Is hair color related to strand thickness?

[rena]

I was told that individuals with blonde or lightly colored hair always have thinner strands, and the darker a person's hair is, the thicker their strands usually are.

I don't think this is true, but I was very curious about it, especially since I've never seen anyone with light color and thick strands or with dark color and thin strands.

So is there really a correlation between hair color and the thickness of individual strands of hair?

[Madora]

I don't think so either. My dark hair is both thick and thin, with a sprinkling of slightly thick auburn strands, plus coarse sparklies.

[TheMechaGinger]

I don't think so either. I've got darkish red hair that's pretty fine and a friend of mine that's blond who's hair is almost twice as thick. I think it boils down to genetics, not so much hair color

[Roseate]

I have lighter hair and my strands are coarse. My mother's dark brown hair has much finer strands.

If there's a correlation between strand diameter and color, we've got it all backwards in my family! :)

[Lianna]

It just could be that a lot of blondes have fine hair, and a lot of people with darker hair have coarser. But isn't always the case, my mom has jet black hair with very fine strands, for instance.

[Naphthylamine]

I too haven't seen a direct relation between hair color and thickness when two individual's hairs are compared. But blonds and some light browns experience slight bleaching from the sun in summer. Those strands that are affected from the sun becomes somewhat weaker in addition to becoming lighter than the strands at the bottom.

And well, I have a mix of medium golden blond and dark blond/light brown strands. I noticed that my lighter strands are more prone to breakage and finer than the darker strands, which are also smoother than the lighter ones.

[Anywhere]

I think that most of the time it seems like it, but I think it is also partially due to the fact that the darker strands are more visible than the lighter strands.

[CariadA]

My hair is very dark and super-fine.

If I hold up one individual strand, it is practically invisible even though it is so dark. And if I put a strand in between my fingers and rub it, it doesn't feel like anything's there. It really is like baby's hair. Speaking of baby's hair, a lot of babies have super fine hair that is dark.

[Aleria]

Incorrect. My mom has dark brown hair and her hair is much thinner than my blonde best friend's. (I like playing with hair, they indulge me :3)
However, because the blonde is more translucent, it tends to look thinner. But the actual thickness, I don't think is related to colour.

[Jimothea]

I'm going to be the naysayer here...lol.

Actually did a science thing one this in class, "way back when." The lighter hair strands under a microscope were significantly thinner.

True, these strands were more translucent as well, but bottom line, they were undeniably thinner when viewed via microscope.

The reds were the thickest. I remember this because we all figured it would be the one jet-black headed girl to have the thickest hair strands, because when she braided her hair back for labs the braid was massive. But her actual hair strands were thinner than the red headed group's. So she must have simply had more hair strands, and not thicker. Incidentally, I've read that (in general) the lighter the hair, the more strands on the head, which would make sense except in the case of red hair. I can't remember if the red heads were curlies or not...I think so??? Bah, nope; can't remember.

I realize that could have all just been luck of the draw, and admittedly the ethnic variance was slim to none, but I have to believe what I saw.

O! Couldn't it also have to do with product, or lack of product, along the hair shaft? Cones, no cones; henna/cassia, no henna/cassia, and etc?

[ddiana1979]

It is true, on average (i.e. if you took a random sample of 100 each of blondes, brunettes, redheads, etc). Of course there will always be outliers, so to speak, but blondes tend to have thinner strands than people with dark colored hair.

Blondes, on average, have the highest strand density (number of hairs per square inch). Redheads tend to have the lowest. Again, there are outliers. . . there are plenty of redheads on here with iii hair.

[Issmene]

I don't think it's always the case, at least for me it isn't. I have blonde hair (not light blonde, but I'd say medium/darkish blonde) and it is reaaaally thick and coarse. Although people say I have red in my hair (but I don't really see it, more a golden glow), so that could be the cause. Anyways, I've seen more contradictions, like a friend of mine who has dark hair but very delicate and fine. But for a lot of cases it could be true though? :P

[boudica]

My hair is mousy brown and the finest of anyone I know. We did the microscope thing in class and the Indian girl won. Then the Japanese guy. Then there was one blonde, then everyone else. My hair was the finest.

[kwaniesiam]

There is some truth to this.

There are three layers of a hair strand, the cuticle (outer most), the cortex (middle), and the medulla (inner most). Some people who have light or naturally blonde hair do not have the medulla layer to their hair, thus making the strand itself thinner than those with dark hair who do have that layer.

The medulla is not a particularly important part of the hair strand, it just consists of elongated cells and is a very minimal part of the strand. The cortex is the most important part. It contains the keratin that makes up the strand just below the cuticle, accounts for 70-90% of the hair's bulk and strength, and contains the melanin which gives your hair its pigment (color).