The Hair Structure

We meet people with different hair colour, texture, and other various hair differences. The hair, like we all know is a big part of our look. We have hairs in different parts of our body; the head, nostrils, skin, lashes, brows etc. these hairs do not just appear on the skin, they have a source, what keeps manufacturing them and allow them pop out on the surface of the body. Through this write up, I am going to explain how the hairs on our body are formed and why they exist on the places they appear on the body.

We should know that the hair is composed of 95% keratin, fibrous and helical protein (in the shape of a helix), grows from a hair follicle which is located at the junction of the deep dermis and hypodermis, this junction is called the bulb. Moving on from this, the hair is consists of two (2) distinct parts: the follicle and the shaft.

The follicle: this is also known as the root, it is the main unit for the generation of hair. It is the innermost part of the hair the living part located under the skin. The follicle has different parts such as the infundibulum (the uppermost portion of the hair follicle), the isthmus (the lower portion of the upper part of hair follicle), and the lower follicle/inferior segment (which includes the bulb)

The shaft: the shaft is the visible part of the hair, the part that we can see. It is divided into three (3) parts; they include the cuticle, cortex and pith/ medulla. The pith is the innermost part of the shaft; it is located at the centre of the hair shaft. It is the almost invisible part of the shaft that serves as a marrow. The cuticle is the outer most part of the shaft; it is the protective layer of the hair. When the cuticle is healthy, the hair looks shiny but when it is not healthy, the hair dull. The cortex lies in between the cuticle and the pith. It is where the melanin whose function is to give the hair colour is located. Melanin produced in the cortex is of two types: eumelanin and pheomelanin. The eumelanin is dominant in black and brown hair while the pheomelanin is dominant in red hair. Therefore, blonde hair is caused by low pigmentation and gray hair is caused by decrease in melanin production.

To conclude, each hair can be seen like a tree whose centre gets the moisture from the ground and spreads to the other parts. The bark of a tree serves as the protective layer of the tree just like the cuticle. The pith which works like the centre of a tree gets moisture from the skin to other parts of the shaft. The hair should be properly taken care of to avoid unnecessary damages.