Trichology: Why don't we have fur?

With the evolution of human, some parts of our body developed and sharpened as well. In the wide curiousity of this writer of yours, I thought and researched about why humans don't have fur? I was so in love with furs of dogs and rabbits. They are so soft, smooth and thin. So what if humans have this kind of fur too?

In the midst of my research, I was able to understand the few explanations of how the ancient humans have developed the hair we have today. It seems really too fascinating on how much evolution of the ancient past up to now. However, is this kind of evolution really advantageous in our current date? Are you curious about what we look like if we have the same fur as what our pets have?

Human hair vs Animal fur (basic history and facts)

Based on my research, human hair and animal hairs are made with same protein called Keratin. Actually, human hair and animal fur is just the same. Hair is what we called for humans, while fur is what we called for animals. Fur is hair, and hair is fur. In addition, both human hair and animal fur have the same parts consisting of three namely as cuticle, medulla and cortex.

Filaments of the protein keratin that grow out of organs known as follicles. These follicles grow and shed as time passed on. So what's the difference between human hair and animals hair? The most evident difference is the length of these two. Human hair is much longer than animal hair. As a matter of fact, the longest human hair ever recorded in Guiness Worlds Records, it has a length of 5.627m (18 feet 5.54 in) holded by Xie Quiping from China dated back on 8th of May 2004. On the other hand, the longest fur recorded based on Guiness World Records is named Franchesca, an Angora rabbit owned by Betty Chu from USA and has the length of 36.5cm (14.37 in) on 18th of August 2014.

Human hair numbers (the estimated count)

I have been curious on how much estimated hair I have. I know some of you are thinking about we have around hundred thousands, or even million of hairs in our body. With the curiosity I had in mind, I was able to seek reference to Harvard University for their official study and to make this article more credible. We love fact check, right?

Based on Harvard University study, human count hair varies on what color it has. Yes, since human hair has a lot of natural color such as blonde, brown, black, and red. These are the four primary natural colors, of course there are dyed hair color so let's not count them. Originally, if you have blonde hair color you have an estimated count hair number of 150,000. For brown hair has around 110,oo9, for black hair 100,000, and red hair 90,000.

Can you see the big difference between these colors? I bet you are starting to wonder if it's real, but it is. The remaining count hair such as body hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. The body hair has estimated number of 25,000, eyelashes has 420, and eyebrows has 600. Can you imagine that all these hairs are found on your body and it plays a major role to keep your skin and body to function well.

What does our hair do?

Aside from the shocking numbers of hair, you might not know the functions of the hair found on your body. In fact, sometimes we don't appreciate our hairs because that is not the hair type we want. Although, there are barbers and salons to go to make your desire hair to be fulfilled. It's a matter of time that your hair to go back on its original shape.

The most visible and decorated hair will be found on the top of your head. It's basic function is to protect our sensitive scalp and keeps our brain from overheating receiving the heat from the sun. Our eyelashes is to make and minimise the hair flows coming from every direction over our eyeballs. Our eyebrows sometimes depict and use for communication because we can express our feelings through it.

There are six basic functions of hair. They are protection, heat retention, visual identification, sensory reception, chemical signal dispersal, and facial expression. Basically, without our precious hairs, we cannot live a seemingly good life because we lost these functions in our body. We can easily get our eyes hurt from the sudden airflows and damage our eyeballs. We can easily get sick because the oil in our body doesn't secrete. We can easily inhale something and the dirt will not be filtered from our nostrils.

Kilay (eyebrows) is life

This is one of the famous saying commonly used by females to make it clear that their eyebrows are very important. According to study, Filipino women prefers to do their eyebrows than putting lipstick. I think I agree in this study because as I noticed to my friends and relatives, they really valued and take time fixing their eyebrows. Sometimes it took them longer like around an hour or two.

One thing you have to remember about your hair. You have to cherish it as long as it grows. If you don't know, according to study, around 75% of men is balding at the age of 50. Thus, 25% sign of hair loss experience at the age of 21. So men like me is most likely to experience it and it is natural. For women, there are only 40% who experienced balding compared to 75% of men. Just love your hair, it is not permanent.

Thank you for reading!