Healthy Hair Tips

Hair Composition and Growth

Hair follicles are tiny pockets of epidermal cells in the dermis of the scalp and elsewhere on the body. The epidermis is the top layer of skin, and the dermis lies beneath it. Only the palms of the hands and soles of the feet are hairless. Hair is formed by a cluster of cells at the base of each hair follicle. This cell matrix is nourished by a blood supply from capillaries in the papilla, a structure nestled in its center. As cells in the matrix divide, they push upward out of the follicle.

The portion of hair within the follicle is called the root, and the visible portion outside the follicle is the shaft. A cylindrical (round) shaft produces straight hair, and a flat shaft produces wavy or curly hair. Pigments in the hair shaft make our hair chestnut brown, strawberry blonde, fiery red. As we age, we lose the ability to produce this pigmentation, and some or all of the hair turns white. Gray hair isn’t really gray; it’s an optical illusion produced by the intermingling of pigmented and unpigmented hairs. The fewer pigmented hairs there are, the more silvery gray the hair looks. The more pigmented hairs there are, the more the hair takes on a salt-and-pepper look.