With technological and scientific advancements over the past few centuries, the hair of humans has gotten a lot longer. And in Gensokyo, much longer. Justice correspondent Kisumi Torisawa has explained why on one KBN This Morning interview.
The average length of a person’s hair, and as illustrated by her daughter Kagami Ochiai, is mid-back length. Men’s hair is a lot different compared to women’s hair. Each individual hair strand grows from an individual follicle, and the follicle contains the bulb in which the hair grows. The average woman’s height during the 19th century, namely during the Victorian or Meiji eras, was 150 centimeters, and the average hair length, even as of today, is roughly 60 centimeters for straight tresses.
This height also varies by ethnicity. At the time, the average height of people in Europe and North America was 159 centimeters, while people in Asia had a lower number at 142 centimeters. The latter was pretty short, compared to today. As the 20th century progressed, these numbers have grown and changed, and so did hair lengths. This also varies depending on fashion trends at the time.
The average hair growth per year is 15 centimeters. Gensokyo, or Kozan, is considered an outlier. A lot of women in the country managed to prove all other countries wrong. Some women, particularly youkai-borns, would grow over 20 centimeters of hair per year. Sometimes, that number was even bigger. You’re probably questioning, how is this possible?
For most of the past two millenniums (2,000 years), this number has not changed much. Starting during the Heian period, Japan’s hair started to see some faster growth. As previously mentioned, the average hair growth in Asian countries is double than to what is found in Europe or Africa – at 2 – 4 centimeters per month. In a year, that number would become 24 centimeters.
Some women have decided to try and grow their hair down to the floor. In Japan, this was pretty common if they wanted to become a respectful housewife. In Gensokyo, it’s still thriving. It generally takes several years to achieve it naturally, but some have gone on to shorten this length to a year. How? What kind of magic and sorcery is involved in this?
Hair growth can also be calculated by your genes. Two people of the same ethnic group would share similar genes. 80% of them are genetic and influence how long that person’s hair would grow naturally. The other 20% are driven from external or artificial forces. Even if your DNA dictates how long your hair can grow, sometimes that growth is interrupted when you reach a certain age.
If you grew up in a white-collar household, which generally had access to better nutrition, your average hair growth would be 1 centimeter longer at age 18. That number would be 1 centimeter shorter if you grew up in a crowded home where disease or infection may be present. It would be even shorter at 2 centimeters if you grew up in an industrial area where pollution may be present. The environment has noticeable effects on the rates of hair growth.
Over the past century, thanks to advancements in nutrition, sanitation, and medicine, the hair of people, including growth rates, has gotten way longer. Now, we need to put Gensokyo into mind. At the start of the 20th century, people in Asia were shorter than the global average, which meant shorter hair lengths. They mostly had caught up after World War II and into the 1960s. Food supply had increased at the time and because of this, the hair of people just kept growing and growing.
Your hair is inherited, something that’s always written into your genetic code. But enough of the genetic stuff. How have women in Gensokyo really grown their hair? Well, there are hair growth supplements that can allow for thicker, fuller hair strands, but another method was discovered through physical means.
What we mean is the inversion method. How this works is by the person tipping their head upside down and massage their scalp for five minutes. This can work with both wet and dry hair. Depending on your genes, this will not always work, but the reason it does is because when your head is inverted, more blood flows to your brain and head. As a result your hair will get more nutrients, causing it to have a growth explosion. Some people have grown two centimeters of hair a week under this method. If you did this once each day for an entire year, your hair would grow a whopping 105 cm, over three times more than the national average!
While the inversion method has been effective, this method should not be performed by people who have certain medical conditions, such as those with high blood pressure, heart disease, or are pregnant, due to concerns these conditions would be aggravated. Additionally, small hairs may fall out, and hair supplements such as Nature’s Bounty may be needed to ensure the hair is thickened and does not fall out.
Sources
- https://www.hadviser.com/hair-length-chart/
- https://www.livescience.com/42868-how-fast-does-hair-grow.html
- https://www.instructables.com/How-to-grow-your-hair-1-inch-or-more-in-a-week-wit/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLk6GUKzU0
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