Baby hair texture

[tatje]

I was wondering if anyone else wondered or knows the answer to why is it when you are a baby, you hair is so delicate and straight and soft, but after a certain age or time, it just changes textures on you head but not anywhere else? The hair on your eyelids and eyebrows stay the same, and even for some people there body hair, but yet the texture on your hair changes (Not that any one texture is better than the other). I was wondering if anyone knew why or how?

 

[BellaCranberry7]

I always wondered that too. When I was a baby, I was born with stick straight hair that gradually grew curlier. My sister, on the other hand, was born with a thick head of curls. Twentysomething years later it's changed to a strong 4a/b.

 

[CAPlush]

I was wondering if anyone else wondered or knows the answer to why is it when you are a baby, you hair is so delicate and straight and soft, but after a certain age or time, it just changes textures on you head but not anywhere else? The hair on your eyelids and eyebrows stay the same, and even for some people there body hair, but yet the texture on your hair changes (Not that any one texture is better than the other). I was wondering if anyone knew why or how?

Babies have something called vellus hairs that they are born with. Later, terminal hairs grow in. You have a mixture of vellus and terminal hairs until puberty, which is when you shift to all terminal hairs.

 

[tatje]

Babies have something called vellus hairs that they are born with. Later, terminal hairs grow in. You have a mixture of vellus and terminal hairs until puberty, which is when you shift to all terminal hairs.

So is this the same hair ( vellus) on your face and body? Why doesnt that hair change? Some kids have there hair texture change once they reach 2 years old from there baby hair to a new texture. I just wondering whats the science?

 

[Victorian]

The science is that hair texture changes are caused by hormones. We don't know all the details of "why." Some of the details about how it happens, or at least what triggers some follicles to change and start producing a different type of hair are understood to some degree. Why it's certain follicles and not others...we don't know.
Your body hair does change (well, some of it), even very late in life. For many older folks, especially men, follicles in their ears and nose and even on their eyebrows change and start producing coarser, longer terminal hairs. That's why many old men have hair coming out of their ears and have bushy eyebrows and stuff even though they didn't have it when they were younger. Also, gray/white hairs are generally coarser than the hair you had when you were younger.
But yeah...we don't know anything about a purpose for it... It just happens.

 

[CAPlush]

So is this the same hair ( vellus) on your face and body? Why doesnt that hair change? Some kids have there hair texture change once they reach 2 years old from there baby hair to a new texture. I just wondering whats the science?

Here is the best explanation I could find.

Childhood
A newly born full-term baby has two types of hair. Terminal hairs grow on the scalp and eyebrows, but nowhere else. All the rest of the hair is vellus hair.
As the baby grows, the hair on the head grows too. There are two periods during which hair grows rapidly on the scalp. In both, the hair growth begins at the forehead and then extends to the back of the neck. When the baby is two or three mdnths old, the first hairs may be shed naturally over an area on the back of the head. This is often mistakenly thought to be due to head rubbing; hairs broken by rubbing may, however, be found on other parts of the head as well.

During the first year of the baby's life, all the hairs on the head grow at the same rate. At that time the head carries an even covering of hair. Then the individual hairs begin to grow independently, at different rates and in different cycles (you will read about hair growth cycles later in this chapter). Growth patterns called 'mosaics' develop.
Many children's hair shows features which are lost in adulthood. These include:​

• unruly hair which sticks straight up
• natural curls
• hair without pigment, which darkens as the child grow

Adolescence

Before puberty, the scalp carries a mixture of short vellus-like hairs and longer terminal hairs, together with various 'in-between' hairs. After puberty, in both sexes, most of the scalp hairs are terminal hairs. These hairs are thicker in diameter than the childhood hairs, especially in dark-haired people.
At puberty, terminal hairs begin to appear in the armpits, groins and legs, and also (in males) on the chin, chest and forearms. How much body hair you develop is genetically determined (that is, it is inherited from your parents).
​

http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_7.htm