Weird Facts

Fun Hair Facts

Natural Hair Colors

A person's genes determine the hair/skin/eye color at birth.  Hair color is determined by melanocytes cells, these cells produce and store the pigment in hair and skin. Hair color is determined by two different forms of pigment, eumelanin and pheomelanin pigments. The more eumelanin genes there are, the darker your hair will be. So, a little eumelanin and you are a blonde, a lot and you have black hair. Depending on the percentage of each pigment, the person has blonde, brown, red or black hair. As the melanocytes decay during a lifetime, the hair becomes a dull gray and later on it turns into a whitish color.

 

      1. Female hair grows more slowly than male hair.
      2. Next to bone marrow, hair is the fastest growing tissue in the human body.
      3. Male hair is more dense than female hair.
      4. Hair grows faster in warm weather.
      5. Gingers don’t feel pain to the same degree that everyone else does. Redheads are less sensitive to electrically induced pain, but are more sensitive to thermal pain. Source
      6. Cutting hair does not influence its growth.
      7. Lifespan of hair: 2 to 7 years. On average, a hair strand's life span is five and a half years.
      8. 35 meters of hair fibre is produced every day on the average adult scalp.
      9. The average scalp has 100,000 hairs. Redheads have the least at 80,000; brown and black haired persons have about 100,000; and blondes have the most at 120,000.
      10. 90% of scalp hairs are growing and 10% are resting.
      11. It is normal to lose 100 hairs per day from the scalp.
      12. A single hair has a thickness of 0.02 - 0.04mm, so that 20 - 50 hair strands next to each other make one millimetre.
      13. Humans have the thinnest body hair of all primates. Our body hair began thinning eons ago because once we stood erect on two feet only 1/3 of our bodies were exposed to the sun at a time. Head hair remains plentiful since your head is fully exposed to the sun. The growth phase for hair is the andogen phase.  The dormant phase is the telogen phase. Between 15 – 20% of your hair at a time is in the telogen stage.
      14. Many drugs can cause hair loss.

        <script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
        google_ad_client = "pub-2970895246189115";
        /* 160x600, created 9/6/11 */
        google_ad_slot = "4366917399";
        google_ad_width = 160;
        google_ad_height = 600;
        // ]]></script>
        <script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type="text/javascript">
        </script>

      15. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone.
      16. Hair is as strong as a piece of iron wire. You can only rip it by applying a force of approximately 60kg after stretching it about 70%.
      17. A single hair can support up to 100 grams in weight and a whole head of hair could support up to 12 tonnes - the equivalent of two African elephants!
      18. Thyroid imbalance and iron deficiency are reversible causes for hair loss.
      19. Hormone imbalance and crash dieting can trigger temporary hair loss.
      20. Over 50% of men by age 50 have male pattern hair loss. Forty percent of women by the time they reach menopause will have female pattern (hereditary) hair loss.
      21. In the Guinness Book of Records an Indian woman has hair that is over 13 feet long.
      22. Your arm hair only grows 1/2 inch to an inch because body hair growth phase only lasts a few months, whereas head hair growth phase lasts a few years. 
      23. African and European people are more prone to balding than Asian people.
      24. Combing is less detrimental than brushing to your hair.
      25. Frequent washing does not increase loss of hair.
      26. Spliced ends can not be repaired and need to be cut
      27. Hair covers the whole body, with the exception of soles of feet, palms of hands, mucous membranes, and lips.
      28. If you pluck out one of your hair, a new hair will start to grow from the hair follicle.
      29. It’s not true that baldness is inherited from your mother. It can come from either side of the family.

      30. Pigments give the hair its color. When we age, hair receives fewer pigments and turns gray or white.

      31. 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.
      32. The average Caucasian person starts turning grey at the age of 34, whereas the average for Asians and Africans is 47 years.
      33. Canities is the technical term for gray hair.
      34. Ancient Egyptians kept their hair coloured black with henna.
      35. Noblemen and women in Ancient Egypt often cut their hair close to their head because of the heat, but they wore long black wigs during ceremonies.
      36. In the biblical story Samson and Delilah, Samson`s strength is in his mane of hair. Delilah cuts it as he sleeps, Samson loses his strength and kills himself.
      37. Joan of Arc cut off her long hair when she went into battle so her soldiers would regard her as an equal.
      38. Ancient Greek women used curling irons.
      39. During the Renaissance women plucked the entire front hair away to give the appearance of a higher forehead.
      40. Dandruff is heredity and is caused by rapid scalp skin cell renewal (every 2 – 7 days instead of monthly).
      41. Lice does not occur because of dirt or a lack of hygiene. Lice is spread by sharing combs and hats. Read More
      42. Tiny mites live in the base of your eyelashes. They come out when you sleep to eat the cells your eyelashes shed and other debris. They help eyelashes to grow by preventing hair follicles from clogging. Read More
      43. Eyelash hairs shed every 4 – 6 weeks. They perform the same type of function as whiskers on a cat: they warn that an object (such as an insect) is approaching.
      44. The loss of eyelashes is referred to as madarosis.
      45. It is possible to get eyelash transplants.
      46. Trichtollimania is the impulse to pull out one`s own hair. Some people will eat it.
      47. The first hair dryer was a vacuum cleaner that was used for drying hair.
      48. Ancient Egyptians used to think having facial hair was an indication of personal neglect.
      49. In a lifetime, an average man will shave 20,000 times.
      50. A Russian man who wore a beard during the time of Peter the Great would have to pay a special tax.
      51. Brylcreem, which was created in 1929, was the first man's hair product.
      52. Now you Know - The reason why some people get a cowlick is because the growth of their hair is in a spiral pattern, which causes the hair to either stand straight up, or goes to a certain angle.
      53. The big toe is the foot reflexology pressure point for the head.
      54. In the Dark Ages however, red hair was believed to be linked to witchcraft.
      55. The belief that redheads where witches is a folk belief of Germanic culture. From 1483-1784 thousands of suspected witches were nearly always stripped and searched for “marks of the devil”. These included any “abnormality” such as freckles, moles, warts, and birthmarks. Red hair was certainly considered an abnormality. Considering the freckle factor for redheads this was a deadly and shocking horror. Somewhere around 45,000 women were tortured and murdered usually by burning at the stake or by drowning.
      56. In the early 1600’s, near the end of Queen Elizabeth I reign, the belief of Pixies (aka fairies) emerged in southwest England. They were then and have since been strongly associated with red hair for their mischievousness and otherworldly talents.
      57. Red hair is a genetic mutation.
      58. Red hair is a recessive trait and it may re-appear after several generations of darker hair.
      59. Red hair is seen on the heads of only four percent of people. Most of these exist in the U.K., the Republic of Ireland, and Australia.
      60. The highest percentage of natural redheads in the world is in Scotland (13%), followed closely by Ireland with 10%. In the US, only about 2% of the population are natural redheads.
      61. Red-haired Clowns have their origins in Russia. Read More
      62. One inch of your hair can reveal alot of facts about your behavior. Scientists can discern facts, such as what you ate, or drank in the last month and in what environment or region you lived.

 

Sources:

http://christophreilly.hubpages.com/hub/Redheads-Myths--Legends--and-Famous-Red-Hair

http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/features/top-10-foods-for-healthy-hair

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/grayhair.html

http://www.schick.com/us/shaving-facts.shtml

http://www.pantene.co.uk/hair-science/Pages/hair-science-facts.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair

 

 

Side menu