1. What You Might Not Know About Hair OLIVIA WARREN

2. What Is Hair?  Fine threadlike strands growing from the skin of humans,  Hair is also dead keratin, so the hair you see is not a living structure. Think of it like The Walking Dead.

3. Biology of the Hair  Hair is so much more complex than it appears on the surface. It helps create gender identity and hair is extremely important to the appearance of BOTH men and women.

4. Biology  The hair is the only body structure that is renewable without leaving any scarring.

5. Biology  At the projection (base of the follicle) is known as the papilla layer, also known as tiny blood vessels that serve to feed the cells.

6. Hair Growth  Your hair follicle forms inside the embryo. When you are born, you are born with all the follicles that you’ll ever have.

7. Hair Growth  in a growing adults hair, it is about a sixth of an inch below it’s surface, which is also known as your dermal papilla. That is where your hair grows, right at the base, not at the tip, nor the bottom.

8. Hair Growth  You have up to 100,000-150,000 hair follicles on your head that are in a constant cycle that your hair goes through every three years ; they all cycle through these phases independently. If all of your hair was cycling all at the same time, each hair strand would all fall out at the same time and would be leaving you bald.

9. Anagen, Catagen, Telogen (Hair Growth Cont.)

10. Chemistry of Hair  Chemistry is used a lot when working with hair. And there a few questions that you need to know the answers to when dealing with the chemistry part of hair ; What is pH? What are acids? What are bases?

11. Chemistry  pH is the quantity of hydrogen ions.  Acids are ionic compounds ; a compound with a positive or negative charge.  Bases are the exact opposite of acids.

12. Chemistry  There are four different bonds that has to do with hair. Hydrogen, Salt, Cystine, and Sugar bond.

13. Chemistry  Hydrogen bonds go along with us changing the shape of our hair. For example when your hair is wet and you’d like to make it curly with gel, the gel and hydrogen bonds work together to make that possible. The hydrogen bond is responsible for 35% of the strength of your hair, and 50% of the hairs elasticity.

14. Chemistry  Salt bonds are an ionic bond. This helps transfer electrons from the side chain of an amino acid.

15. Chemistry  The Cystine bond, also known as the sulfur, or disulfide bond, is cross links of residue amino acids of the polypeptide chains in your hair. This helps with the toughness of your hair. This bond is what helps women permanently wave their hair.

16. Chemistry  The Sugar bond is formed by side chain of amino acids and acidic amino acid group. This helps give moisture to your hair.

17. Myths About Hair  You might have heard this one before – cutting your hair helps stimulate growth and or thickness, false. First of all have you ever thought about this, how is cutting your ends helping growth when your hair grows from your scalp? It’s not! It is good to trim your ends to keep the split ends at bay, but it is not going to help your hair grow any faster than it already is.

18. Myths and Facts  Scalp massage increases hair growth – fact. Yes, scalp massages help stimulate the scalp and increase blood circulation, however there hasn’t been anything to prove that, that has helped stimulate growth.

19. Myths and Facts  Lice cling to dirty hair, or people who don’t keep up on daily hygiene – false. Lice are actually more attracted to cleaner hair. It’s easier for them to attach themselves too. With dirtier hair the lice can’t attach as easily and won’t be able to make your scalp their new home for a few weeks.

20. Myths and Facts  Brown hair grows faster and is healthier than blond hair – false. Blond hair is fine, and prone to breakage faster than brown, but has nothing to do with how healthy or how fast the different color hair grows. Healthy hair that grows all depends on how you take care of your hair, not your NATURAL hair color.

21. Myths and Facts  Cold water helps stimulate hair growth – false. Washing your hair with cooler water doesn’t help your hair grow what so ever, but neither does extremely hot water. Same goes for thermal products and the sun. Too much heat can severely damage your hair. That is why washing your hair with lukewarm water is the best solution.

22. Conclusion  There is so much to know about hair. I am going to be graduating hair school in about two weeks or so, and even after I graduate I will still be learning.  Biology, and Chemistry are two very important things when dealing with hair. You need to really understand those two subjects to be a successful hair stylist.