Hair, Lasers, and You
At Romeo & Juliette, we’re all about getting rid of unwanted hair with our assortment of lasers. But we’re also hair experts — we respect the toughness of the little devils! Here’s some interesting stuff about all those hairs you’re looking to put out of business.Human hair anatomy
Human hairs reside in follicles. The follicle is critical to both growing hairs and for removing it with a laser. The hair follicle can be divided into three regions: the lower segment with the hair bulb, the middle segment where the sebaceous glands come in, and the upper segment where the hair exits the skin.
We, humans, are mammals — our bodies have around five million hairs. You read that right. Men have a few hundred thousand more hairs than women. The hair on our heads is just a part of that. People usually have around 100,000 to 200,000 hairs on their heads. That’s kids stuff compared to the hair everywhere else. For those of you who don’t believe in our rise from the ape’s stuff, know that humans are equally hairy to our primate ancestors. Our hair is less course than theirs, but the numbers are the same. We’re less hairy than other animals, however.
Growth cycles
Every one of those five million hairs can be in a different phase of the growth cycle. That’s important to us at Romeo & Juliette because the most effective time to zap hair into oblivion is when it is in the anagen or growth phase. The anagen phase lasts an average of 3-5 years, and head hair grows around half an inch per month. It grows faster in the summer than in the winter. If you do the math, a hair on your head can grow from 18 to 30 inches over its life.
When your hair moves out of the anagen phase, it enters the catagen phase. This is a short transitional phase that lasts just 10 days.
The last stop is the telogen phase, a resting phase when the body releases the hair, and it falls out. The follicle then remains inactive for three months, and the whole process does it all over again.
Every hair is independent. This is the reason you need multiple laser treatment sessions at Romeo & Juliette to reduce your hair — you have to catch each hair in the anagen phase. While this can seem like a pain, consider the value of all the hairs being in different phases. If all of the hairs were aligned by phase, we would lose all of our hair at once. As it is now, your head loses around 80 hairs per day, and your body loses thousands.
source: www.romeojuliettelaserhairremoval.com