Hair Science Thread

[*Wednesday*]

I was reading a link I came across and any scientific support would be great. The comment I am questioning;

"The first thing everyone should know about hair is that it grows on average 1/8” per week, ½” a month, and 6” a year, but, in 2 years a person will not have 12” in length. Hair growth slows down as the hair gets longer unless you trim the ends which promotes growth. For men, hair seems to grow faster than for women because the hair growth is relative to how much hair they already have. For example a man who just shaved his head goes from a zero (0) to a quarter (1/4) inch in 2 weeks while a woman who has hair down past her shoulders seems not to have any sort of length change at all in the same amount of time. It’s relative to how much is already grown out because it’s more noticeable when there is less there to begin with."
http://www.eddieshaircutshave.com/si...t-hair-length/

That bold comment, could this be the reason "stalls" are sometimes experienced? I read about girls hitting a certain length like TBL and the hair seems to grow slower.

[ThrowNormanAway]

I was reading a link I came across and any scientific support would be great. The comment I am questioning;


"The first thing everyone should know about hair is that it grows on average 1/8” per week, ½” a month, and 6” a year, but, in 2 years a person will not have 12” in length. Hair growth slows down as the hair gets longer unless you trim the ends which promotes growth. For men, hair seems to grow faster than for women because the hair growth is relative to how much hair they already have. For example a man who just shaved his head goes from a zero (0) to a quarter (1/4) inch in 2 weeks while a woman who has hair down past her shoulders seems not to have any sort of length change at all in the same amount of time. It’s relative to how much is already grown out because it’s more noticeable when there is less there to begin with."
http://www.eddieshaircutshave.com/si...t-hair-length/


That bold comment, could this be the reason "stalls" are sometimes experienced? I read about girls hitting a certain length like TBL and the hair seems to grow slower.

Yeah I’m calling bull on that. I know we’re in a science thread but I’m a little tired to find sources. Seasonal growth spurts and lags are a thing, and persistent stalls can sometimes be attributed to breakage or damage at the ends causing length to be compromised. But I will always be the first to say that nothing you do to the end of a hair will cause it to grow faster from the root. It’s a matter of this person (and plenty of others) confusing correlation with causation.

[pandabarrier]

I was reading a link I came across and any scientific support would be great. The comment I am questioning;

"The first thing everyone should know about hair is that it grows on average 1/8” per week, ½” a month, and 6” a year, but, in 2 years a person will not have 12” in length. Hair growth slows down as the hair gets longer unless you trim the ends which promotes growth. For men, hair seems to grow faster than for women because the hair growth is relative to how much hair they already have. For example a man who just shaved his head goes from a zero (0) to a quarter (1/4) inch in 2 weeks while a woman who has hair down past her shoulders seems not to have any sort of length change at all in the same amount of time. It’s relative to how much is already grown out because it’s more noticeable when there is less there to begin with."
http://www.eddieshaircutshave.com/si...t-hair-length/

That bold comment, could this be the reason "stalls" are sometimes experienced? I read about girls hitting a certain length like TBL and the hair seems to grow slower.

I don’t have scientific explanation for the comment in bold, but maybe many people shed the longest hair strands because they are the oldest, while the shorter hair is growing. Thus giving the impression that the hair is growing slower.

[xsampa]

I'm actually glad to find studies on facts about hair.

[Entangled]

I have nothing to say but am bumping this thread!

[Joules]

I was reading a link I came across and any scientific support would be great. The comment I am questioning;

"The first thing everyone should know about hair is that it grows on average 1/8” per week, ½” a month, and 6” a year, but, in 2 years a person will not have 12” in length. Hair growth slows down as the hair gets longer unless you trim the ends which promotes growth. For men, hair seems to grow faster than for women because the hair growth is relative to how much hair they already have. For example a man who just shaved his head goes from a zero (0) to a quarter (1/4) inch in 2 weeks while a woman who has hair down past her shoulders seems not to have any sort of length change at all in the same amount of time. It’s relative to how much is already grown out because it’s more noticeable when there is less there to begin with."
http://www.eddieshaircutshave.com/si...t-hair-length/

That bold comment, could this be the reason "stalls" are sometimes experienced? I read about girls hitting a certain length like TBL and the hair seems to grow slower.

I disagree with it too. Hair is dead and there's no connection between roots and ends whatsoever. Shorter hair appears to grow faster because the difference is easier to notice. 1 inch on completely shaved head and 1 inch on floor length hair look totally different.

[Entangled]

I disagree with it too. Hair is dead and there's no connection between roots and ends whatsoever. Shorter hair appears to grow faster because the difference is easier to notice. 1 inch on completely shaved head and 1 inch on floor length hair look totally different.

Also, that comment completely ignores breakage, to which I attribute the vast majority of “I can’t grow my hair past my shoulders” comments. (Some people really do have terminal length that long, but they seem to be the minority.)

[Ylva]

Back when I DNA tested myself a few years ago I wasn't yet very hair-aware, so I didn't pay much attention to the hair-related DNA results. I went to browse my genome for other reasons but happened to stumble upon these results so I thought I'd share. Perhaps this is the most appropriate thread for this.



ETA: Oh, and I am also "less likely to get dandruff". Seems to ring true so far, haven't had issues with dandruff.

And this:



The weird thing in my results is that it says I am likely to not have a widow's peak, but I definitely do have one.

[Siv]

Oh that's really neat @Ylva! My parents did some test (MyHeritage, I think) but I don't remember them getting results like that. Mostly just ethnicity stuff. (They were both 14% Finnish, by the way, and no one knows where the heck that came from, on EITHER side of the family! ) It would be cool to know how many red headed gene variants I have!

[Ylva]

Oh that's really neat @Ylva! My parents did some test (MyHeritage, I think) but I don't remember them getting results like that. Mostly just ethnicity stuff. (They were both 14% Finnish, by the way, and no one knows where the heck that came from, on EITHER side of the family! ) It would be cool to know how many red headed gene variants I have!

The one I did was 23andme so it also included a health report and a variety of other traits, most of them completely useless of course haha, like earwax type (mine is wet BTW). Are your parents from northern Sweden by any chance? You would easily get some Finnish DNA mixed up there in particular. I'm a pretty even mix of Finnish and Swedish (my surname is Swedish-Finnish as in the first part is Swedish and the second part is a "translation") with a tiny sprinkle of eastern Europe. I recently ran my DNA through an archaeological database and it turned out that I have a bunch of old corpse relatives in Denmark, Iceland and Stockholm area, and I share a lot of DNA with ancient Gotlanders, but that was already supported by my maternal haplogroup U5a2a.

Quite off-topic, but this is so interesting!