What makes hair curly???

Question

I'm not a science genius but i understand most high school biology so don't get too complicated wit tha words please!

Answer 1

The shape of the hair in cross section. The flatter the hair, the more curly it is. Asians have nearly round cross sections, Africans are almost like tapes, European in between.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

The shape of the hair is ultimately decided by the shape of the follicle it grows out of.

Answer 2

It has to do with how different proteins are linked to each other.

There are two basic folding patterns: alpha helices and beta sheets.  Alpha helices twist around, like DNA.  Beta sheets are like accordion shaped pieces of paper.

In curly hair, the proteins are connected in the alpha helix form.  That makes one side of the hair longer than the other, so it twists around itself.  Of course, it's all genetically regulated.

Answer 3

Hair is made up of proteins. Some components of these proteins can link to others further down, in what is called a disulfide bridge. When a lot of these are present on one side of the hair, they pull the hair into a curly shape.