Wavy hair? Mix of 2 genes?

[lapushka]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8sZpG5jMQ

First I heard of this! :)

[Heavy Raindrops]

If that is true then I think it is incomplete dominance or co-dominance (trying to remember what I learnt from my genetics classes here)! :o

[Lakiticni]

Mixture of genes is possible. If it is true that wavy=curly+straight, it would be something like this example:
Your father has straight hair (that makes straight hair gene dominant for him), and your mother has curly hair (dominant gene is curly). You received a combo of dominant+dominant hair genes, then your hair is wavy.

[lapushka]

Mixture of genes is possible. If it is true that wavy=curly+straight, it would be something like this example:
Your father has straight hair (that makes straight hair gene dominant for him), and your mother has curly hair (dominant gene is curly). You received a combo of dominant+dominant hair genes, then your hair is wavy.

My parents both have wavy hair - to some extent (1b/1cish). Mine is wavier (2a). Don't know how that goes.

[Annibelle]

My parents both have wavy hair - to some extent (1b/1cish). Mine is wavier (2a). Don't know how that goes.

That's how my parents are. But they both comb their hair straighter, so it would probably be wavier on its own... but we're all wavies.

[ladylowtide]

Both my parents have wavy hair. And mine is super straight, come to think of I might be the only one in my extended family with straight hair.

[Lakiticni]

My parents both have wavy hair - to some extent (1b/1cish). Mine is wavier (2a). Don't know how that goes.
If they have type 1 hair, that is their dominant gene, then their recessive would be for types 2 and 3, so I guess you received a combo of dominant(1b or 1c)+recessive(2b maybe), so it combined into 2a.


Both my parents have wavy hair. And mine is super straight, come to think of I might be the only one in my extended family with straight hair.
Similar explanation would be here, except that you might have got both recessive genes for straight hair, which makes your dominant gene into a straight hair one.

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Still not sure if it is true that wavy=straight+curly.

[Lakiticni]

Can't edit the previous post so a tiny fix here:

Still not sure if it is true that wavy=straight+curly.
Wanted to say that I'm not sure if it came to existence that way, or it was always there like straight and curly.

Sorry for the double post.

[lapushka]

If they have type 1 hair, that is their dominant gene, then their recessive would be for types 2 and 3, so I guess you received a combo of dominant(1b or 1c)+recessive(2b maybe), so it combined into 2a.

Thanks for explaining that! *Very* interesting! :D

[Salmonberry]

Interesting. I'd like to hear more about the details. I'm sure there's more going on than just one gene for straight and one for curly. There are so many different hair types ranging from 1a to 4c. Maybe it's like eye color, it's not as simple as one being recessive and one being dominant. If that were the case there would only be two different eye colors.

My mom has 1b/1c hair and I think my dad had 2b. I wound up with 1c/2a. Right in the middle. Same thing with my eye color. My mom has true green eyes and my dad had blue. I ended up with light bluish green eyes. Common sense would say that there is some mixing of genes going on. What do I know though? The last I remember learning about genetics, we were talking about pea plants in my high school biology class.

Thanks for posting, now I want to learn more. :)

[Babyfine]

Both hubby and I are about 2a mine is F his is M
Me 2afi
DH 2amiii
Oldest ds 3afiii
Youngest ds 1cfi
My oldest son has curlier hair than either dh or I but his hair went curly in puberty(from being 1b in childhood), and is already beginning to straighten again a bit(I would have classified him as a solid 3b a year ago) as he goes into his 2nd year of college at 19.
Mine did the same I was a 2c in high school and straightened back out to a 2a or even 1c in my 20's.(from being 1c in childhood)
Hubby's hair looks completely straight until about ear length then flips out and even forms ringlets on the ends at should length.
o we both must have straight and curly genes.
genetics are interesting

ETA My nephew also has curlier hair than either his mom or my brother(they're both wavies) so my brother and I definitely have some curly haired ancestry.

[kitschy]

My mom was 1b and my dad was 3b. My oldest sister is 2c, my next sister is 1b, my brother is 2a and I am 3b when my hair is short. I passed my 3b on to one of my sons, my daughters are 2c/3a, and two of my sons are 2a.

[Vampyria]

My mom has 1a/1b, my dad 2a, I have 2b. My cousin (from mothers side) also has wavy 2b/2c hair, his mother has 1a and his dad 1b/1c. But he is still in puberty, so it's possible his hair will get straighter (it was quite straight before). Mine went from 3b to 2b after puberty.

[Mesmerise]

I think there's definitely a few genes involved in hair texture! As for my family I think my dad's is pretty straight (hard to tell though, as he's never had it long enough to show any wave!). My mum's is wavy/wurly. She's possibly a 2c? Again, she wears it short and layered and pretty much always has, which probably brings out some of the curl though. Mind you, mine appears straighter when short (as a friend commented the other day that I have "straight" hair, even though when it's long there's no way it could be called straight...helps that the curliest bits are the shortest bits though, as they're the underneath bits of my hair). I see my hair as ranging from 1b to 2b/c. My sister's hair also has a bit of wave, probably 2a.

As for my kids, boys it's hard to tell... it's never been long enough to develop a real wave pattern, but it's not dead straight. Oldest son probably has a bit more wave than youngest son. Daughter appears to be about a 1c, but I'll be interested to see what happens as she gets older, as I think mine got curlier/wavier after puberty. My hair was pretty darn straight as a kid! (My daughter is 11 so probably not too far off... I think I was about a year or so older than she is now when I remember trying to get my underneath curls to comb out straight, and yet in the years before that I bemoaned my straight hair).

Oh, and my husband's hair seems pretty straight, but again, hard to tell what would happen if he grew it long. His mum and sister have quite wavy hair, and his half sister's hair is probably 2c/3a.

It would be easier to work out my family member's proper typing if they actually had long hair though! Most have always had short hair, which can in some cases make hair appear straighter, and in others, curlier!

[Panth]

Unfortunately, it's bull (or, to be more charitable, it has been disproved). The real story is rather more complicated (http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask368).