Hair is simple in structure, but it has an important role in social functioning. No one likes to lose a good tuft of hair. Hair grows at different rates in different people; the average rate is around one-half inch per month. Hair colour is created by pigment cells producing melanin in the hair follicle. With aging, pigment cells die, and hair turns gray.
Writer and blogger Cristen Conger writes, “Many men spend more than a month out of their lives just shaving their beards”.
According to The Economist, ‘Grooming your body hair can seem like cutting the grass in the summertime. You devote an afternoon to the chore, and the next thing you know, the grass has shot up and you’re hauling the lawn mower outside again. When landscaping your body, there are eyebrows to tweeze, moustaches to trim and coiffures to condition daily.
Women hunch over their legs with a razor in hand for hundreds of hours to meticulously strip away thousands of unwanted hairs.’But human body hair doesn’t grow indefinitely. Instead, individual hairs go through active and resting phases.
Hair growth occurs in cycles/phases:
Anagen (growth): Most hair is growing at any given time. Each hair spends several years in this phase.
Catagen (transitional): Over a few weeks, hair growth slows and the hair follicle shrinks.
Telogen (resting): Over months, hair growth stops and the old hair detaches from the hair follicle. A new hair begins the growth phase, pushing the old hair out. Blood vessels nourish the cells and deliver hormones that modify hair growth and structure at different times of life.
Differences in growth phases, hair follicle size and shaft density also define the different types ¬of human body hair. In the womb, foetuses are covered in tiny hairs called lanugo. Shortly after birth, babies grow vellus, or fine, unpigmented hairs, across the body. When puberty hits, vellus hairs give way to coarser terminal hairs in places such as the underarms and genitals. The longer, thicker hairs on your scalp, eyebrows and eyelashes are also terminal.
If one were to tally those body hair categories on the average person, it adds up to around 5 million individual hairs. Wouldn’t life be simpler if you were just bare everywhere?
Most hairless among primates
Compared to most mammals, humans are relatively bald, perhaps the most hairle¬ss of the primates. Only a handful of other mammals are as sparsely covered with body hair, like elephants and rhinoceroses, but they have thicker skin to prevent too much heat from escaping their bodies.
Barlow, an expert, points out that rather than having fewer hairs, the distinguishing factor is the size of them. In fact, humans have around the same density of hair follicles across the body as other primates. The two species also share the same hairless body parts: the lips, palms and soles of the feet. Yet, human body hair is finer and shorter than chimpanzee hair.
So at some point during the course of human evolution, thick hair must have become more of a burden than an asset. One theory is that early man was a water-dwelling ape, and less hair was better suited to his aqueous environment. Another explains it as an adaptation to prevent the spread of parasites, since they thrive in thicker fur. Yet others point to the milestone of bipedalism that occurred around two million years ago. By standing erect instead of on all fours, humans expose only one-third of their bodies to direct sunlight. With that posture, a full fur covering wouldn’t be necessary for protection from the sun.
The sum of those adaptations has left humans with sporadic body hair patterns. Our heads, underarms and genitals have thicker patches, while places like the back generally have sparse coverings.
Tired of having to shave regularly? Then consider how much maintenance you’d have to perform if you had hypertrichosis, or the werewolf syndrome? It is characterised by excessive body hair in abnormal places. Women can also develop hirsutism, or body hair growth in places where men usually grow it, like a beard or chest hair. The condition is typically caused by a female having an abnormal amount of male hormones.
It is said that bald men are attractive to women. Baldness is the complete lack of hair, or partial hair on your head. It can also be called thinning. The majority of males do suffer with at least a slight loss of hair as they age, but it can start as early as their twenties. It looks hilarious when some, in their desperation, even like to comb their last bit of hair over the top of their head as a ‘comb over’!
There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
“Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.” So she did and she had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. “Hmmm,” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.” So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. “Well,” she said, “Today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.” So she did and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head…. “YEAH!” she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”
So cool it. What if you lose hair? You won’t pull at it!
Hair being a social necessity, many bald men hence go in for artificial hair weaving. Hair stylist Janice Johnson explains that there are two kinds of hair extensions that can be purchased: the cheaper synthetic hair extensions, and the costlier human hair extensions.
While it is known to hold styles remarkably well, synthetic hair extensions can be dangerous. Unlike human hair, it has little resistance to heat. It will burn or melt, easily meshing with your natural hair and cause major damage to your hair and scalp. A scalp that is always moist can become a good breeding ground for fungus and bacteria to grow.
It can also become matted, easily loses its silky, smooth look after a few washings, and cannot be dyed, and hence there is less versatility when it comes to styling. It can feel a bit rough to the touch in comparison to human hair extensions.
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A guy walks in to the Barbershop.
Barber says, “What will it be today?”
Guy says, “well, I want it going with my waves on top, faded on one side, plug the other, and just make it all out of shape and messed up.”
Barber says, “Now why in the world do you want your hair cut like that.”
Guy says, “That’s how you cut it last time”
Furthermore, other heating tools like flat irons, curling irons, heated hooded hair dryers, and even those created specifically for hairstyling will have to be avoided.Hence, a safer choice would be human hair extensions. It will also last much longer and looks better than synthetic hair.
The modern trend is to go in for hair transplants which are a permanent solution to hair loss. The transplanted hairsgrow naturally, and if they fall out, are replaced by healthy hairs. If balding continues, it is other natural hairs that fall out, not the transplanted hairs.
