Let’s take a break from the best products, the best ways to style and the best colors, to enjoy some fun facts about hair. Fun hair trivia is never going to help your hair look better – that’s down to how you look after it, but knowing some fun facts about hair – actually knowing facts about your body in general – will certainly help you understand a bit more. Plus who doesn’t mind learning a few facts anyway?
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1. The USA Has the Largest Population of Redheaded People
This is one of the most surprising and fun facts about hair for many, considering the stereotypical view that red hair is a Celtic trait (Scottish and Irish). According to Wikipedia, 2 to 6 percent of the US population is redheaded. This means there are about 6 to 18 million people with red hair here, compared to Scotland's 650,000. However, Scotland does boast the largest density of redheads, which has been estimated at 13 percent of the population.
2. Blondes Have the Highest Number of Hair Strands
While redheads have, on average, 80-90 thousand strands, blondes boast 120-140 thousand, while brunettes are somewhere in the middle, with their strand count being between 100,000 and 108,000.
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The abundance of strands in blondes can be attributed to the finer nature of their hair, which compensates with quantity for its individual delicacy. This attribute provides a denser appearance that can make blonde hair look luscious and full. Curiously though, despite their rich strand count, blonde hair is more susceptible to damage from UV rays and needs extra care when exposed to sun. So while the sun-kissed look might be desirable, it's essential for blondes to invest in protective hair care routines to maintain their voluminous, healthy locks.
Frequently asked questions
Did you know we naturally shed around 50 to 100 hairs a day? It sounds like a lot, but with the thousands of hairs on our head, it’s hardly noticeable!
Absolutely! Hair can show signs of nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and other health issues. It's like a mini health report on top of your head!
Not really. On average, hair grows about half an inch per month, but it varies due to genetics, age, and other factors. Some people might notice their hair growing quicker or slower than others.
It comes down to the shape of the hair follicle and the chemical bonds in the hair. Round follicles produce straight hair, while oval-shaped follicles result in curly hair.
Yes, hair texture can change due to a variety of reasons including aging, hormonal changes, or even certain medical treatments. It’s fascinating how dynamic our hair can be!
3. Redheads Need More Anesthetics than Other Hair Colors
Another interesting hair trivia tidbit is that research has shown redheaded people require, on average, up to twenty percent greater amounts of anesthetic than the people with other hair colors.. What's more, studies suggest that redheads are also more sensitive to thermal pain, but, on the bright side, they can handle pain from multiple sources more easily than other hair colors.
4. Guess What Hair Color Thor Had
It must've been blond, right? He was a Norse god, after all. Wrong! Here's a piece of hair trivia that will surprise you: in Norse mythology, Thor, the god of thunder, is depicted as being redheaded.
5. Redheads Have a Higher Risk of Developing Skin Cancer
It seems there are quite a lot of facts about hair that involve redheads, doesn't it? This one is not much fun, unfortunately. Because their skin is fairer, redheaded people are more prone to sunburn, which increases the risk of skin cancer. What's more, their skin is also less protected against ultraviolet rays than darker colors, and you know UV rays can lead to cancer. Redheads – slather on that sun cream!
6. Wigs Were in Trend Way before the 17th Century
We're all familiar with the elaborate wigs they used to wear in the 17th and 18th centuries but, if you dig a bit deeper into the history of hair, you'll be surprised to find out that "fake hair" was a huge trend even 5,000 years ago. In antiquity, the Egyptians used to shave their heads to make sure all sorts of bugs didn't start building homes in their hair. They made wigs out of human hair taken from deceased people or slaves. Kings would also wear fake beards and, weirdly enough, so would the queens!
7. In the Middle Ages, Barbers Used to Cut a Lot More than Just Hair
Well, this is surely one of the facts about hair that surprised me the most. It seems that, in the Middle Ages, barbers worked also as dentists and even as surgeons! They used to perform leeching and blood letting and, when you needed to get a tooth extracted, the barber was the person to go to.
8. The Wedge Hairstyle Was Invented by a Figure-Skater's Hairdresser
In 1974, Dorothy Hamill, an Olympic figure skating champion from the USA, asked her hairdresser to come up with a style that would allow her to skate more comfortably, as hair strands often got into her eyes when performing. And so the wedge style came to be, and women everywhere copied it - for good reason. It was neat, clean and easy to maintain, and thus incredibly practical, especially for women in the sports world.
9. You Can't Imagine What Aristotle's Hair Products Smelled like!
Pee. Goat pee, more precisely! Trying to cure his baldness, Aristotle used to rub this special "balm" on his scalp. And his formula was nothing compared to that of Hippocrates who used a mix of olive oil, wine, horseradish and… pigeon poop! He must have been a real hit with the ladies!
10. Your Hair is a Snitch
Forensics can use your hair for drug tests and detect the presence of any illegal drug metabolites. A single hair strand can tell a lot about your habits in an investigation. One more good reason (among many) to never do drugs, gals!
11. Even when Healthy, You Lose a Lot of Hair Every Day
One of the facts about hair you might not be so happy to learn about is that, even if you are healthy, you shed around 40-150 strands of hair every day. Luckily, this is nothing compared to the huge number of strands you have. Plus, did you know that, on average, you produce about 80 ft. of hair per day?
12. Balding is Way More Common than You Would Think
40 percent of women develop female pattern baldness by the time they reach menopause, and half of the male population develops male pattern hair loss before reaching the age of 50. Fortunately, the fact that we are balding becomes visible only when we lose about 50% of our hair, so I guess we've got that going for us.
13. You Don't Inherit Baldness from Your Mother
There's this myth many believe stating that the "baldness gene" is inherited from the mother's side. Not true. While genetics can play a role in hair loss, those mischievous genes responsible for it can come from both sides of your family. The more family members with hair loss problems you have, the higher your chance of developing such issues yourself.
14. You Are Born with All the Hair Follicles You Will Ever Have
One of the things to know about hair that can be of great use to you – or your wallet, actually – is that you are predetermined with the maximum number of hair follicles you will ever have before you are born. No matter what remedies and "miracle pills" you take, you will never be able to increase this number.
15. Your Hair is Dead
The hair that you can actually see (located above the epidermis) is made of only dead cells – it has no nerves, muscles or blood. Imagine how a haircut would feel otherwise! The root, on the other hand, is "alive".
16. You Can't Really Repair Split Ends
Another one of the facts about hair you should know about is that, since hair is dead, there's nothing that can really repair split ends – besides simply cutting them off. All those hair products that claim to fix split ends only "glue" them together temporarily – until your next shampoo, more precisely.
17. Hair Growth Makes Race Discriminations
African people have the lowest hair growth rate, standing at 0.9 cm per month, while Asian hair grows the fastest, at a rate of 1.3 cm per month. However, things go the other way around when it comes to hair density, African people have the densest hair of all.
18. Cow Urine Can Make Your Hair Look Amazing
For centuries, the Dinka tribe of Sudan has used cow urine to lighten their hair and turn it an unusual bronze color. The Christian missionaries tried hard to convince them to give up this practice, but the proud Dinka refused to.
19. In the 18th Century, Powdered Hair Became a Huge Trend Not Just for the Looks
In the 1700s, powdering hair was very popular among the elite in North America and throughout Europe. Besides the fact that it made dying unnecessary and it was a sign of elegance, there was another reason behind this trend. One of the fun facts about hair hygiene back then you might not know about is that it was almost nonexistent. They rarely washed their head (or much else for that matter), and powdering made it look cleaner, as the powder absorbed the oils produced by the hair.
How many of these pieces of hair trivia did you already know?
Comments
Sturdi: Another interesting tidbit to go along with #7 is the red and white striped "barber" pole. Nowadays when you see it in a window or the outside of a door or building, that's a way of telling you a barber is located inside. Back then the red stripe meant that the barber was also a "leecher" or practiced blood-letting. I bet you'll look at barber poles differently now!
River: I'm a dark blond, which has an orange undertone. I do grow hair naturally that's straight orange, though it's more predominant on my arms and legs...likely because I dye my hair so often that I don't see much of my natural colour on my head. It's also extremely fine, not very voluminous but this does explain why I have so much hair (and am almost constantly picking shed hair off my clothes..). I've also needed extra anaesthesia for stitches (after a few I could start to feel it, but I have natural resistance to other drugs too, basically immune to morphine, and I wake up from general anaesthesia excessively quickly, within 5 minutes I'm fully alert bitching and complaining, but also very emotional and have broken down crying in the recovery room, my mother told me to expect to be groggy for over an hour...lolz), have a ridiculous pain tolerance, very low tolerance to heat above 28C (especially in a fast food kitchen) and I have, and love, freckles (THAT'S what causes a higher risk for UV skin damage, not hair colour, freckles mean our protective melanin is concentrated in our freckles instead of being spread out more evenly, there just happens to be correlation between freckles and red hair, correlation does not equal causation).I also hardly tan, I freckle for the most part. I've had a slight "tan" yet people have STILL commented on how pale I was. One of those times I was standing next to a 'full ginger' and had lighter skin him (I say full because I've been described as 'part ginger') O_O
Arantxa: Cool article! And Im a ginger!!
Kassidy: This probably explains why blondes look like their hair is so thick and voluminous-because they have the most hair strands
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