Human Hair: Source of Male Strength or Femininity?

In this article I discuss various aspects of human hair - historically, culturally, and biologically.

I. Some History

Most of you have heard about Samson, or Simson, a Herculean hero of the Tanach and the Old Testament. He was deceived by his wife, Delilah, who cut off his hair, thereby making him lose his strength. Obviously, his never cut hair carried his mighty strength. He was a "Nazirite" from birth. Such a figure was not allowed to ingest wine, vinegar, grapes, or raisins; never get close to corpses or graves; and never to cut his hair. Nazir is Hebrew for "consecrated". Its definition can be found in the Old Testament, Numbers, chapter 6.

The modern Rastafarian has adopted some features from the Nazirite, and specifically the prohibition against hair cutting. They even claim that their dreadlocks are modelled after Samson. However it is with that, the hairstyle has been used elsewhere too, as by Pakistani and Qalandari Sufis or certain Shiva sects of Hinduism, even by the ancient Egyptians. James the Just, the first Bishop of Jerusalem should have had dreadlocks down to his feet. But locks have been used by various peoples on all continents throughout history - often as a religious symbol.

The Keshin Hymn of Rig Veda states:

"The long-haired one endures fire, the long-haired one endures poison, the long haired one endures both worlds."

The Indian Sikhs must not cut their hair, and the old Saxons never did. A Saxon warrior had his hair tied in a knot, and touching it was a deadly offence automatically leading to bloodshed. If he fell in battle, his cut-off head was held in the hair.

Members of the royal Merovingian house were known for their long hair, and it evidently played a role in their culture (which differed from the one of their subjects in some instances).

When the Indians of the Western Hemisphere took scalps, it was in the belief that the strength were in the enemy's hair, and by possessing it, another man could add this strength to his own.

Both Christian monks and clerics, Buddhist monks, and some Hindus shave their heads, wholly or partially; a symbol of spiritual devotion, or a sacrifice.

Muslim pilgrims on Hajj shave their heads - it is a sign that they are servants, or slaves, of God.

What has been said so far mainly refer to males, even if nuns might be required to shave their heads too. Otherwise hair has quite universally been the pride of women. Shaving or cutting it off could sometimes be a punishment for fornication or adultery; short hair being a sign of great shame.

Shaving heads and using wigs instead, common in ancient Egypt, and occurring elsewhere too, most certainly began as a hygienic measure to get rid of lice and vermin.

Today some women consider bald men as sexy, while most males see as feminine long hair on a woman. From a biological point of view this is the most logical. Testosterone, a male sex hormone, related to both virility and male fertility, causes baldness; while estrogens, female sex hormones, stimulate hair-growth on the head. This is discussed further below.

II. Human Hair

"It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.”

(Cicero)

Melanin is the pigment giving humans their colours - of skin and hair - and in melanoma, pigment tumours. It comes in two forms, eumelanin and pheomelanin. The former gives black and dark brown; the latter gives reddish, even yellow colour. [Amongst animals this can give bright yellow, as the colour of chickens.]

The colour of your hair as young is entirely a matter of genes - unless you dye it. You have both eumelanin and pheomelanin, your hair colour depends on the ratio between them: which of them dominates, and how much it dominates; as well as of the total amount and density of melanin in the hair.

The observation that some Egyptian mummies have preserved red hair, or even blond, has given birth to a myth, that they were read-haired or blond in life. The explanation is another. The red pigment, the pheomelanin, breaks down more slowly than the eumelanin; so while the colour fades by oxidation, the red part will remain longer than the brown-black. It is only the red pigment, and in some instances blond, left today. It does not necessarily mean there was no other.

Hair quality is partly inherited, but also a matter of nutrition and life-style. If you regularly treat your hair with chemical products, you destroy it. If you smoke, it loses in quality, certain diseases affect it negatively, and so do deficiencies of vitamins and minerals, as well as certain medical treatments [for instance radiation and chemo-therapy].

There is very little to do in terms of nurturing the hair from the outside. It can be beneficial to apply a light acid, as washing with diluted apple cider vinegar. A protective acidic layer is natural, but often destroyed by shampoo and other chemicals. It keeps the microflora of the hair and the scalp in good order. This is necessary to avoid mycotic problems [mycotic = caused by fungi]. Otherwise nutrition comes from the inside, and consists in a good diet and appropriate supplements. This, however, does not mean that herbs applied externally would not positively affect the scalp. But expensive shampoos and other chemical products are worthless - no, they are destructive. Save your money and your hair by skipping them.

Thoroughly and regularly massaging the scalp, however, increases blood circulation and thereby nutrition and detoxification of the scalp, thus affecting the hair follicles positively [each hair grows from a hair follicle]. It will not change the hair you see, but the hair to come.

Diseases known for affecting hair negatively are thyroid imbalance and other glandular problems, cardiovascular disease, and various forms of immune system deficiency.

Women sometimes experience hair loss during pregnancy; this, in my opinion, is a result of nutritional deficiencies, and to some extent temporary hormonal changes. To nurture both a foetus and oneself is not as ordinary everyday life. One should absolutely not eat for two, you do not need energy for two [a mother-to-be must absolutely not grow fat, not even a little] - but there is a strongly increased need of certain vitamins and minerals.

So-called typical male baldness is no disease and nothing wrong at all. It is an entirely inherited quality and there is nothing to do about it. If you are very young and want to know if you will become bald early, look at your mother's brothers; or your mother's mother's brothers. The genes for baldness are inherited through females, but are activated in males.

Male baldness is much a matter of hormones. Testosterone [a male sex hormone] reduces growth of hair on the head, while estrogens [a group of female sex hormones] stimulate it. The wide-spread belief that bald men are more virile is true. Baldness means more masculinity. From a biological point of view, men with a thick and lustrous hair are more feminine. Probably this is strictly applicable only if you compare individuals of approximately the same "racial" type, but there is no evidence supporting that. And of course, a few cases of male baldness have other reasons, various health problems. This does not apply to them.

Genetically Asian men get less bald than African and European. Asians overall have the best hair quality, while Africans have the most fragile and slowly growing hair.

There is a difference not only of quality, but also in dimension. Dark hairs are generally thicker than blond ones. So blonds have a larger number of hairs instead; and it is generally harder to get blond hair grow long.

A perfectly healthy hair is strong. Its strength is comparable to that of copper wire; and it can be stretched 25% of its length, even 50% if it is wet. If you hang something from your scalp hair, you can carry several tonnes in it. Your neck strength, not your hair, sets the limit.

Every day one normally drops 100 hairs. If one is not thin-haired, one has 100000-150000 hairs on the head, but it is quite individual. Blonds have about 140000 hairs, brown-haired 110000, black-haired 108000, and red-haired 90000.

The speed of hair-growth is not correlated to the body at large. It grows first 3-5 years, then it stops growing for about 2 months. Then it grows again. While growing, it grows 0.3-0.5 millimetres per day. A hair has a limited lifespan; when it has reached its full length, it drops, and a new starts growing in its stead. This does not happen with all hairs at the same time, so you will not notice the change.

If you have grown really long hair, you have probably noticed that you can get it to a certain length, but there it stops. Perhaps you have envied the girl next door who can get her hair down below the waist while you can only get it shoulder-long? This difference is mainly a matter of genes, and there is not much you can do to change it.

Curls are a matter of biochemistry. The proteins of hair contain sulphur atoms. They sometimes bind to each other pairwise, forming disulphides, which bend the hair. One could say that the binding between the two atoms creates a stretching tension in the hair shaft. The more disulphide bonds you have in your hair, the more natural curls you have. This part of the hair structure is a matter of genes. A lot of methods to change one's hair in this respect, however, have flourished for long. Some of them undoubtedly damaging it, and none is truly permanent.

The hair follicle consists of two parts, the bulb, at the bottom, and the mid follicle. The shaft, the hair as we see it, is the third part of a hair, and the one located outside the skin. The hair follicle is alive, but the hair (shaft) itself is not.

The material of hair is keratin, a protein made from dead cells pushed up from the hair follicle. In the bulb there are also melanocytes, cells producing pigment.

The chemical composition of hair is this:

-Carbon 51%

-Hydrogen 6%

-Sulphur 5%

-Nitrogen 17%

-Oxygen 21%

Sooner or later all hair greys. For some people it happens early, it can begin already in the teens - for others it comes late, perhaps not until after seventy. The basis, again, is genetics. Some deficiencies are known to affect his, however, most notably vitamin B12, but also diseases and other factors; thyroid problems, vitiligo (pigment loss), early menopause, smoking, copper deficiency...

Greying hair is an illusion, however. There is no such thing as a grey hair. It is a mixture of coloured and white hairs. The proportion of white hairs on your head determines the impression of greyness. When all hairs have become white, you are white-haired.

Unfortunately, the explanation to what happens when hair turns grey, and finally white - that the pigment-producing cells [melanocytes] are becoming fewer with increasing age, or that they are becoming less effective - is not conclusive and most probably completely wrong.

That something is reduced in capacity or changing because of age is just an observation, no causal explanation. Currently no cause of this is known, and this greying cannot be stopped or reversed. That does not mean that it can never be done, just that the current level of knowledge does not admit it.

But from where comes the grey, or the white? Is it just lack of pigment? Or is there a white pigment? No. White of human hair, animal fur and in most cases of flowers, are caused by scattering, where the particles are large enough to reflect all light. The particles consist of bubbles of air throughout the tissue. Thus this would make hair appear white. That pigment is lost is not correct. It is there, but cannot be seen because of the scattering. But why these scattering bubbles are gathering in the hairs is unknown.

(The article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo, and in my e-booklet “Human Hair, Homo Aquarius, & Feathered Crocodiles”, 2019.)

Copyright © 2019, 2021 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.

Lead image by Engin Akyurt/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain.

Image in article: Modern Dreadlocks. Photo: Humphrey Muleba/Unsplash. CC0/Public Domain. The image has been digitally enhanced.

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