Hello dearies,
How are you all doing today? It is shiny here in Montreal, i hope in your city as well. I know after reading the first post people are impatient; they are probably thinking: "why isn't she going straight to the point, recomending products to use, instead of writing about all those things etc ...". Rushing to buy products for my hair didn't help me (hahaha). I even had more breakages because I did not want to take the time to know more about my hair. Knowing more about your hair is key in choosing the right product.
Fun Fact: do you know why we have coily hair?
Hair is made of two important components: the shaft (visible part that we see on our head, and the follicle which is deep into the skin (derma). Look at the picture.
Early humans that lived in high temperature environments developed coily/kinky for adaptation purposes. It helped to protect them from the UV radation of the sun and it allowed for air circulation which resulted in the regulation of body temperature.(Study done by Clarence in 2012)
While genes probably play a role in how our hair is, the follicle is responsible for the thickness and the texture of our hair. What is a hair follicle? ( A hair follicle is like a sac from which hair grows. It regulates the hair growth by interacting with its surrounding (sebaceous glands), hormones and immune cells). Our hair thickness and the different textures that we have depend of the size of the follicle and their closesness to our scalp. The thickness of hair depends on the size and quantity of hair follicles
The texture of the hair (1A to 4D ) depends on different things:
Firstly, the shape of the hair follicle. Straight hair comes from a rounded follicle, curly hair has an oval shape, and kinky hair has a flatter oval shape.
Secondly, how the follicle tunnels down into the scalp.
As you can see from the picture, a straight dig down of the follicule gives you a straight hair, as it curves, your hair become curly, and the more the curving, the more coily(kinky) your hair will be. The major drawback of this curvature is that the hair becomes very dry. Even with the presence of the sebaceous glands which produce oil to lubricate the hair. When the curvature is greater, the sebum produced by the glands is not able to travel down to the length of the hair leading it to dryness, coarseness, and then breakage.
Our hair is made of dead cells and protein called keratin (comprising many cysteine amino acid that contain the sulphur groups). The sulphur groups allow the cysteine to bond easily, thus making the growing hair curly or kinky. The more the cysteine bonds, the more the curls (see the picture below).
Our hair grows approximately 1cm a month and because it is not straight, we have the tendency to believe that it is not growing.
In summary, follicle determines our hair shape, and we cannot control that part of our hair because it is genetic. Relaxer is one of the solution to straighten our hair because it breaks down or relaxes the bond between the cysteines (parts of the keratin). So if you want traight hair, you can use relaxers. People with straight hair who want curly hair should use products that contain sulphur which will allow the cysteine to reform the bond and gives you curly hair. I hope that as you understand your hair, you will better embrace your hair type. You will maybe try and fail with many products until you discover the right one for you. The more important thing is to find a product that will make your hair as healthy as possible. Our next topic. It is going to be about......... Stay tune and you will discover.
Love, Carine
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