Does Gender have an effect on hair growth?

[hair jim]

just wondering?.
have a happy hair day
jim

[Dianyla]

Well, most bald people happen to be male... :p

[thankyousir74]

I also read somewhere that men have thicker hair, but that does not necessarily mean it affects growth rate

[midnighttrain]

Interesting question. My hair grows much faster than my husband's hair, but that may not be gender related.

[KiwiLiz]

My BF's hair seems to grow really fast, I guess it's just more noticeable when you hair is only a few inches long. He gets it thinned out when he gets it cut because it's so thick (*sigh* I wish I had that problem) so when the thinned out hair grow back in, it's like all of a sudden he has all this hair.

I don't think gender would have much to do with hair growth, though more men go bald, but I think that's a different issue.

[Xanthippe]

My BF's hair seems to grow really fast, I guess it's just more noticeable when you hair is only a few inches long.

I think that's a good point. I had a male friend who started growing his hair long from very short and it seemed to grow like lightning until he reached the "ponytailing" stage. Now it seems to grow about the same rate as mine, so I think the fast growth rate was just an illusion from being shorter. It's harder to notice another two inches when it's already past shoulder length, although I'm sure there are LHC members that would disagree with me :lol:

[Arctic_Mama]

I think my husband's hair grows at about the rate mine does - but keep in mind younger women have more metabolic shifts than men - pregnancy and breastfeeding both affect the rate of hair growth, behavior of the hair shaft, condition of the scalp, you name it. My hair growth slows dramatically when I am pregnant, so my husband's 'grows faster' that year, it seems, when in fact it's the same growth but his is a) more apparent and b) constant where mine diminishes temporarily.

[ilovelonghair]

I dont think there is a difference. My hair grows pretty fast, and so does my boyfriends' hair, but it's harder to notice on him because he's tall and his hair gets curlier when it gets longer. It's now BSL (sounds funny! what would you call that lenght on a man?) but it looks like that for quite a while now, only when the curls are out you can see it's pretty long now.

[Cinnamon.locks]

I'm not really sure, i know my ex-BF hair grew so fast, about ten times faster than mine. we both started in 2002 with shoulder length hair and he reached waist six months before i did. reached classic about five months before me. so i guess it depends on the person and the hair.


HTH.

[ChloeDharma]

I think in terms of growth rate and thickness then too many other factors are involved to generalise.....but men obviously have the possibility of MPB to deal with as Dianyla pointed out.
I do remember reading though that estrogen causes a longer anagen phase, though i expect that means on that individual person as opposed to all women having a longer terminal length than men

[karenpetal]

I think from my experience well taken care of hair grows healthy irrespective of men or women - I am a born-male and my hair starting to look healthier and sought of grow faster once I started taking more care of it - I think men start off with thicker coarser hair but then men are ones who bald faster/earlier

[bte]

I know that my hair grows much more slowly than my DW's, and I suspect that on average men's hair does grow more slowly than women's, although there are exceptions.

One other measure that can be made is to look at the longest hair in this community. There are several women with floor length hair, but I think the longest men's hair is aprroximately knee length (Trolleypup, EdG) or a fraction longer, unless D.Dev's is longer than that.

[Samikha]

One other measure that can be made is to look at the longest hair in this community. There are several women with floor length hair, but I think the longest men's hair is aprroximately knee length (Trolleypup, EdG) or a fraction longer, unless D.Dev's is longer than that.

Well, you also have to keep in mind that there are more women here than men, so statistically it's less likely to find men with floor length. That's not to say that you're not right, though.

[Dianyla]

One other measure that can be made is to look at the longest hair in this community. There are several women with floor length hair, but I think the longest men's hair is aprroximately knee length (Trolleypup, EdG) or a fraction longer, unless D.Dev's is longer than that.
I have also noticed this apparent difference in terminal lengths. From memory, I can say that trolleypup is at terminal at mid-thigh, EdG looks to be terminal at mid-calf, DaveDecker was at terminal at near ankle but trimmed back. Dunno about Beatnik Guy (I suspect he is near terminal unless he's been trimming?) but he would be tailbone'ish. There are some male musicians out there with ankle/floorlength hair, though. I can't remember their names, but I seem to recall one is in Australia and the other is in Germany.

Though, consider how many women are members of this community and we only have a small handful of floor-length+ females. It's a very small percentage, regardless of gender. Which is why I also agree with Samikha's point about the lack of a large enough sample male population size. C'mon guys, get to it! :lol:

[minkstole]

Considering hairgrowth is affected by hormones, I would say yes.

[Slug Yoga]

I recall reading that men's anagen, or hair growth phase (and therefore likely their terminal length) tends on average to be shorter than that of women. This site (http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_22.htm), which is excellently informative about the general biology of human hair, mentions it briefly in a few places but doesn't go into detail.

[anna1850]

One other measure that can be made is to look at the longest hair in this community. There are several women with floor length hair, but I think the longest men's hair is aprroximately knee length (Trolleypup, EdG) or a fraction longer, unless D.Dev's is longer than that.

I think this is largely due to height though. I'm 5'2" so floor length for me would probably be about knee on someone 6'2" and men are generally taller than women of course.

[Speedbump]

This is an interesting question. We might, if we were able to take a large group of people of both sexes, be able to study them over the course of their lifetimes to determine who grew the most hair. It would require that both groups treat their hair the same, eat the same things, exercise the same amount, get the same amount of sleep...eek. I think it might be impossible! :lol: I don't see how you could test for this without knowing the effects of the other variables first.

I can tell you that my brother's hair grew much faster than mine. I grow the usual plodding 1/2 inch per month like most folks, and he grew about an inch a month, or twice as fast. He had hair down to his pants waistband before he cut it off right before his chemotherapy, and he had no problems growing it that long very fast, even though he didn't take the best care of it. Darn him. :lol:

[harpgal]

I have a brother who has hair much thicker (coarser) and faster growing than I have. However, I am a slow grower and always have been. I really think it depends on genetics and overall care.

This would make for a really great study. Should we start a poll?

[Buddaphlyy]

Considering hairgrowth is affected by hormones, I would say yes.


I agree. The same thing that makes males hair grow faster and thicker than womens is also the reason they have shorter anagen phases and go bald faster. Testosterone. I'm short on time, so can't get into specifics, but I will try to speak on it later.

[ChloeDharma]

I agree. The same thing that makes males hair grow faster and thicker than womens is also the reason they have shorter anagen phases and go bald faster. Testosterone. I'm short on time, so can't get into specifics, but I will try to speak on it later.

I'll look forward to that post.

Just thinking about it a bit more.....my brother made a deal with his wife, if she looses weight he will grow his hair. He actually hates having long hair and prefers it shaved but didn't actually think she would. Anyway, he isn't the type for maintenance or trims, i saw him last summer with kind of floppy hair, and i saw him not long ago with hair only a few inches longer but obviously untrimmed. Both my sisters have reached hair lengths in the region of the bum, and i reached just past hiplength possibly tailbone before i cut this year. Also each of us three when cut short have grown back to shoulders or longer reasonably fast. Though as a child he did have shoulderlength hair at one point.
We all do lead very different lifestyles to him though, and pay far more attention to our diets and haircare so like has been said.....it's factors i guess. I'll have to ask him if he has had it styled actually.....usually getting to do the most basic of "vain" activities is impossible.
From memory at the last London meet Beatnikguys hair was past classic, but as has been pointed out with the height thing....he is tall.

[bte]

All very interesting - and those who have responded to my post are quite right - height, small statistical sample and other factors mean that my observation isn't that scientific. Maybe a poll listing growth speeds with genders (allowing for cheese fo course!) would be helpful.

[rockkcor]

Yes!
For some reasons female hair grows faster. (probably as other body hair is typical for men - body is not concentrated on scalp only)

[Buddaphlyy]

I agree. The same thing that makes males hair grow faster and thicker than womens is also the reason they have shorter anagen phases and go bald faster. Testosterone. I'm short on time, so can't get into specifics, but I will try to speak on it later.

These are all my own words based on things I've learned and understand from various science classes and magazine articles I've read throughout the years.

How Testosterone Helps Men Hair Grow Faster then Womens - Testosterone is a naturally occuring hormone (though it can be produced synthetically). It occurs in both males and females, but men produce about 50% more than women do. Though it has many functions, for the sake of this thread, we're primarily focusing on it's ability to circulate blood and the nutrients and minerals in blood. Because women menstrate, their blood circulates slightly slower (if you're loosing blood, whatever you have left has to go all around, so it has to go slower to make sure it gets everywhere it needs to go). Also, some of the nutrients, most notably iron, which is crucial for hair growth, in the blood are lost with the flow. Men don't go through any of this. Therefore, not only does men blood circulate faster because they aren't loosing any, they also have more iron in the blood. Hence, they can grow more hair at a faster rate.

So why do they go bald faster - Testosterone decreases with age. There isn't a set rate of how much is lost over a period of time, but by the time a man is in his mid to late 20s, he's already lost about 10-15 % of the testosterone he had when he was in his teens. So just as with females, because he has less testosterone, his blood circulates slower, therefore, less growth. Though there are many reasons for MPB (and it's mostly a combination of things), loss of testosterone has been said to be a moderate factor.

Now, of course there are outliers with everything, but I'm mostly talking about the averages. It is important to note though, that while males hair grows faster, the difference is so slight, it's barely noticable. If the average woman grows 6.0 inches a year, the average man, with a very slightly faster growing rate, is probably still only growing about 6.2 inches a year.