Curl Class 3: Why doesn't my hair grow?!

So, last time I said I was going to convince you that all hair grows. Let’s be honest I know there are lots of people who still buy into the myth that black hair doesn’t grow. You or your sister or your mother have had the same length of hair for [insert number of years you’ve been alive], and you’ll say ‘Mariama, even Wikipedia says that black hair grows more slowly or doesn’t grow at all!’ (Don’t believe the papers cited by Wikipedia though, one of the studies was done on 38 people, hardly representative of the entire black population, and the other was done on school children - we all know school children don’t take proper care of their hair! Even in the pictures you can tell they don’t have healthy hair, most of it is damaged and broken… anyway I’m straying from the subject). 

Aug 2011

Feb 2013 (with much better glasses :D)

All I can say to you is… (and please don’t throw rocks at me if you see me!) it’s your own fault your hair doesn’t seem to grow. Yes, I said it! It’s YOUR fault! You’re probably thinking, ‘but Mariama, everyone in my family has short hair! It’s my genes that mean my hair can only grow up to this length!’ WRONG! (Actually I’m being a bit mean, that is partially true). What I am trying to say here is that your hair doesn’t seem to be getting longer because of your hair care practices. Contrary to the myth Afro hair is not tough at all, it is actually very weak and when uncared for becomes more fragile and dry causing it to break very easily. The strand grows at the root and then breaks at the end meaning that it cannot retain the length from the root, and you end up with no added length. The reason why everyone in your family has the same hair length is probably because you all do the same things to your hair rather than your genes.

Unfortunately I probably haven’t done an amazing job yet of convincing you that Afro hair can grow as long as you want it to. But in the next post I will bust the tough black hair myth by explaining a little more about curly hair structure and why augmenting the structure can cause breakage and stop you from retaining length. 

Mariama xx

References

1.  Khumaloa et al (2000) What is normal black African hair? A light and scanning electron-microscopic study. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Volume 43, 814-20

Curl Class 2: The Science Behind Hair Growth

Hair growth begins in the follicle and the average person should be able to grow about 4-7 inches¹ a year regardless if it is straight or curly, healthy or unhealthy, coarse or fine. The follicle has several layers each designed to assist and protect the hair strand as it grows out of the skin. Each follicle is also connected to a sebaceous gland secreting sebum (an oily secretion) onto the surface of the skin. The oil from this gland is all our scalp requires to stay moisturised and does NOT need additional help. There is no need to grease your scalp, NO NEED!! (My poor head! All throughout my life I was always told to grease my scalp, my follicles were probably suffocating!). The base of the follicle is also known as the hair bulb and is found in the dermis (the second layer of your skin). Here the follicle obtains nourishment from the blood vessels and nerves in the dermal papilla – the commander of the scalp. The dermal papilla controls the scalp and organizes when, how quickly and how thickly your hair grows. 

Hair growth occurs in three circular phases: anagen, catagen and telogen.

Anagen - the growth period - can last anywhere from 1-10 years² (so the average head of hair can potentially grow 4-70 (!) inches in a given growth period) but the average length is about 3 years. During anagen, keratinocytes in the follicle produce keratin to make the hair shaft. As it is the longest period in the cycle the majority (90%) of your follicles are in the anagen phase right now.

The remaining 10% are in either the catagen phase (the transition period) or the telogen phase (the rest phase). Catagen lasts about three weeks² and in this phase the hair is prevented from growing or producing melanin (which is why the bulb is white). The follicles shrink and the dermal papilla begins to break down in preparation for telogen. Telogen takes about three months, here the hair pretty much just waits there until stimulated to undergo exogen (shedding).

After about ten growth cycles our ability to pigment our hair worsens and we begin to develop grey hairs¹ (this also happens during periods of stress, which is why during or after exams you may find random greys¹), if you have a shorter growth cycle you also may discover yourself going grey earlier! More bad news: less than half of women and 2% (!!!!) of men go through life with a full head of hair³. So the lesson is, if you think your male friend going bald is hilarious right now there’s a 1 in 2 chance that’ll be you in the future (almost 100% if you’re a boy reading this)! :D

Maz xx

References

1     Krause, K; Foitzik, K (2006). Biology of the Hair Follicle: The Basics. Seminars in Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery, Volume 25, Issue 1.

2.    Bernard A. Bruno (2003). Hair Shape of Curly Hair. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Volume 48, S120-6

3.    Lai-Cheong, J.E; McGrath, J.A (2009). Structure and Function of Skin, Hair and Nails. Medicine, Volume 37, Issue 5

Images taken from The Medical Dictionary & Stylecraze 

PS. Happy Independence Day to Ghana! xx 

Introducing the Curl Classes!!

So… hair… It seems pretty simple right? WRONG! When I decided to go properly natural I pretty much went into information overload; there’s so much information on so many sites that sometimes it’s difficult to keep up. But guess what you lucky lucky reader? We’ve decided to spare you the late nights up next to your laptop, trying to absorb reams of information and have collected it all for you! For the next few posts Zainab and I will be teaching you all about the basics of hair! Aren’t we nice to you, eh?

BTW this information is for everybody. It doesn’t matter what hair type you have or if you are natural (you don’t even have to be a girl), I believe it is important for you to know about your hair. You don’t have to go natural to have long healthy hair (I can hear all the ladies who want to stay relaxed breathing a small sigh of relief) but after this series, nobody else (not even your hairstylist!) will know this much information about hair. If you want your hair to grow long, strong and healthy – and stay that way – keep on reading.

Maz & Zee xx

Mariama's Hair Stats

Why did you go natural?

Like Zainab, it wasn’t deliberate. I’ve had natural hair at varying times in my life, but I didn’t know I was ‘natural’. My mum used to relax my hair when I was younger, then when I got into secondary school I began to take care of my own hair and would get it corn-rowed. Then one day when I was 15 I relaxed it – just for fun – and I hated it.

I used to sleep in rollers to make my hair big and curly again until I discovered straighteners. Every other morning I would use them to curl my hair (now I think about it, it’s such a paradoxical action) and my hair broke off and would never grow past my shoulders. Because of this I cut my hair into a short bob and would get weaves to emulate the length I never thought I could have. During the summertime I began wearing my natural hair and noticed how quickly my hair was growing. I discovered YouTube videos and looked online for healthy hair tips and the rest is history!

When did you go fully natural? 

In April 2012, I stopped wearing weaves and using heat (but I never say never!).

What is your hair aim?

At the moment my hair is the longest it has ever been and I want to continue on until I reach waist length (hopefully by my graduation in Summer 2015).

What is your hair type?

A mix of all the 4s. At the moment it is dense, coarse with a low porosity but it has changed over time.

Zainab's Hair Stats

Why did you go natural?

It wasn’t really a conscious choice, I had a really short hair cut in summer 2011 and I went to a certain hairdressers to maintain the look. I remember being really offended when the stylist kept repeating, “You really need a relaxer” as he was doing my hair and it made me wonder if relaxers were really that necessary. I wore weaves throughout the winter months to protect my hair and when I took the weave out I had a lot of new growth and I didn’t have time to relax it!

At the same time I began watching YouTube videos of Naptural85. I used to come home everyday and watch them over and over again, I just couldn’t believe that black hair could grow! I began to consider that being relaxed wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be and I thought why not try and go natural?

When did you go fully natural?

I chopped off my relaxed ends in July 2012. I think my last relaxer before that was August 2011.

What is your hair type?

4b in the crown and 4c everywhere else! It is very kinky, coarse, dense (it takes me a while to find my scalp anyway) and highly porous.

What is your hair aim?

I want to be armpit length (APL) by graduation in two and half years.