new thread
I recently read a profile of a man whose photo advertised him as someone with very long hair (We're talking down to his belt-line). In this man's profile, I stated that his hair is long, but no longer as of the length that it was at the time when the photo was taken. He said his reason for getting his hair cut was that it became so heavy that his hairline appeared to be receeding.
That description made me curious: Can hair become so heavy that its weight becomes too strenious for its own good? Can the weight of long hair be so great that it would at least cause the appearance that its host has a receeding hairline?
If long hair is pulled a lot during brishing or combing, or tied back too tightly, it can cause hairs to be pulled out mainly at the extremeties, so it will appear to be receding.
Also, if hair is always parted in the same place, there will be a clear parting line which might appear to indicate that hair is falling out or being pulled out.
However, treating hair carefully will always work, and it is of course a better solution than cutting.
I knew a chap who grew his dreads for 12 years and then, when at a doctor's check-up found that the dreads were pulling his scalp off his head...Nasty...Mind you, he used to weld metal onto his dreads too...
There exist long haired Chinese women with hair lengths about 4 meters. Elizabeth from Austria had very thick and floor length hair over decades, she complained sometimes about headaches but I didn't heard anything about a receding hairline.
The longest hair I heard from had Mata Jagdamba, a Yoga-fellow, she had longer hair than 6 meters and 40 centimeters (from the Guiness book of records 1992)
I also heard from stories about men with superlong hair (longer than 4 meters).
The problem of this superlong hair (Guiness Book) may be that it is not clear if all the hair is attached to the roots (and then it can give problems with the weight, like extensions can do it), the hair looks like dreads, but this Chinese women seem to have long hair that is attached to the roots, and on the photos I can not discover a receding hair line.
Sikhs often have very long hair (to knee length or longer), but I don't know how to ask them.
wolfgang
This could be true. My hair sometimes feels a little heavy on my head but I am not planning on cutting any of it off. It took too long to grow. It ties into a 38 inch pony tail, I love every inch of it, and I plan on growing it even longer. Absalom
I cut my waistline hair to mid back as simply a matter of choice. I like it better at mid back to 3/4 back rather than at the waist.
I don't know about the weight thing. For me, it wasn't a problem at all. But...we're all different!
I think that you will find if you question those people more they will tell you that they wear their long hair in a braid, ponytail, or other style that groups it together and increases the weight in certain areas causing headaches, pain and hair/scalp damage.
Hair is so light that it's own weight, even when extremely long, won't be enough on it's own to cause the effects that you and others mentioned.
Putting one's hair in a ponytail causes damage?? I thought the damage caused by doing that is typically so minimal that most do not consider it significant enough to be concerned over.
It can be if you always wear it like that and if your hair is getting long enough for the pony tail to weigh enough to pull on some of your hair causing the mentioned problems. Keep in mind that I am talking about very long hair and not the shoulder length tails that many guys wear.
My scalp gets painful when wearing a ponytail for hours (or less if I did a hasty and poor job of tying it back). But the ache goes away when the hair comes down, I much prefer wearing it down.
The people that the original post mentioned almost always if not always are longhairs who only wear their hair tied back in one way or the other...all day everyday for years. It's usually all one length and you see them on the makeover shows looking for a change from their headaches and more often than not plain jane look.
I can back that up.
I have a friend who always wore her hair tied back in a tight high pony tail, her hairline actually receeded at the front because it always been tied back. She even slept with it tied up!
She told me a few weeks ago that she's been told she has to wear it down whilst she sleeps and at least 3 days a week or in a loose tail to avoid further damage.
Yeah, I've seen girls with receding hair from a ponytail, but I think the key is wearing it extremely tight and wearing a ponytail all the time. I don't think length per se has much to do with it.
It is also irreverently called ballerina head. Traction alopecia is a matter of hair loss due to tightness of the banding though weight could add to the problem as the tail pulls down increasing the tension in the hair. I had always heard about it in reference to women, ballerinas in particular for their supertight buns leading to temporary hair loss along the hairline. Reading the article linked below I was intrigued to learn it is also common among Sikh men with their traditional bun and it can even happen to their beard hairs.
Elizabeth
Like others have said, I think it's not the weight of the hair, but rather the way the hair is tied up or braided that can cause it to get pulled out. Some ways of tieing it can cause some hairs to be pulled more. In other words, if the weight of 10,000 hairs is put on one or two hairs, the one or two hairs could get pulled out. Also making the pony tail or braids too tight can cause strain on some of the hairs. The hair itself isn't heavy--my waist length pony tail is only about 2 oz.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my inquiry. I had a feeling that the person who wrote that profile didn't take very great care of his hair; it's no wonder that he concluded that his receeding hairline was caused by hair that was too long! I had my suspicions from the start, and your (excellent) posts have helped confirm those suspicions. Thank you all for your responses to my original post!