I wish my hair grew fast

I have always wondered, why is it that when I cut my hair, it takes a long time to grow back. A pretty long time if I do say so myself. I personally don’t look good with a short haircut so I always have to worry about that awkward faze if I want to shave my head. I would see some of my friends who get haircuts and in a week their hair will grow back substantially. It’s crazy. Is there something wrong with my head? I would find myself jokingly thinking about this but then I actually became curious. This fueled my research on the topic and this blog post.

hair-anatomy-diagram

http://images.wisegeek.com/hair-anatomy-diagram.jpg

From what I know about hair already, it is not very complicated. I know this because my moms best friend was a hair dresser and unfortunately I had to listen to her talk about hair all the time. As I did more research, I found that even though it is simple, it serves many functions. According to an article published in WebMD, hair is actually a protein called keratin. This protein (hair) is held down by a follicle. At the bottom of the follicle, there is a hair bulb that forms around it and this is how blood vessels supply the hair with what it needs to be healthy. One of the processes the hair bulb does is that it sends hormones to the hair that control its growth. After reading about this much, I wondered if it was a hormone deficiency that kept my hair from growing? or some other reason I was not aware of? I continued with my research.

I found a study that was experimenting with mouse and human hair. What they were doing By using experimental drugs to infiltrate a family of enzymes causing rapid hair growth. The drug is actually blocking the enzymes. I also found other information on hair growth, but it wasn’t very promising. I came across an article at first that talked about taking care of your hair correctly. It didn’t provide the information I was truly looking for. Then I came across a more scientific article that broke down hair growth more in depth. The article states that hair growth is actually a continuous cycle. There is the growing phase of hair and this is when the follicle is producing the hair and it starts to come in. Once it reaches a stable point, it gets into a resting phase where the old hair stopped growing and the new hair begins to come in. I compared this scientific article to information that I also found on WebMD, and it all matched up except there was one difference. In the WebMD article, they wrote about a transitional phase between the growth and resting phase. The transitional phase is when your hair growth slows down and the follicle actually starts to shrink. It seems to me that the rate of hair growth is situational. Some people grow hair at a faster rate than others. On average, hair grows half an inch per month.

Overall, I don’t think there is anything wrong with my head now. I think that just like my blog about sweat, just how some people sweat more than others, some people grow hair faster than others. Its a natural process. Maintaining your hair healthy will help it grow faster and healthier as well. This last article talked about taking care of your hair and making sure your maintain its health.

http://www.healthy.net/scr/column.aspx?Id=1293

http://physrev.physiology.org/content/34/1/113.short

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/picture-of-the-hair#1

http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2015/10/23/blocking-enzymes-in-hair-follicles-promotes-hair-growth/

 

 

2 thoughts on “I wish my hair grew fast

  1. Nicole Paniccia

    I am someone who has the complete opposite problem. Being 100% Italian doesn’t help when it comes to hair. I wish my hair would stop growing. My hair grows so fast and is so thick, it is really irritating. I wonder if there is a way I would be able to completely stop my hair from growing.

  2. Melissa Fraistat

    Hi,
    I have always also wished my hair would grow fast, especially after the dreaded haircuts I would constantly get when I was younger. Since having long hair has always been something I like and want, I looked into what could help my hair grow faster a few years ago. Although I never used it, apparently biotin helps your hair grow faster. Here is an article discussing how biotin helped them grow their hair out.

Leave a Reply