Rapid Hair Growth In Strange Places.........WHY???

IF YOUR A WOMAN, NO NEED TO READ THIS ONE! Attention all men young and old, this will happen to you if it hasn't started already..........frequent noticeable hair growth out of you ears, nose, and eyebrows. As a barber, I'm constantly cutting hair out my clients ears, nose and/or trimming out of control eyebrow hairs. After being asked many times what causes such rapid growth in these ares I decided to do a little research. Here's what I found:

Hair growth is very susceptible to the so-called sex steroid hormones: principally oestrogen's and androgen's. The dominant hormone for males is in the androgen category, particularly testosterone. Surprisingly the levels of testosterone continue to increase with age up until the age of 70. Since most of male hair is responsive to androgen's with age and with increasing hormone levels you tend to get more and more vigorous hair growth particularly in the areas that were perhaps not as robust as when the individual was younger. For example, on the nose, ears and on their eyebrows. The nose and the ears have got thousands and thousands of hairs. They’re so small you can’t see – in fact the tip of the nose is the hairiest part of the body in terms of density of hairs per unit area. With time these can be stimulated with these male hormones which go up with age and therefore can become more cosmetically visible with age. The same applies for the eyebrows and for the ears. In women their oestrogen levels drop after menopause and their lower levels of testosterone become more engaged with the process of hair growth because they stimulate whereas oestrogen's tend to inhibit. You’re just releasing more stimulatory power from the androgen's we have.

Another source says, It was once believed that ear hair is an inherited trait that was passed along on the father’s side (in the Y chromosome). However, the research for this has been inconclusive. According to a study conducted in Mineola, New York, in 1984, 74% of the men surveyed had ear hair. Unfortunately, the study did not delve into the changes through age groups, ethnicities, or any other factors. What we do know about ear hair is that very tiny ear hairs in all of us act as a screen to protect your body from unwanted airborne pollutants (i.e. dirt). As men age, their hormone levels fluctuate. This change affects hair growth. Scientists believe that the hormone that causes baldness known as dihydrotestosterone (or DHT, for short) may also be responsible for those annoying ear (and nasal) hairs. However, very little research has been done on the relationship between the two.

Well fellas, for now we just have to keep cutting!