Derm Corner: Types of hair (geek alert ;)

Seeing that I'm in geek mode, I thought it would be quite a good idea to inform yous about the different types of hair that we see all over our bodies. I don't know about you but I definitely wasn't aware that we had 3 types of hair.


So the 3 types of hair are:
1. LANUGO hair- I know weird name; anywayz, these are fine, soft hairs present when we are in our mothers uterus. Remember how I spoke about the genesis of hair and how when we clock 9 weeks of age we develop our first follicles and hairs?? Well this is the type of hair that grows out of those follicles.
I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of babies in the uterus?- If you look closely, you'll see these tiny hairs sticking out of their bodies as though they were little furry creatures.
Now if you look around your body you wouldn't be able to find any (unless you're anorexic), and that's because, by 8 months of age, you shed all your 'lanugo' hairs. So when next your carrying a baby, look at their skin to spot these fine, soft, lanugo hairs.
About the anorexic reference, apparently these people tend to regrow these hairs again for reasons unknown. So if you happen to be standing next to an anorexic person say on the tube or subway, try and take a peek without being too obvious to see if you can spot them. Better still you could always just google to find images.
I wouldn't recommend starving yourself so that you could show off your new lanugo hairs at the next birthday bash.

lanugo

2. VELLUS hair- This is the fine, short downy hair that covers most of our body. I suppose it's also interesting to note that this hair type does not have a core / medulla (will explain the components of the hair strand in next post).

3. TERMINAL hair- Yes, finally the hair all we hair enthusiasts go ga ga about. This is the thick long hair that is seen in the scalp, eyebrows and eyelashes. Interestingly after puberty, vellus hair develops into terminal hair in the pubic regions,  trunk and arms and legs in real hairy men. In balding the opposite occurs where terminal hair on the scalp becomes vellus hair.

Since we don't care about the hairs on our arms or backs aka vellus hair, I'm going to go straight ahead to explain the structure of the hair strand that grows on our lovely heads.
Stay tuned :)


xoxo
Miss J