Curly Hair.. why is it curly??

Whether your hair is stick straight or full of corkscrew curls, you have your genes to thank.

But how exactly genes control the shape of hair has been debated. Scientists once thought that the curliness of hair was determined by the individual hair shafts, but have since discovered that the shape of the follicle (the part of the skin that grows the hair) determines both the shape of the hair and the angle it grows in with respect to the scalp. Curly hair is shaped like an elongated oval and grows at a sharp angle.

Curly hair tends to be much drier than straight hair because it is easier for the oils secreted from the scalp to travel down the shaft of a straight hair than a curly one (this is why curly hair often turns into frizzy hair).

And as anyone with curly hair knows, humidity can make your hair even curlier (or frizzier). The reason: Hair fiber absorbs the water and forces the shaft to revert to its original (less straight) structure.

A few days ago i asked this question to my biology teacher and he gave me this answer.
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the structure of the hair? everyone has different genetics, so they'll all make different hair structures.

(i'm not sure if 'structures' is the right word to use)

I think it's because of bent hair folicles

Its curly because its curly

Short answer is that one side grows faster than the other, making it curl toward the slower growing side. The longer answer I'm not so sure, probably has something to do with proteins... And maybe quantum.

i remember asking this in school years ago, my biology teacher said it was something to do with the protein the hair is made from. It's part of your genes, depending on whether one or both of your parents have it but even if one parent has only one curly hair gene there's if 3 in 4 chance you'll have curly hair, its the luck of the draw although i love curly hair!

ya.....i agreee with her ^ :)

my mom never curled mine but it is now...

probably since i was 3 or 2.Probably from my mom......

hmmmm...... never thought of that

if the hair follicle is oval or something your hair's curly

Idk but mine is wavy and I HATE IT!

my great grandmother always said my hair was curly because my head was so hard it had to corkscrew its way out.... lol

Curly hair is a trait that is the result of recessive homozygous genes. The individual received a gene from Mom and one from dad and each of them are recessive genes. This combination allows expression of the genes.

the curliness is decided by ur genes - phenotypes

curly hair is co-dominant to striaght hair, meaning that when ur parents hair genes mixed, curly and curly were mixed.

if straight and curly were mixed, then u would have wavy hair (a mixture of the both)

the memory in the hair makes it bounce back (sort of like special wires that won't permanently bend, that you can get at some shops)

The reason for the curliness or straightness of hair is the number of disulphide bonds between hair proteins found in the hair shaft. The more of these links the curlier hair will be.

Hair is made of keratin and grows from a follicle. Cells in the follicle make keratin and this becomes part of the hair. There is sulphur atoms in keratin and when the sulphur atoms join in a pair they form a disulphide bond. If the sulphur is far away from each other the keratin will bend and cause curls.

Humidity also changes how curly hair is.

Hair can be curled or straightened temporarily but not permanently.