the free hair encyclopedia that anyone can comb — 3 quirky-but-mostly-true articles and growing.
Do hair and nails grow after death?
The widely believed claim that hair and fingernails keep growing after a person dies. They do not — but they really do look like they do, and there's a tidy bit of physics behind the illusion.
Combing long side hair across a bald scalp is one of the oldest tricks against baldness — and, improbably, a patented invention. In 1977 a father and son were granted a US patent for the comb-over, and in 2004 it won them an Ig Nobel Prize.
Humanity has been gluing other hair to its head for at least 5,000 years. A short history of the wig and the toupée, from shaved-headed Egyptians to powdered courtiers to the modern hairpiece.
The widely believed claim that hair and fingernails keep growing after a person dies. They do not — but they really do look like they do, and there's a tidy bit of physics behind the illusion.