EASY READ The human body
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What are hair and nails made of?
Both hair, which feels quite soft, and nails, which feel hard, are made of the same chemical substance. This is called keratin. It also forms the tough outer surface of the epidermis, the upper layer of skin. And just like the surface of your skin, your hair and nails are mostly made up of dead cells.
Hair
Most of a hair, including the shaft that is visible above the skin, is made of dead cells. The living part of a hair is found at its root. This is fixed deep inside a pit in your skin, called a follicle. A tiny muscle is attached to each follicle. In cold weather, these muscles pull the hairs upright. This makes the skin bunch up around the hairs to form goose pimples. For our hairy ancestors, this helped to keep them warm.
Hairs grow all over the body, apart from on your lips, the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. There are about 120,000 hairs on your head and 4 million tiny hairs over the rest of the body.
Like your skin, your hair contains a colouring called melanin. Blond hair has less melanin in it than dark hair.
Fingernails and toenails
Like hairs, nails grow from the epidermis. Nails are made from dead cells packed with keratin. The living cells grow in the nail root, deep inside the skin. As it grows, a nail moves over the nail bed, the pinkish area of skin that can be seen underneath the nail. Nails grow around 3 millimetres (0.12 inches) a month. Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails. They also grow fastest during the day and during the summer.
Consultant: Kristina Routh
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