16 Fun Facts About Your Hair

The hair outside your scalp is dead, yet people continue to fuss over their hair color, cut and style. As humans, we are often defined by the dead tissue on top of our heads. Obsessing over a bunch of tiny strands of hair is a strange concept for sure, but it’s also an interesting part of your body. For centuries people have studied and styled their hair, and over the years we’ve learned a couple things. Here are 16 fun facts about the hair growing on top of your head.

-Hair is dead. Kind of. Under your skin, hair grows from tiny follicles that are connected to a network of blood, nerves, and muscles. A single follicle can produce up to eight strands of hair. The hair growing outside of your scalp has no blood flow, no nerves, no muscles and no fundamental characteristics of living organisms. However, these dead fibers are still a lively topic of study.

-On average, a person has between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on his or her head.

-The number of hairs on your head depends on your hair color. In general, blondes have the most strands of hair and redheads have the fewest strands.

-Black hair is the most common color. The least common hair color is red.

-Keratin, a protein in hooves, claws, and feathers, is the main component in your hair.

-If you want to grow out your hair, move down south. Heat causes hair to grow a little faster because of increased blood circulation.

-Goosebumps happen when your hair follicles contract because of fear or cold.

-Hair is one of the fastest growing tissues in your body, aside from bone marrow.

-The lifespan of a single strand of hair is approximately five years.

-You shed 50-150 hairs on an average day.

-Hair is commonly used in forensic evidence because it provides information on everything that’s been in your bloodstream, including medicine, drugs, and vitamins. A person’s sex is the only trait that can’t be identified from a strand of hair.

-Hair grows throughout your entire body except for the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, your eyelids, your lips and mucus membranes.

-Women in Ancient Rome would die their hair blonde with pigeon poo. In Venice, during the Renaissance Era, women used horse urine. Ew.

-Theoretically, if a man never shaved his beard could grow over 30 feet long during his lifetime.

-Men spend approximate five months of their lives shaving.