We all are more or less covered with hair. The majority of mammals have a certain percentage of hair on their bodies. We never think about the function of the hairy coats of dogs, cats or horses. And we are definitely to never think about why whales almost have no hair on them.
Frankly speaking, hair is very important part of our lives. In addition to the function of protection against enemies and climate changes, hair was also a great allure in the cross-gender relations. Really, hair can be the first thing to be proud of.
In fairy-tales various princesses had long-long hair in perfect condition. Cutting or losing hair wasnt good for both men and women. Today hair care industry allows people to avoid spending hours in front of the mirror to keep their hair healthy and beautiful.
Hair is what we have for the whole life and on the whole body, excluding palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. Even unborn babies are covered with the so-called lanugo hair that starts developing around three months after the babys conception. Usually this kind of hair is shed before the baby is born.
Normally, adults have about five million hairs on the whole body, with the certain percentage of about 100,000-150,000 being concentrated on the scalp. Depending on the place of growth hair can be of different types. Vellus hair is soft, short and unpigmented hair that can be found on such areas of human body as forehead or womens and childrens cheeks. Terminal hair is the one to be formed during the period of puberty at the places with vellus hairs. Axillary hair comes after the puberty period and can develop for years after that.
It is quite weird though to see how careful people, and especially women, are about scalp hair, and how furious they are in getting rid of body hair. Body hair is not an allure anymore even in men as there are more and more men do all possible to get less haired.
Now hair color. Im recalling now how strong I was in my pre-puberty desire to take after my father with his dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. Instead, I took after my mother with fair hair and blue eyes. The mechanism of getting certain color of hair is quite simple and usually hair color depends on the amount of melanin in our pigment cells. The more you have, the darker your hair is. So I had no chance to have dark brown hair as my father had, because pheomelanin, the type of melanin I have, contributes to forming of blond to red hair. My fathers melanin, eumelanin, makes hair brown to black. No, or little pigment in the cells leads to albinism, when the hair is entirely white.
Basically, hair color varies from white-blond to jet-black. Mainly, hair can be blond in variations, fair in variations, red in variations and brown in variations. It is interesting to note that people with blond hair have the biggest hair amount of 140,000; dark-haired people have about 100,000 hairs on their heads, and hair of red-headed amounts to 90,000.
There are three types of hair due to different races: Asian, African and Caucasoid. Asian hair is always black or dark brown and always straight. This hair type belongs to people from Asian countries, such as China, Japan etc.
African hair is of those originally from Africa, with dark eyes and dark-brown to black skin. African hair is very much curled and always black.
People of Caucasoid hair type may vary in color and shape. They usually have straight or wavy hair of the wide color range from blond to black.
There are also mixed types, especially now when cross-racial relations are very close and it is not a problem anymore to have children with mixed type of hair.
To be honest, there are a lot of myths around hair as part of beauty and health. These myths have been created during the whole human history. Some myths are created in the wake of hair fashion.
For instance, the most widespread myth is linked to hair color. About a century ago people started saying that true blond hair color looks better and more aesthetic in women, thus attracting more men that like blonds more than red-haired or brunettes. This myth caused a rapid reaction from women who started dying their hair into different variations of blond.
That wasnt that hard if your natural color is more or less close to blond. But women whose natural color is dark brown or black look a bit weird. Another myth and a typical joke is that blond women are silly. The existence of the myth can be strongly proved by a big amount of Hollywood movies and sitcoms, such as the popular comedy Legally Blond, picturing blonds as sexy and silly, or even completely dumb. Which is not a complete truth, and we all know that. On the other hand, typical brunettes are considered to be cold and more career-determined.
Another myth about color hair is that men with black hair and dark skin are hotter. Thats why the majority of women think that Italians and Spanish, as well as other south men are very sexy and must be very good in bed.
Despite the fact that hair dying and coloring can be stressful for our hair, we all do a lot of such things to our hair during life. Instead, we could like ourselves the way we are and spend time enjoying more interesting things. Healthy hair looks better than the most extraordinary thing on our heads. Lets keep it in mind, huh?
Rachel
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