The lifecycle of lashes – and how to keep them strong.First, it’s important to understand that hair – wherever it is on the body – is structurally the same, even though it may vary in appearance, length or growth cycle.
Amino acids – the building blocks of hair. In addition to other important roles, amino acids link together in thousands of combinations to create different proteins, in much the same way that different letters of the alphabet link together to create different words. In the case of hair, amino acids create a protein called keratin, and keratin is what makes up almost 90 percent of each hair strand.
The hair follicle – where an eyelash is born. The follicle is where each strand of hair is produced, and it lies within the skin’s surface. As long as the follicle is strong, it will retain hair longer. While millions of follicles cover our body from head to toe, on average, a person has only 150 to 200 upper eyelash hairs.
Hair’s growth cycle - the ultimate renewable resource. Hair grows in a cycle of three phases – anagen (the active growth phase), catagen (the transitional phase) and telogen (the resting phase) – and the length of each varies based on the type of hair it is. In general, eyelashes complete a full cycle in approximately 4 months, which is why they don’t grow as long as a strand of hair on your head, which typically has a growing cycle of 3 to 4 years. Another reason lashes don’t grow out of control is the length of each individual cycle – eyelashes have a short anagen phase and a long telogen phase, while the hair on your head is exactly the opposite. The good news is that in the absence of damaging factors caused by genetics or illness, each follicle has the potential to continue producing hair continuously if nourished properly, moving from one phase to the next before the cycle begins again.
Amino acids and peptides – keeping hair healthy and strong. Just like our bodies need food to survive, amino acids provide nourishment that hair needs to stay healthy. In the absence of an adequate supply of amino acids, individual hair follicles will compete against each other for nutrients and the potential for hair growth will be impacted. Peptides, on the other hand, support hair in a different way. They impact the skin dermal matrix, which is composed of numerous proteins including collagen, fibronectin and laminin. This process of strengthening the matrix ultimately allows very specialized cells, called dermal papilla, to create new hair within the follicle and keep the cycle going.
