How Does Hair Grow?

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lauren. Today I'm here to discuss how does hair grow? Your hair comes out of your hair follicle and is attached to something called a papilla. Your papilla is actually what nourishes your hair and enables your hair to grow. It grabs out nutrients that it needs from your blood stream and it nourishes your hair follicle. It is a cyclical process for your hair growth, and it goes through three different phases throughout it. Your first phase is your anagen phase. Your anagen phase is where 85% of all your hairs are in a growth rate at the same time. They're all growing, and they last anywhere from about two to six years, is what the typical phase of growing is. After it goes in through your growing phase you go into your catagen phase, which lasts about one to two weeks. In this phase your hair follicle actually shrinks, about to 1/6th of what it normally is, and your dermal and papilla breaks away, so it no longer has that nourishment that is going to it. This, at times, is where you would find hair loss. You know how we say we shed 100 hairs a day? This would be the phase that that would happen. The telogen phase is your rest phase. That's the phase where your papilla is actually reattaching itself, and again getting those nutrients from your blood stream in order to go ahead and go back into your anagen phase and start your growth all over again. During the telogen phase there is no growth, it is more or less of a rest period and it lasts about five to six weeks. It is cyclical and you will go through every single one of these phases in order to have your hair grow, replenish itself and continue nourishing your hair. And that is how your hair grows."