- With her 190 cm long hair, the young Nilanshi Patel came to beat a world record.
- It thus beats its own record of 170.5 centimeters, established in December 2018.
- But is such long hair safe for health?
Hair the size of a professional basketball player, not everyone can boast of such a feat! This is what is worth a new record, to say the least, unusual for an Indian teenager. With a mane measured at 190 centimeters, Nilanshi Patel, a 17-year-old Indian girl, retains her title as the longest-haired adolescent in the world.
The girl, who lives in the small town of Modasa, in the state of Gujarat (west of India), obtained again, in 2019, her certificate of the Guinness book of records, improving her previous record of 170, 5 centimeters established in December 2018. But is having such long hair safe for health?
Hair, an inert material
A pale complexion, a drop in energy, or even impaired growth. It is, in essence, part of the preconceived ideas linked to very long hair, which, like little vampires, would pump blood. By browsing the Internet for answers to shed light on these beliefs, it does not take very long to come across a forum on which a mother worries for her daughter about a probable link between stunting and very long hair, while others respond that the hair is "nourished" by the blood.
Do too long hair have these scary effects? "Of course not," says Dr. Pawin, a dermatologist in Paris. The hair is an inert material, like the nail elsewhere. There is the growth zone: the bulb, which is irrigated by capillary vessels. Then the hair shaft, the hair, composed of keratin. But it is not irrigated, there are no blood vessels or nerves in the hair. The proof is that it doesn't hurt to cut your hair, unlike cutting your finger! Letting your hair grow again and again therefore has no deleterious impact on health, ”reassures the dermatologist.
On the other hand, the longer the hair, the older it is and subjected to aggression. "To reach this length, the hair of the Indian teenager holding the record has not been cut for many years," said Dr. Pawin. In these cases, the hair is subjected to the mechanical aggressions of brushing, to pollution, to sometimes stripping hair care, which will damage the hair, which will be duller, split ends ”. And if the hair looks better when it comes out of the hairdresser, precisely because it is trimmed and rid of split ends, "contrary to other popular belief, cutting it does not grow back faster", adds the dermatologist.
"Rapunzel"
In India, Nilanshi Patel is the pride of his family, especially his father, who believes that his daughter's brown and silky train has allowed him to move from the status of local curiosity to that of international celebrity. Nicknamed "Rapunzel" by her friends and school friends, in reference to a princess with the long hair of a tale of the Grimm brothers, Nilanshi Patel has not pushed the door of a hairdresser for ... eleven years. "At 6, I had a very bad experience at a local hair salon," she says. “Since then, I have a lot of apprehension when it comes to cutting my hair. My parents accepted my choice and now my hair has become my lucky charm, ”she adds.
The young Indian must put on high heels to prevent her hair from dragging too much on the floor. She treats her hair like any girl her age, but needs help from her mother. “I do what every adolescent girl does. I wash my hair once a week and oil it once or twice a week, ”says the woman who wants to become an engineer. She dries them by sitting in the sun or with a hair dryer. “Generally, I make a mat, but to play or for certain occasions, I tie them in a bun. The only time I have problems is to swim. "
However, if like Nilanshi Patel, you dream of hair bigger than yourself, be careful to adopt a suitable hairstyle so as not to get caught in it.
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- Guinness book of records
- Record
- Hair
- Health
- India