All Things Hair: Understanding The Hair Fundamentals
There is no doubt that hair is an essential element in human survival.
Even back during the Stone Age, hair has always had a practical function, in that it helps to protect the body from nature’s harsh elements.
In recent times, however, hair has slowly become more of an expression of one’s personality than a survival essential.
Grooming one’s hair and body hair has become commonplace and us women are often spending a lot of our time, effort and money just getting rid of unwanted hairs.
Understanding what goes in each follicle may improve our understanding on how to best remove them.
So let’s go ahead and take a dive into some of its fundamentals!
Hair structure
Each hair strand is made up of two things: the hair shaft and the hair root.
Whilst our hair appears to be actively growing, the real action takes place underneath the skin surface, the epidermis.
First, your hair can be categorised into 2 parts: the hair shaft and the hair root.
The shaft is the visible part of the hair that you see on your skin, whilst the hair root extends down to the deeper layer of the skin, all the way to the subcutis.
The hair root is surrounded by the hair follicle, which is essentially a sheath of connective tissue and skin.
The cells inside our hair follicle divide and multiply and as the space gets filled up, the newer cells will essentially push out the older ones. These older cells will harden and slowly exit out of the follicle and the root, to form the hair shaft.
Hair growth cycle
Surprisingly, the human hair doesn’t grow indefinitely – or baldness will not be an issue many have to grapple with.
Instead, each hair undergoes an active and resting phase.
The active phase, otherwise also known as the anagen phase, is when there is an increase in the production of new hair cells. This will go on till it slows down to the resting, or telogen, phase.
Since the hair shaft is comprised of keratin and dead tissue, it falls off during the telogen phase.
Depending on the type of body hair, the duration of this phase may vary, and it is due to this varying duration why certain body hairs grow much longer than the others.
For instance, your body hair and the hair on your scalp grow in various lengths because of their differing anagen phase.
Types of body hair
The difference in shaft density, growth phases and hair follicle size can also define the type of human body hair.
Essentially, your body will produce 3 types of body hair.
Starting with the lanugo, they are tiny hairs that cover a fetus in the womb.
Once given birth to, the baby will begin to grow fine and unpigmented hairs called vellus.
The vellus hair will start to morph into coarser terminal hairs once an adolescent experiences puberty, growing in areas such as the genitals and the underarms.
Now that we’ve gotten the fundamentals down, it’s time to figure out which of the multiple body hair removal methods is most effective and suitable for all types of body hair.
You don’t have to look far as we’ve got the answer: Super Hair Removal (SHR) laser treatment.
SHR Hair Laser Treatment
Surpassing the IPL permanent hair removal technology, SHR hair removal has become the preferred body hair removal method by many.
Using laser energy to mitigate and debilitate your hair follicle’s ability to produce hair cells, this treatment will help to greatly reduce your hair production and plus, the hair that does grow will appear lighter and finer.
Moreover, this treatment covers a wide range of areas, including sensitive ones such as your mon pubis and your upper lip!
You can now attain beautiful and flawless skin with the help of our highly-trained hair removal specialists.
Book an appointment with us to start on your hair-free journey today!