Body Hair - ProudMe

Why do we have body hair?

We are born with around 5 million follicles of hair on our bodies and don’t develop more as we get older.

For example, the most significant reason for the hair on our heads is to regulate our brain’s temperature. In order to keep them cool, we need to keep our whole body temperature within a fairly narrow window. Especially really curly hair is very effective at protecting the scalp and the brain from excess heat, and it also allows the evaporation of sweat very efficiently.

Underarm and pubic hair – that most of us try to get rid of – help disperse odor molecules that’s produced in our armpits and pubic regions. Some of these molecules are really important for communication about our reproductive status and our attractiveness.

Our eyebrows allow our expressions and moods to be determined or communicated from one person to another, even at a great distance.

Interesting fact: While the majority of your body is covered in these minuscule hairs, there are three areas of your body that don’t grow hair: your palms, your soles, and the red of your lips.

Types of human hair

Terminal hair is the type of natural hair to which most people refer in their everyday lives. It is the type of hair that grows on your head, in your pubic regions and on almost all parts of your body.

Vellus hair, frequently referred to as “peach fuzz,” is the short, fine, colorless hair found all over the body. During puberty, vellus hair can turn into intermediate or terminal hair. Vellus hair helps to regulate body temperature.

Lanugo is the special downy hair that completely covers the human baby inside the womb. It is like fur, but before the fetus is born the lanugo hair is replaced by vellus hair.

Body hair fact check

Some of the first razors, made of copper, were used in Egypt and India around 3000 BCE. Egyptian women removed their head hair and considered pubic hair uncivilized.

By 1964, 98 percent of American women were routinely shaving their legs.

Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s turned their backs on the ideal of the hairless body in favor of women au natural. The rejection proved to be short-lived, however.