Trivia about hair

Hair is an interesting topic, to me. I am a very visual person. When I create my characters, I find pictures from somewhere online, in magazines, or photos I find from a number of other places. As I write and attempt to describe my characters, I refer back to these pictures.

Recently I did a blog post on my Starla Kaye website about resources for writers concerning hair: the history of hairstyles, hair color, men’s hair and beards. It was fun and useful gathering the research and you are welcome to check it out at “Let’s Talk About Hair.”

I decided to take that a step farther and share some trivia tidbits about hair. Did you know that…

• blonds usually have more strands of hair than redheads or brunettes
• a strand of hair is as strong as a wire of iron, can support 2 ½ pounds, and it takes a 60kg force to rip it
• we lose about 40 to 100 strands of hair every day
• crash dieting can trigger temporary hair loss
• female hair grows slower than male hair
• the lifespan of a hair strand is 2 to 7 years
• hair grows faster in warm weather
• humidity stretches the hair
• Renaissance women lightened their hair by coating their hair with a mixture of lye and saffron
• to help cure his baldness Aristotle rubbed goat pee on his scalp
• Hippocrates used a mixture of opium, wine, olive oil, horseradish, and pigeon poop to help with his baldness