Snip, snip – the scissors fly around your head. Your hair grows from living cells. But the hair that’s cut is not alive. What is the story here?
Each hair on your head grows form a root that is under your skin. The root produces hair cells in a special tube called a follicle. When new hair cells are made at the root, they push older hair cells up the follicle.
As older hair cells move toward the surface of your skin, they change. They squeeze together and harden. Then they die. The strand of hair that comes out of your head does not have living cells in it. That is why a haircut doesn’t hurt!
You probably have about 100,000 hairs on your head right now. Hair strands constantly grow, fall out, and then start to grow again. It usually does this in different stages. That’s why you don’t lose all of your hair at once.
People like to change their hair colors and styles. Sometimes the results are very interesting. In fact, you might be wide-eyed and staring at one of these creations.
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"Why don’t haircuts hurt?" was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 11:33 pm.