Your hair consists of a hair follicle and hair shaft. The hair follicles in your skin contain living cells to allow your hair to grow. The shaft—the part of the hair we see—is made up of dead cells and consists of three different layers. As a piece of hair grows, it goes through three phases before it sheds and a new one grows.

Hair is a keratinous filament growing out of the epidermis. It is primarily made of dead, keratinized cells. Strands of hair originate in an epidermal penetration of the dermis called the hair follicle. The hair shaft is the part of the hair not anchored to the follicle, and much of this is exposed at the skin’s surface.

Hair is a slender filament of keratinized cells that grows from an oblique tube in the skin called a hair follicle. Each hair is composed of columns of dead, keratinized epidermal cells bonded together by extracellular proteins. The hair shaft is the superficial portion of the hair, which projects above the surface of the skin.

Hair under a microscope shows a hair follicle and a cylindrical hair shaft. In a hair shaft, you will find columns of keratinized cells organized into three layers – medulla, cortex, and cuticle. Again, the hair follicle is the epidermis structure that develops as down growth of the epidermis into the dermis and possesses different parts.