Today, we are going to talk about the foundation of hair: genetics. We all know that the DNA of parents determines what kind of hair the child would have, but what makes hair curly, straight or wavy?
Hair follicles all have a certain shape on our scalp, depending upon your genes. These follicles, or pores, are differently shaped which then determine the kind of hair type you have. Though genes influence the type of hair, they don’t necessarily always determine the texture. Genes have the ability to “turn on and off” throughout one’s lifetime due to cell activation. Hormones can sometimes be the cause of this phenomenon, but there are lots of factors that could effect texture. Texture is determined by sun exposure, the products someone uses, hair routines, how much oil is present within the scalp, and the list could go on and on. With all this being said, what exactly makes the shape of the hair curly? The way cells divide and produce proteins, creates an asymmetrical bend which then makes the hair curl.
There are two types of hair genes, it is either curly (c) or straight (s). Mixings of these two is what constitutes different variations of curly, wavy and straight hair. So there’s an incomplete dominance situation that happens. If both parents have straight hair (ss) then the baby will have straight hair. But if both parents have curly hair (cc), or one has straight hair and the other has curly hair (cs), then in both instances the child will have either wavy or curly hair, since curly hair dominates the genotype. With all this being said, I think most people can tell the type of hair their child will have by just simply having a look in the mirror.
This has always been so interesting to me because I love looking at it especially with mixed children. As someone of mixed race, I have yet to meet another mixed person that had the exact same hair as me, yet most times were similar in ethnicity. I have by far the most course and tight curls out of all of my friends that are mixed. My friends tend to have looser, softer curls. This is in part due to that my friends all have a parent with straight hair and then a parent with really curly hair. Whereas my dad had super curly hair (he is bald now so emphasis on had) and my mother’s hair is fairly curly. I think these instances really exemplify how such little things in someone’s genes makes them totally different than someone else.
Considering my observations, I wonder all the time much more complicated it gets, as our population becomes more mixed than it ever has been. With the example of the National Geographic magazine issue that went viral, with the prediction that in 2050 most people will look like your typical mixed race person.
So long story short when you are staring in the mirror analyzing why you look the way you do, just thank your parents.