What Causes Women To Grow Facial Hair?
No matter whether you’re struggling with hirsutism and dark coarse hair on your chin or are just beyond annoyed by the peach-fuzz on your face, you’ve probably wondered what causes women to grow facial hair. I think many will agree that it would just be SO much easier if the face was one of those hair-free areas, and we didn’t have to worry about our facial hair.
What Causes Women to Grow Facial Hair
Every woman (and man) in the world grows facial hair. What kind of hair we grow, however, depends on our genetics and hormones. Culture and personal preference often also determines how bothered or un-bothered we are by our more or less hairy faces.
In order to understand why women grow facial hair, we must first understand that there are two different types of hair: Vellus hair and terminal hair.
- Vellus hair, commonly referred to as “peach-fuzz”, is a short, thin and lighter hair, and covers pretty much our whole body.
- Terminal hair is the dark, stiff and coarse hair women with hirsutism often struggle with.
Both vellus and terminal hair growth are stimulated by growth and thyroid hormones. In addition, terminal hair is affected by androgens, the “male” sex hormones. Hormonal change can cause vellus hair to turn into terminal hair and terminal hair to turn into vellus hair. If women suddenly start to grow dark hair on their chin or side burns, it is indicative of a hormonal imbalance and a doctor should be consulted. Women who struggle with excess peach fuzz have a condition sometimes referred to as vellus hypertrichosis, which is not caused by male sex hormone and therefore doesn’t respond to a anti-androgen therapy.
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