Well the answer isn’t clear-cut. It’s a yes and a no. It all depends on which part of the hair you’re referring to. The hair follicle, which extends into your dermis and delivers nutrients to the hair via the capillaries, or the shaft of the hair (the visible part), which according to dermatologists, doesn’t have any physiological activity.

You can think of it as dead in that the strands of hair don’t actually have blood running through them, nor do they have nerves or muscles. However the scalp from which hair grows out of contains tiny follicles, each growing up to eight stands of hair, and each reaching into the deeper layer of the skin for blood flow and nourishment. This part of the hair is indeed alive and needs plenty of good nutrients, gentleness and care, to grow healthy and strong.

Each follicle is also connected to nerves and muscles that give the hair its tactile properties, and allowing wind and touch to be felt. Stress or tension of any kind can contract the scalp cutting blood flow and resulting in potential hair loss or alopecia.

Through a process called keratinisation cells located at the bottom of the hair follicle (root) continuously divide to produce new cells; it is therefore also important to use gentle products when washing and styling because anything that clogs the follicles can result in an accumulation of dead skin cells not allowing the scalp to breathe and have a balanced sebum production.

Exfoliating Wash to stimulate blood flow and nutrients to reach scalp.

Basically we can say hair has a tolerance level and with chemical products we tend to over-reach that point resulting in damage and often inflammation of the scalp.

Each of us is born with a specific number or follicles, which cannot be changed and so it is important to treat each stand as a living sensitive organism dead or alive!