Long hair facts for kids
Long hair is a hairstyle that is mostly worn by girls and women. Boys and men may sometimes wear hair to shoulder length. Longer than that is rare for men of most cultures.
Extremely long hair (usually waist length or longer) is normally only found in females. The reason is that the female hormonal system affects the growth of their hair, just as the male hormonal system supports facial hair growth. This is also the reason young females can have longer hair than older women.
Hair length is measured (in centimeters or inches) from the line of the scalp on the forehead up over the highest point of the skull to the end of the hair. This method is not suitable for measuring hair length for people with a fringe. In cosmetology, hair lengths are usually described by the part of the body where the longest hair ends: chin level, shoulder length, mid-back level, waist length, hip-length, classic length (extends to almost upper thigh-length, where the legs meet the buttocks), thigh-length, knee-length and ankle/floor length hair.
Hair usually takes about 2–2½ years to reach shoulder length. It usually takes about 4–5 years to grow to the waist (which is about 60 cm for most women) if left to grow.
Contents
Records
The maximum hair length that is possible to reach is about 15 cm for infants (below the age of 1), about 60 cm for children (below the age of 13), and generally 100 cm for adults. Some individuals can reach excessive lengths. Lengths greater than 150 cm are frequently observed in long hair contests. Xie Qiuping had the longest documented hair in the world, measuring 5.627 m (18 ft 5.54 in) in May 2004.
The maximum hair length depends on the length of the period of hair growth for the individual. Waist-length hair or longer is only possible to reach for women with long periods of hair growth. Hair can grow continuously for between 2 and 7 years.
Significance
Head hair is maintained by natural selection after other body hair had been greatly reduced. The hair has at least two functions:
- to protect the scalp against weather (sun in the tropics, heat loss in the temperate zone)
- to signal physical attractiveness. A fine head of hair improves the chance of getting a mate and so producing children. By seven to nine months, infants can tell the sexes apart based on hair length, voice pitch 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
