetime: on average, each grows a new hair around twenty times.

Fact #8

When your hair is wet, it can increase its length by up to 30% and still return to normal length after it's dried. If you stretch your hair too often you can damage it and cause breakage to the hair shaft.

Fact #9

Depending on the individual, the hair follicle can grow up to 1 metre in length before it stops growing.

Fact #10

Waist-length hair is 80-90 cm long, and will have taken about seven years to grow. Shoulder length hair will have taken only about three years. Thus only people with long ANAGEN times can expect to grow their hair down to the waist.

Fact #11

If you damage your scalp, your hair follicle will start a new growing phase. Cuts and wounds will cause the hair to grow around them provided that there is no scarring in the hair follicle.

Learn more about Scarring Alopecia.

Fact #12

The width of the hair shaft is determined by your genes, and is not affected by anything you do to your skin or to the hair shaft itself.

Fact #13

Next to bone marrow, hair is the fastest growing tissue in the human body.

Fact #14

Your hair is made of keratin, the same ingredient as your fingernails. Keratin is a type of protein generated by your body's stem cells.

Fact #15

A strand of hair has a thickness of roughly 0.02 - 0.04 mm, so you'll need around 20 to 50 hair strands combined together for 1 milimetre of thickness.

Fact #16

Your hair's strength is equilavent to a wire of iron. You can only rip it by applying a force of approximately 60kg after stretching it to about 70%

Fact #17

Usually East Asians hair are often very straight and always black in color. Caucasions have the most varied form of hair. They range from the fair-skinned people of north-west Europe to the widely varying peoples of the Indian subcontinent. Their hair may be either wavy or straight, and the diameter varies widely too. The color ranges from black to a pale blond that is almost white, including just about every possible shade in between. People with African origins usually have black and curly hair. It tends to be dry and woolly.

Fact #18

You can't repair split ends on your hair. The only way to get rid of it is by cutting it.

If you pluck out one of your hair, a new hair will start to grow from the hair follicle.

Fact #20

Hair loss by changing shampoo is one of the most asked hair facts.S hampooing frequently can result in more hairs in the TELOGEN phase to fall out faster especially if the hair is shampooed more energetically than usual. This is why, whenever there is a change in the shampoos or conditioners, or a move to new brushes, loose hairs are often found for two or three days after the change.

The extra hair loss has nothing to do with the product and will settle in a day or two. Usually, you will find that the hair that you lost will start to grow back almost immediately.

Top 20 Hair Myths

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