Communication is still one of the biggest problems we have as a profession. Our profession has much technical info for us to learn. Whether we are explaining to clients or being explained to by other professionals, communication can be difficult. I tried writing this out before sending it… in order to make sure that the story is intelligible to anyone who reads it. I know what I want to say, however, whether it comes out that way is another issue. All readers should have a working knowledge of the process of hair growth and the cycles of growth before trying to understand this communication or there would be too many pages of text. (I’m still tryin’…)
The schematics referred to show all hairs growing out synchronized in clusters of three, however, while this is possible… it is not very probable. All hairs are shown as recently grown hairs that have never been cut and all in the same stage of growth, whatever that may be. This can be determined by the fact all hairs have a tapered tip just as fresh new growth would have except that they would not be as synchronized as they are shown. All hairs seem to be completely synchronized with one another. This does not occur in nature. They all grow at the same speed of 1/3 mm/day or about 1/2 inch per month when they are in anagen, however, this will not happen in nature. Each hair is independent of the others. Some may have started in anagen on Monday, others on Tuesday, others on Wednesday, etc. , therefore, they would never be the same length unless they were all cut at the same time prior to the time the sketch was made. Even then some will have reverted to telogen, others catagen, and others are in anagen but the difference in length would be insignificant. I say this because all the hairs are shown with a tapered tip as though they were never cut. New hairs all have the shape as shown, however, previously cut hairs will have either a blunt end (from a scissors or electric razor) or a beveled end from a razor blade as opposed to the perfectly symmetrical hair that is bigger at the base and tapering to a pointed shaped tip when in anagen. In any size patch of hair the distribution of anagen, catagen, and telogen hairs are randomly situated. There will be some anagen with a tapered tip, some catagen with a blunt end, and some telogen with a blunt or beveled tip.
If a patient had a whiffle hair cut (crew cut, or by some other name) all the anagen hairs would be in a continuous state of “continuing to regrow untill catagen phase had started.” They would have one property in common and that would be, “ALL standing straight up in the air” regardless of what stage they were in (anagen, catagen, or telogen.) The reason for this is simple but hard to explain here in few words.
Hair has weight (not very much but it has some weight). As a shaft of hair grows, it’s weight increases to the extent that it can no longer stand upright. It’s own weight causes it to fall over. When the hair is freshly short it behaves as though it had more “body” and stands erect. As the hair grows it ads length and WEIGHT. Eventually, the hair will have added enough weight to cause the hair to fall over by it’s own weight. Consequently, the texture of the hair is now softer with less “body” and some individual hairs try to stand upright but not all of them can make it.
There is a particular hair style popular among young women where there is a tuft of hair that is kind of “spikey” as it stands away from the rest of the scalp. As it grows it becomes heavier with length and tends to lie flat. This tuft of hair is renewed periodically to make it stand up away from the face by cutting it a little shorter to make it lighter so that it can stand up by itself.
I hope this explanation is helpful. I wrote and rewrote it over and over. I hope it is self explanatory now.
