Hair and fur |
Why is no one looking for a cure? A bald person's outcry scribbled in a |
Fear of damage while grooming
When I started grooming, I was unsure about its effect on hair.
I test-groomed the back of my head for some time.
I didn't dare groom my eyebrows for the first six months and the whole of my scalp for two years.
I was scared that the continuous passage of the nail would remove some hair.
This was because I didn't understand what I was doing back then.
Grooming would be impossible without hair.
Hair and grooming go together the way your teeth and eating do.
Hair all over
Your palms, soles, lips, eyelids, penis, labia minora and nipples are the only hairless patches on your body.
This makes you as furry as most mammals.
Human hair has shrunken and lost its color on many parts of the body except the top of the head and a few other areas.
In spite of this, the hair follicles, the hair producing equipment, are all intact, inside the skin.
Furthermore, their quantity and body distribution is similar for all the populations of our race.
Loss of fur, water and clothes
It is hard to say when we started loosing our fur.
There seem to be two distinct events.
The first created a waterline, wherein the hair above it now grows continuously.
The second is a further lightening of fur density probably
due to our commitment to wearing clothes.
Still, when you look closely at anybody's skin, mostly in the sun, you will see hair all over the place.
The hair follicle
Hair is produced by the skin.
It is made of compacted skin cells just like nails.
The factories, producing these compressed filaments, are the hair follicles.
(See the Skin theory chapter for more information).
These are deeply rooted into your skin, about three sixteenths of an inch, and generate keratin and a little melanin at possibly the fastest multiplication rate of the human body.
Keratin is a hard protein. Nails, claws, feathers, hooves and horns are also made out of it.
The melanin adds the color component.
Hair, unlike plants, grows from the base. Once it has exited the follicle it is dead.
Each hair follicle has one sebum gland (or more) attached to it.
As your grooming nail bristles the base of the hair, it puts pressure on its gland to liberate some sebum.
Sebum is the natural skin and hair oil.
Follicle versatility
Hair follicles appeared on your body around the twenty second week of your life, about five million of them.
At that time, they would produce lanugo, a special type of hair.
Usually, it is shed and consumed by the fetus just before birth and replaced by velus hair.
Velus hair is the very soft, short and fine, almost transparent hair you have on parts of your body where you can't see it except up close.
The hair follicles on your scalp and beard generate thicker strands that grow indefinitely.
As you age they end up yielding a grayer and thinner version .
Then, the same follicles revert to producing velus hair that you see as baldness.
Lack of grooming and hair
Science will tell you you the number of follicles you have diminishes with age.
Where do they go?
Do they vanish?
No, the are engulfed in folds.
When the follicles are imprisoned in this way, they stop their hair production.
Hair density is reduced.
The hair that remains is strangled and compressed by the skin tension.
After some time, some strands close their melanin production department and their color changes to gray or white.
Fighting for life, hair becomes thin and deformed.
Not genetic, nor hereditary, nor hormonal
Hair loss is not an illness.
It is a lack of care.
The hair condition of your ancestors cannot affect your own.
Similarities in skull features and lifestyles explain those found in balding patterns
The scalp
The scalp is richly equipped in sebum glands.
Just think of how many hair strands you have and you can picture them all.
This ungroomed region becomes covered with a crust of hard sebum-epidermis mixture.
This is why it is called scalp, no one would call it skin.
The skin tension is so great, it makes growing conditions unfriendly.
In reality, this skin should be as soft and extensible as any other.
Follicular units
Often, there is more than one hair coming out of a single fold crossing.
The folds themselves become thin hairless lines crisscrossing your head.
The remaining hair gets squeezed between them into islands.
Surgeons call them "follicular units" and try to graft them
Baldness
When balding occurs, the skin has become so tense it feels like a solid material to your touch and practically insensitive.
The alopecia starts on the forehead notches where several folds from your face take a hold, some damage is already visible at birth.
The hair vertex or crown is a large fold crossing that creates a swirl in your hair at the back of your head.
These areas become larger as the hair on them gets scarcer.
The effect of grooming
I first suspected that grooming had a hair freeing action when working on my chin.
My beard had always been sparse and thin. At fifty, it was whitening steadily.
In the morning after a day of grooming, I could see black lines on my chin in the mirror.
They were made by newly liberated hair shafts all along the path of the folds I had groomed intensely.
Since they were black, it looks as though they had not aged while in captivity.
Growing your hair back
With time and more grooming, my beard is now full, thick and still darkening.
After 25 months of working on my hair, only a few minutes a day, my hairline has returned to the position and shape it had when I was a child.
My scalp has regained complete sensitivity over three-quarters of its surface.
It has the smooth texture of baby skin and looks healthier.
Steps in hair regeneration
Gradually, your grooming should have these effects :
•A straightening of swirls.
•Color restoration.
•A shrinking of bald patches.
•An increase in hair density.
•A straightening of the hairline at the top of the forehead.
•A return of sensitivity.
•A regrowth on the forehead notches and other bald areas.
•A major restraightening of the top of the head.
•Scalp regains its elasticity, it can now be pinched.
•Hair muscle action is released.
•Curly hair straightens.
Hair care
Your scalp is so encrusted that it needs immediate help.
Don't wait, start grooming it right away.
It is an easy surface to groom because it is flat, with no feature to obstruct your actions.
Do half your grooming with large two-handed four finger scratching strokes all over and the other half with precise single finger work on the bigger crossings and folds.
You won't have any trouble finding these crossings, they are sizable lumps and holes of hard, insensitive skin.
Grooming your scalp under the shower
Since my youth, I had taken the habit of driving my nails into my scalp while shampooing my hair.
I would not put much pressure, but it surely gave it a good scrubbing.
In my early thirties, a girlfriend of mine was distressed by this action and suggested I may be being too rough on my hair.
In fact, this practice was probably responsible for my full hair cover.
I was pseudo-grooming.
Don't miss the opportunity, groom your scalp every time you shampoo.
Your nails as a comb
I want you to picture your hair follicles.
They are already crooked and angled by the folding
.
When you let your hair dry by itself, each strand takes an unpredictable direction and keeps it.
Each follicle is supposed to be shooting straight up, no angle.
When you groom, the passing of your four nails of both hands moves the base of the hair and realigns the follicles.
Don't worry, I still use a brush to give my hair an initial orientation mostly after a bath or shower.
You have to wonder what the hairstyle you are forcing it into does to your hair follicles.
I favor follicle freedom and non-restrained styles.
You should be able to pass your nails freely into your hair at any time.
Doing this at least once every hour will keep your hair and follicles happy, aligned and healthy.
The curly hair theory
It is already generally admitted that curly hair is the result of some curbing of the hair follicle.
Lack of grooming gives us a perfect explanation for this condition.
Circular horizontal folds flourish all over your head and could well be responsible for the curls.
The idea that they would disappear, once grooming is completed, is intriguing, but unproven at this time.
How long will it take?
This is predictive guesswork, so please be indulgent.
If you groom your scalp for a quarter of an hour every day, it should take you one year of grooming for every fifteen years of your age
The front hairline and the vertical center fold are the most folded areas, you can expect some blood there.
Complete grooming instructions will soon be added in the "Grooming your head" section of this book.
Conclusions
Hair plays such a big part in one's self-esteem that I think it will be the main incentive to get males to groom.
Men are affected quite young by their lack of grooming with acne, hair loss and uglying.
Once you groom one area, the habit easily shifts to another.
Still, I have to warn you against trying to groom only the top of your head and not your face.
All the tension released from the top will transfer to the bottom, making you uglier.
So I'm afraid only a whole head approach will do.
