Issue link: https://www.ahpindiestylist.com/i/1547346
Explore your benefits at ahphair.com 43 UNSPLASH "e strand is dead," says Spyridon Markos, senior scientific advisor at QACS Labs, a laboratory testing company that provides quality control, safety testing, and clinical efficacy trials for the cosmetic and personal-care industries. "e follicle is alive. e scalp is the environment in which that follicle has to keep working." e fiber, follicle, and scalp age differently and need different care. e hair fiber accumulates physical and chemical damage over time. e follicle is what Markos calls "a regenerative mini organ," repeatedly cycling through growth, rest, and regrowth. And the scalp is living skin, with its own barrier, immune system, and microbiome that shi with age and stress. Genuine hair longevity, in Markos's view, isn't about making existing hair look younger. It's about preserving the follicle's ability to keep producing healthy hair through successive cycles. Not all follicles slow at the same time. Jay Small, a trichologist and cofounder of Arey Haircare who spent 24 years behind the chair before training in trichology, puts it in terms many stylists and barbers will recognize. Most of the scalp's approximately 100,000 follicles are healthy and can be le alone, he says. e ones along the hairline and at the crown, which are more exposed to sun, product buildup, or friction, start to change first. "You can relate it to the plants in your home," Small says. "ere are the plants that are by the window that you water all the time, and then there are the plants that aren't by the window that are stretching for sunlight that may be overwatered or underwatered."