50 Insane Facts About Hair, Checked Against Sources

Key points

• The Hair Loss Geeks infographic lists facts about hair in five sections: general oddities, colour, biology, beauty and history. Despite the title it has 52 fact panels.
• Its biology section says the average head has 100,000 hairs, that hair is the second fastest growing tissue after bone marrow, and that the body has about 5 million hair follicles.
• Several figures hold up against current sources, such as 100,000 hairs and hair growth of about 10 miles a year per head. Others differ, including daily shedding, the year of Peter the Great’s beard tax and the share of Scots with red hair.

The facts about hair in text

WTF facts

• Each strand can contain up to 14 different elements, including traces of gold.
• Human hair can be used to make an additive found in foods such as the dough for pizza crusts and bagels.
• Healthy hair, when wet, can stretch to 30% of its original length.
• A cheap Chinese soy sauce producer, Hongshuai Soy Sauce, was found to use amino acids from human hair.
• 10 miles (16 km): the yearly gross product per head of hair.
• Hair absorbs oil from water like a natural sponge, and volunteers use it to clean up oil spills.
• Two elephants or 12 tonnes: the weight a whole head of hair could support.
• The anticipation of sex makes hair grow faster.
• 40 to 150 strands: the number everybody sheds per day.
• 2,750 kg or 45 men: the answer to “How Strong is Rapunzel’s Hair?”, a University of Leicester physics paper.
• The only part of hair that is not dead is inside your scalp.

Hair colour

• 2% of the world’s population has blonde hair. Black hair is the most common colour.
• Red is the rarest, found in 1% of the world’s population. 13% of Scots have red hair, the highest proportion in the world. 2 to 6% of Americans are redheads, the largest redhead population.
• In 1950 about 7% of American women dyed their hair; today 75% do.
• Blonde hair can fetch up to three times the price of dark hair: 100 g of blonde European hair = £1,000 ($1,600).
• A Clairol survey found blondes seen as fun and flirty, brunettes as smart and serious, and redheads as strong.

Hair biology

• 100,000 is the average number of hairs on the head. Average strands by colour: blondes 146,000, black 110,000, brown 100,000, redheads 86,000.
• Hair is the second fastest growing tissue in the body; only bone marrow is quicker.
• Hair is composed of carbon 50.65%, oxygen 20.85%, nitrogen 17.14%, hydrogen 6.36% and sulphur 5.0%.
• Cross-sections can indicate ethnic origin: very round hair for Asian descent, very flat for African descent, oval for European descent.
• Hair holds a record of what has passed through the bloodstream, including minerals and drugs, and is one of the most common types of forensic evidence. Gender cannot be identified from a strand.
• Hair can cover the whole body except the soles of the feet, palms of the hands, mucous membranes and lips.
• All hair follicles are formed when a foetus is five months old. The body has about 5 million follicles.
• Goose bumps happen when follicles contract in the cold, making hairs stand on end.

Hair beauty

• “Shampoo” comes from the Hindi-Urdu word “champna”, meaning “to smear, knead the muscles, massage”.
• Men spend 5 months of their lives shaving. An unshaved beard would grow over 30 feet in a lifetime.
• Girls spend 1 hour 53 minutes a week washing, drying and styling, more than seven months by age 65. Women spend £500 ($780) a year on styling products.
• Longest ear hair: Radhakant Bajpai (India), 25 cm (9.8 in) in 2009. Longest hair, male: Tran Van Hay (Vietnam), 6.8 m (22 ft 3 in) at his death in 2010, weighing 10.5 kg. Longest hair, female: Xie Qiuping (China), 5.627 m (18 ft 5.54 in) in 2004, after 30 years of growth.
• Balding becomes apparent only after losing 50% of your hair. White or grey hairs from stress, shock or ageing take 13 days to show.

Hair history

• Ancient Egyptians were the first to remove unwanted body hair.
• Dreadlocks are said to have biblical justification, quoting Numbers 6:5 (King James Version).
• In ancient Greece blonde hair was associated with prostitution, and the Greeks believed redheads became vampires after death.
• Roman women dyed their hair blonde with pigeon dung, and women in Renaissance Venice used horse urine.
• Renaissance women plucked their hairlines for a higher forehead.
• In 1705 Peter the Great brought in a beard tax to westernise Russia. Beard tokens read “the beard tax has been taken” and “the beard is a superfluous burden”.
• Victorian jewellery and lockets were made from the hair of deceased loved ones.

The graphic lists 19 sources, among them iVillage, the Guardian, HowStuffWorks, the University of Leicester and the Daily Mail, and is “Presented by Hair Loss Geeks”.

How the numbers compare with current sources

Britannica puts the average number of scalp hairs at between 100,000 and 150,000 and says human hair grows about 0.5 inch (13 mm) a month [2]. At that rate, 100,000 hairs would add about 15.6 km of hair a year, which supports the graphic’s “10 miles (16 km)”. Britannica also confirms that fine body hair covers every part of the body except the palms, the soles and a few other places [2].

Guinness World Records lists Xie Qiuping’s hair at 5.627 m (18 ft 5.54 in), measured on 8 May 2004, and says she had been growing it since 1973 [4], about 31 years rather than the graphic’s 30.

Notes on this infographic

• Shedding. The American Academy of Dermatology says it is normal to shed between 50 and 100 hairs a day [3], a narrower range than the graphic’s 40 to 150.
• Beard tax date. Peter the Great introduced the beard tax in 1698, not 1705 [6]. Surviving beard tokens date from 1705, which may explain the graphic’s date [6].
• Red hair in Scotland. The 13% figure is widely quoted, but Wikipedia also cites a study of over 500,000 people that found 5.3% of Scots had red hair [5].
• Count. The title says 50 facts but the graphic has 52 panels.
• Unchecked claims. We could not verify several items, including the soy sauce story, the effect of anticipating sex on hair growth, the colour percentages and the price of blonde hair. Treat them as the graphic’s own claims.
• Grammar. “Fashionable for woman” should read “for women”.

Questions about facts about hair

What elements make up hair?

The graphic’s pie chart gives carbon 50.65%, oxygen 20.85%, nitrogen 17.14%, hydrogen 6.36% and sulphur 5.0%, and says a strand can hold traces of up to 14 elements, including gold. Britannica describes hair as mainly keratin, a protein [2]. The graphic does not say where its percentages come from.

What is 100% human hair made of?

Britannica says hair consists mainly of keratin, a fibrous structural protein that does not dissolve in hot or cold water. Its colour comes from melanins, made from the amino acid tyrosine [2].

Sources

1. Hair Loss Geeks, 50 Insane Facts About Hair, Ian Irving, March 2013 (Wayback Machine copy).
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Hair, anatomy.
3. American Academy of Dermatology, Do you have hair loss or hair shedding?.
4. Guinness World Records, Longest hair (female).
5. Wikipedia, Red hair (Scotland figures and cited studies).
6. Wikipedia, Beard tax.

Last reviewed 30 October 2026