If we treat our face like a photograph then our hair represents beautiful frame. The better the hair and texture of the hair, the more beautiful the photograph. It’s one of the reasons that compel people to spend a substantial chunk of their income to maintain their hair.

Hair is one the features that differentiates mammals from the rest of the animal kingdom.  It has been differentiated into two parts, the hair follicle that is below the skin and the shaft which is above the skin. It is made of a protein called keratin and the hair follicle is the only live part of the hair which receives all the nutrition through blood. The upper part is inactive and considered to be dead.

On an average, the hair grows around a centimeter in a month or around 6 inches in a year. At any time, the different hairs on scalp are in different stages of their cycles, with growing and shedding taking place simultaneously. To understand hair cycle better, they are divided into three stages-

• Anagen- growth phase
• Catagen- transitional phase
• Telogen- resting phase

Anagen- growth phase

Also known as the growth phase, it is the phase where the hair is in a living or a growing phase and involves 85 % of hair on the scalp. During this phase, the hair root cells are constantly dividing which leads to formation of new hairs. These new hairs slowly emerge through the scalp and come out. This phase allows the hair cells to grow almost 1 cm in 28 days. Most hair strands can last in this phase for 2 – 6 years. People who have short active phase are not able to grow their hair beyond a certain hair length.  Similarly, people who have an active, healthy anagen growth phase have long hair. However, the hair on the head has a comparatively longer growth phase than the hair on the body, eye lashes and eyebrows. This phase can be affected due to internal diseases such as cancer or due to alopecia areata.

Catagen – Transitional phase

This phase is also known as the transitional phase and involves 3 % of the hair on the scalp at any given time. This stage marks the formation of the ‘club hair’ where the outer root sheath shrivels up and gets attached to the root of the hair. Catagen lasts for 2 – 3 weeks.

Telogen – Resting phase

More than 10 – 15 % of the hairs are involved in this phase at anytime. It lasts for 5 – 6 weeks on the head, but the hair on the body, eye brows and eye lashes lasts longer. When the cycle reaches this stage, the club hair is formed. During this phase, the hair has a white dry material at the root. Due to this phase, people loose 25- 100 hair strands each day. If there are more hair losses than these, it could be because of telogen effluvium. This is mostly observed post child birth, fever, sudden weight loss or certain medications.

Post this stage, the cycle is complete and the hair goes back into the first phase, anagen.

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