Curious to know some hair facts? Look no further. Hair is pretty interesting and history says it clearly that human hair has gone through intensive amounts of stereotyping, research and vanity. How humans perceive each other is, to a great extent, determined by hair traits.
This alone calls for a quick look into some of the interesting human hair facts. You may know some of these facts but we are pretty sure that the others that you don’t know will leave you amazed! Let’s start exploring!
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 1-5
1. Human hair grows faster with the mere anticipation of sex!
2. Hair is the storehouse of information. One can find out everything that has been into a person’s bloodstream by analyzing a strand of hair and that includes medicine, drugs, alcohol, vitamins and minerals.
3. There are, on an average, 100,000 to 150,000 strands of hair on a human head.
4. A single strand of hair is capable of supporting 100 grams of weight, which simply means that all hair strands taken together can support up to two (2) tons of weight. This is equivalent to the weight of two elephants.
5. A person’s gender cannot be identified using hair.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 6-10
6. Hair elasticity is greater for Asians than any other races in this entire world. Interestingly, Asian hair grows faster compared to other races!
7. Hair growth is stimulated in warm weather and hence, if you are a resident of any warm weather area, your hair will grow faster than people in cold weather area.
8. Contrary to the popular belief among women, trimming of hair never promotes hair growth.
9. The commonest hair color in this world is black and the rarest is red.
10. Some weirdos tried to figure out the correlation between personality perception and hair color and after a survey they figured out that blondes represent fun and flirty, redheads represent strong, brown hair represents serious and smart.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 11-15
11. Hair is the second fastest growing tissue in human body with the first position being taken by bone marrow.
12. Our body has insulating fat layers. The only place where the layer is absent is our head. Thus, our hair works as insulators.
13. Hair is made of dead cells but the hair root is alive. The hair root is present between the epidermis. The part of the hair above epidermis is dead.
14. Once a hair strand is plucked, another one starts growing.
15. Everyone is this world loses about 50 to 100 strands of hair every single day. Well it can be a few less or few more.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 16-20
16. Hair follicles are completely independent of each other.
17. 90% Japanese people wash their hair twice a day while 80% of North Americans wash their hair twice a day. In Europe people usually wash their hair thrice a week while only 1/4th of the European population wash their hair daily.
18. Hair grows at the rate of 1 cm per month but only Asian hair grows at the rate of 1.3 cm per month. However, Asian hair has lowest density of all. The slowest hair growth rate is among African. Their hair grow at the rate of 0.9 cm per month but their hair density is highest.
19. There is no difference between male and female hair in terms of growth cycle and structure.
20. Of the total world population on 4% have naturally red hair.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 21-25
21. Hair elasticity is very high. A strand of hair can stretch up to 30% without sustaining any damage. However, curly black hair has low elasticity compared to lighter colored hair.
22. Hair density of blondes is more than that of redheads and people with darker hair color. Blondes have around 146,000 hair strands while redheads have around 86,000 hair strands.
23. A copper wire is weaker than a hair strand considering the fact that they both have same diameter.
24. Hair has a lifespan of around 5 years. 90% of hairs are in a state of constant growth.
25. All the hair follicles a person will ever have throughout his or her lifetime actually form when the fetus is only 5 months old.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 26-30
26. There are 14 different elements found in a single hair strand. Most of them are in trace amounts. One of these 14 elements is GOLD!
27. Hair is capable of absorbing out oil from water. So, oil spills can be easily cleaned up using human hair.
28. Asians have round-shaped hair cross-section. For Europeans the cross-section is oval and for African-Americans, it is flat-shaped.
29. Highest proportion of redheads can be found in Scotland. 13% of Scottish people are redheads. However, in terms of total numbers of redheads, America leads the world.
30. An abnormality known as Hirsutism is believed to be the source of the Werewolf Legend. In Hirsutism, excess hair grows in places where they are not supposed to grow, for example, face.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 31-35
31. There is a common myth that hair continues to grow even after death. This is absolutely wrong!
32. Ancient Greeks thought that redheads turn to vampires after death. They also associated blonde hair with prostitution.
33. Hair never grows on palms, feet soles, lips, mucous membranes and eye lids but hair can grow everywhere else on the body.
34. Pigeon dung can dye the hair blonde. This is precisely the method that was used by Ancient Roman women.
35. Each hair strand on human body has its own nerve, blood supply and muscle.
Interesting Human Hair Facts: 36-40
36. Grey hair is scientifically known as canities. Split ends is scientifically known as trichoptilosis.
37. The very basis of chemotherapy is that it eliminates those cells that replicate very quickly. Hair follicle cells are known to grow and divide very rapidly and hence, chemotherapy kills those cells too! Results are plain and simple – Hairfall!
38. Hair is primarily composed of sulfur (S), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O) and carbon (C). The percentage of each element is shown below.
Sulfur: 5%
Hydrogen: 6%
Nitrogen: 17%
Oxygen: 21%
Carbon: 50%
39. Lighter hair has less carbon compared to darker hair.
40. Women spend around 2 hours each week simply for styling their hair. Men spend, on an average, 5 months of their entire lifetime in shaving.