What is the Structure of Your Hair?
When we consider what hair is made of, the nature of hair and what goes into making it grow long, what can help it grow and the factors that determine its lifespan, it is actually hair structure that we are speaking about.
Understanding Hair Structure
A hair is a specialized outgrowth of part of the skin called the epidermis. It can be divided into two distinct parts, the hair follicle and the hair shaft.
- Hair follicle: is a small, curved pit buried deep in the fat of the scalp and is the point from which the hair grows. The hair follicle is well supplied with tiny blood vessels and the blood passing through them nourishes the growing region. Normal body temperature surrounds the hair follicle, which is not affected by cold or hot weather. While animal hair, like that of a cat or horse, grows at different rates depending on the amount of natural light, which varies according to the time of year, human hair too behaves similarly, growing a little faster in winter than in summer.
- Hair is composed of protein cells: and these die very soon. Which means that hair is made up of dead protein cells, therefore those products in the market claiming that they are meant to nourish and revive hair are false since a dead cell cannot be repaired. The differences seen after shampooing or conditioning are temporary measures to control and give a cosmetically aided short-lived solution that fades with time. However, since these work well enough for that special day out or the first half of office hours, these temporary fixes are accepted by the majority of hair care product users.
- A hair shaft is an important part of hair structure: it is composed of three concentric layers namely, the medulla, which is the innermost layer and does not get affected by hair care products or processes, the middle layer is the cortex which contains the pigment and can be modified a bit through dyeing, bleaching, perming and straightening while the outer layer is the cuticle, made up of tiny overlapping scales that protect the cortex. The condition of these scales determines your hair health for the day and if hair cuticles are smooth and lie flat, they make hair look glossy and sleek while broken ends at the cuticles is a sign of cortex damage, caused due to breakage, split ends and gives a brittle, dry and frizzy look.
Hair is actually dead protein that leaves it's root and therefore does not hurt when trimmed with a scissor. On an average scalp, there are close to 100-150 thousand hair fibers and usually blondes have more fibers than red or dark haired heads. Keratin, responsible for elasticity of fingernails, also lends the same to hair, which gives hair the strength like a wire of iron so that it can rips when a force equivalent to 60kg is applied after it has stretched itself for about 70 percent.
Shampooing for Healthy Hair
Hair care and healthy growth of those tresses begins with simple steps like beginning right and keeping to it on a daily basis. This includes right way of shampooing hair with the products meant for your particular hair-type..