So, I got curious and wanted to see more research on African hair. I found an interesting cluster of articles that you all might be interested in. I think you're going to need access to an academic library (or interlibrary loan) to see them. It looks like many of them were done at L'Oreal's research center in France, but not all. They talk about the differences between different ethnic groups' hair wrt: growth rate, break strain and break stress, what percentage of hair is in the resting phase vs. the growing phase, the density of the hairs in different spots (like occipital, vertex), etc. There is also an article on the differences between different levels of curl pattern in African hair. There is also info on differences (or lack thereof) in hair growth between men and women. Also articles on hair loss in different regions of Africa and its relationship to hair styling practices.
These articles can be found in the International Journal of Dermatology, Vol. 44, supplement 1, 2005.
Some interesting findings for these particular studies:
* No significant difference in the rate of growth between men and women except among Asians where men grew faster than women.
* Hair density decreases significantly in the order: vertex, occipital, temporal regions
*The composition of hair is pretty much the same for people all over the world (in terms of keratin and amino acids) despite the differences in shape.
*Discussion on reaching the "steady state" where hair growth is equal to hair breakage.
Of course, just because it's in an article doesn't mean it's accepted as established fact, since the articles themselves often reported conflict between their findings and others'. Still, interesting reading that I thought I'd pass along to others. The articles are all really short, just 3-7 pages usually (i'm in linguistics so i'm used to 30-60 page articles).
These articles can be found in the International Journal of Dermatology, Vol. 44, supplement 1, 2005.
Some interesting findings for these particular studies:
* No significant difference in the rate of growth between men and women except among Asians where men grew faster than women.
* Hair density decreases significantly in the order: vertex, occipital, temporal regions
*The composition of hair is pretty much the same for people all over the world (in terms of keratin and amino acids) despite the differences in shape.
*Discussion on reaching the "steady state" where hair growth is equal to hair breakage.
Of course, just because it's in an article doesn't mean it's accepted as established fact, since the articles themselves often reported conflict between their findings and others'. Still, interesting reading that I thought I'd pass along to others. The articles are all really short, just 3-7 pages usually (i'm in linguistics so i'm used to 30-60 page articles).
Those sound lovely! Thank you!
It was like hair gone, abracadabra! Hair back!
