Why is your beard hair so different from your head hair?

It’s a valid question, and one we’ve all asked at least once as beardsmen – why in the world is the hair on the top of our heads so different from the hair on our face, especially considering they meet at our sideburns? Business Insider recently published an article that has solved the mystery.

According to the piece, the answer is fairly simple and can be broken down by color and texture. In regards to color, “Deep inside the hair follicles — tiny pockets in your skin that house each strand of your hair — there are two different types of pigment that give your lovely locks their hue. These two types of pigment are eumelanin, which colors hair black or brown, and pheomelanin, which colors hair blonde or red. Despite what you may have heard, all humans have a little bit of pheomelanin in our hair. It’s just that in people with dark brown or black hair, the pheomelanin is effectively masked by the darker eumelanin. If your brown hair has a few golden or auburn tones, that’s the eumelanin peeking through.”

So seeing a few different shades of color in your beard is nothing to sweat. But now let’s get to the question we’re all really dying to know – why is the texture so different from our head hair? Once again, science to the rescue.

“As opposed to the hair on your head, the stuff coming out of your beard belongs to a type of hair called androgenic hair, which sprouts during and after puberty thanks to changes in the levels of a certain type of hormone called androgens,” the article explains.

“Like head hair, it goes through three different growth phases in which the hair grows at different speeds, but these phases happen at slightly different times, which influences how long or short your hair gets.”

To read the full article and learn some fun science facts about your body hair, head to Business Insider now!