Long hair facts for kids
Long hair is a hairstyle where the hair on your head grows very long. It is most often seen on girls and women. Boys and men sometimes wear their hair to shoulder length, but it's rare for it to be much longer in most cultures.
Very long hair, usually reaching the waist or even longer, is mostly found in females. This is because female hormones help their hair grow longer. This is also why young females can often have longer hair than older women.
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How We Measure Hair Length
Hair length is measured from the top of your scalp (where your hair starts on your forehead) all the way over your head to the very end of the longest hair strand.
In beauty and hair care, hair lengths are often described by where the longest hair ends on your body. Here are some common terms:
- Chin level: Hair reaches your chin.
- Shoulder length: Hair touches your shoulders.
- Mid-back level: Hair reaches the middle of your back.
- Waist length: Hair reaches your waist.
- Hip-length: Hair reaches your hips.
- Classic length: Hair extends almost to your upper thigh, where your legs meet your buttocks.
- Thigh-length: Hair reaches your thighs.
- Knee-length: Hair reaches your knees.
- Ankle/floor length: Hair reaches your ankles or even the floor.
It usually takes about 2 to 2 and a half years for hair to grow to shoulder length. To reach the waist (which is about 60 centimeters or 24 inches for most women), it typically takes about 4 to 5 years if the hair is left to grow without being cut.
Amazing Hair Length Records
The longest hair possible to grow depends on a person's age. For babies under 1 year old, it's about 15 centimeters (6 inches). For children under 13, it's about 60 centimeters (24 inches). For adults, hair can generally reach 100 centimeters (39 inches).
Some people can grow their hair much, much longer! Lengths over 150 centimeters (59 inches) are often seen in long hair contests. The person with the longest documented hair in the world was Xie Qiuping. Her hair measured an incredible 5.627 meters (18 feet 5.54 inches) in May 2004!
How long hair can grow depends on how long each hair strand stays in its "growth phase." Hair can grow continuously for anywhere between 2 and 7 years. Only women with long hair growth periods can achieve waist-length hair or longer.
Why We Have Head Hair
Our head hair has stayed with us through natural selection, even though most other body hair has become much less noticeable. Head hair has at least two important jobs:
- Protection: It protects your scalp from the weather. In sunny places, it shields your head from the sun. In colder areas, it helps keep your head warm.
- Attractiveness: Healthy, long hair can be seen as a sign of good health and beauty. This can help people find a partner and have children. Even young babies, by seven to nine months old, can tell the difference between boys and girls based on things like hair length, voice, and faces.
Images for kids
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A man with shoulder length hair, 1659
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A woman with lower shoulderblade length hair
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Portrait of Julie Manet by Renoir, 1894
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Long male hair in Western youth culture became popular in the 1960s and 70s with the Beatles.
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Bob Marley made rastafari culture and dreadlocks popular also outside Jamaica.
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Black Sabbath. Long hair is very popular in the heavy metal subculture.
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Yakama boy with mid-back level hair. (Photo by Edward S. Curtis, 1868–1952.)
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Somali woman with shoulder-length hair.
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Japanese woman with mid-back length hair
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Transjordanian Bedouin with shoulder length hair, during World War II
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Finnish cello player Perttu Kivilaakso with mid-back length hair
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A Japanese woman with mid-back length hair
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A Sri Lankan woman with classical length hair
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A Tibetan woman with knee-length hair
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The Seven Sutherland Sisters were singing and showing off their famous floor-length hair in a sideshow of Barnum & Bailey's from about 1882 to 1907.
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Opera singer Mary Garden in 1908 with knee-length hair
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Dewi Persik with waist-length hair
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Dutch woman with thigh-length hair
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Japanese woman combing her long hair. (Colour woodblock print from 1920 by Hashiguchi Goyō.)
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Illustration of The Tale of Genji, painted by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691).
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Chinese orthodox Christian man from 1874
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Nosu girls in China 1922.
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A Hindu "fakir" or Sadhu with long hair. Lithograph 1844 by Emily Eden after Lowes Cato Dickinson.
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See also
In Spanish: Melena (cabello) para niños
