A hairy tale

Mirror, mirror, hanging there, what ever happened to my hair.

My bathroom mirror replied, “Please make your query more precise.”

Startled, I said, “Where’d these gray hairs come from and where’d my other hairs go?”

“It’s all in your head,” said the mirror. “More specifically, in your hair follicles, the pouches beneath the surface of your skin that produce the shafts of hair.”

“That’s why I feel shafted.”

“It’s just a process of nature. Each follicle consists of cell layers enveloping the developing hair, which itself has concentric layers. The central layer, responsible for hair flexibility, is called the medulla.”

“That doesn’t seem worth a dollar. But I’d give you a penny for your thoughts.”

“The next layer, responsible for strength and colour, is the cortex.”

“I have a jacket made of that stuff.”

“Cortex, not Goretex. The outer layer, responsible for the shine, is the cuticle. It looks like scales on a fish.”

“Fish aren’t very cuticle to me.”

“At the base of the follicle, the papilla produces all these layers. As new cells multiply, they push older cells upward.”

“The old seniority system.”

“When the older cells die, keratin remains, a tough protein that also makes up your fingernails.”

“Okay. Now how does this tie into my gray hair?”

“The cortex contains melanin.”

“But I don’t even eat canteloupe.”

“Not melons, melanin, the pigment in hair and skin. Black and brown hair has Eumelanin. Red and blonde hair has Phaeomelanin. You can have a combination of them, depending on your genes.”

“What about blue jeans?”

“At some point controlled by your genes, follicles stop producing pigment. Gray hairs still have some melanin, but white hairs have none.”

“So my changing hair colour was not just a pigment of my imagination.”

“Right. As for your shrinking coverage, that’s a combination of your genes, your age and your hormones. Each follicle goes through a growth cycle.”

“I’ve heard bicycling is good for you. Not so hard on the knees.”

“The hair cycle has three stages.”

“Let me guess, Curly, Larry and Moe?”

“Stages, not stooges. It’s anagen, catagen and telogen. Anagen lasts three to seven years, depending on your genes, although it can decrease as you get older. Hair grows about one centimetre a month. The duration of anagen limits the maximum length of your hair. Eventually, the follicle stops making hair and pigment. During catagen, which lasts about ten days, the follicle moves up toward the skin surface and the shaft or club hair separates from the bulb until it’s ready to fall out in the last stage, telogen. Telogen lasts about a hundred days. Telogen hairs are easy to pluck out and the ones most likely to clog your drain.”

“They’re not the reason for my expanding forehead?”

“No. You are always growing and losing hair. The cycles of your follicles are out of sync so you don’t lose all your hair at once. Each follicle can go through about twenty cycles of hair in a lifetime. About half of men inherit a pattern of receding hairline from either parent. The aging follicles modify hair production in response to androgens.”

“But I only wore a dress that one time...”

“Not androgyny, androgens, male hormones, like testosterone. Both men and women have them, but men tend to have more. Follicles in different parts of your body respond at different stages of your life. Now it’s probably your eyebrows and nose hairs that grow the most. If you look closely at your scalp, you probably still have hair; it’s just short, non-pigmented and fine.

“Not usually what they mean by a fine head of hair,” I said, disappointed.

“You know what they say,” replied the mirror. “Hair today, gone tomorrow.”