376 JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE Table VII Very Long Hair From the Literature Hair length No. of persons and source 488 cm -+ 91 cm (16' _+ 3') 305 cm + 91 cm (10' _+ 3') 183 cm _+ 30 cm (6' _+ 1') Three persons (4,5) Mata Jagdamba of India, 423 cm Hoo Sateow, 513 cm, and his brother, 493 cm (Thailand) Six persons Diane Witt USA (1988) 244 cm (8) (1992) 305 cm (8) (2000) 386 cm (8) Georgia Sebrantke, 301 cm (6) Wang Li Juan, China estimate from photo, 244 cm (6) Dyq, China estimate from photo, 274 cm (6) Lu Seng La, Thailand, 387 cm (6) Hiroko Yamazaki, Japan, 231 cm (6) Thirteen persons Jin Weiqun, China, 183-213 cm, estimate (6) Irena Godyn, USA, 193 cm (6) Cindy Christian, 188 cm (6) Tien Chun Mei, China, -183 cm, estimate (6) Xu Huiqin, China, 175 cm (6) Sabine, Germany, 173 cm (6) Darla, USA, 153-183 cm, estimate (6) Alia Bokareva, Russia, 165 cm (6) Dhorie Geronimo, 165 cm (6) Susanne Kalb, 165 cm (6) Yi Tao La, Thailand, 165 cm (7) Suzy, Florida, USA, 153 cm, estimate (6) Crystal Gayle, USA, 153 cm (6) period, but more likely it involves a defect in the mechanism to terminate anagen and to provide for the transition to catagen and telogen. If this same slope from equation A (35-to-183 cm) is extrapolated to represent one person in 4.5 billion (current "adult" world population), it provides a maximum hair length of about 247 cm. The simple fact that there are three people in the world today with hair nearly twice that length (see Table VII) confirms that a change in slope is necessary to account for these people with the abnormal hair growth condition causing scalp hair lengths greater than 183 cm. As indicated earlier, equation A permits one to estimate the percentage and numbers of people in the USA with hair of any length between 35 and 183 cm (see Table VI). For the developed world, the USA numbers were simply multiplied by 4.44, the factor between the USA population and that of the developed world (2,10). We estimate about 1,500 people in the world with hair down to their ankles, and about 324 people in the developed world with hair of that length, but only about 73 people in the USA with ankle-length hair. On the other hand, this equation suggests approximately 1,900 people in the USA have hair reaching to their knees, but more than 8,000 in the developed world and more than five times the developed-world number for the entire world. For estimating the numbers of people in the world with hair lengths longer than 183 cm

SCALP HAIR LENGTH 377 (Table VI) we used equation B. As indicated above, the estimates for the numbers of people provided by this equation are most likely low since the data used to derive the equation are from Table VII and are only from long-haired persons identified and measured over the time frame in the sources indicated. OTHER SOURCES Several decades ago, the Guinness group reported, "The longest recorded hair (scalp) was that of Swami Pandarasannadhi of the Thiruvadu Thurai monastery, India. His hair was reported in 1949 to be 792 cm (26 feet) in length" (2). The Guinness group continued, for three decades, to report the Swami as having the world's longest hair, but later (4) added the qualifying detail, "From photographs it appears that he was afflicted with the disease Plica caudiformis" (4). This is a disease of the scalp causing the hair to be matted and crusted, with the fibers "glued" together, appearing to form one single thick club like the tail of a horse. Later, in 1990 and 1991, the Guinness group indicated that, "no photographic or scientific evidence has ever been supplied in order to support this extreme measurement," for the hair of the Swami. Equation B indicates approximately one person in 6.7 billion for scalp hair at 792 cm in length. Considering that this number (6.7 B) is approximately 1.5 times the current world adult population, the hair length of 792 cm is a remote possibility. However, Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington estimates "105 billion births since the dawn of the human race" (16), and he feels that his assumptions of constant population growth during different periods, especially in the earlier periods, most likely leads to an underestimate rather than an overestimate. Of course, the practice of cutting hair also decreased dramatically in earlier years however, this factor would be balanced by a decrease in longevity in earlier years. Therefore, a scalp hair length of 792 cm since the beginning of time is a possibility. However, it is not surprising that that length has not been documented. In 1988 and 1990 the Guinness Book of World Records listed Diane Witt (9) as having the world's longest hair, and then Mata Jagdamba was measured on February 21, 1994 (5), followed later (1999) by Hu Saelao (Hoo Sateow), a tribal medicine man ofChiang Mai, Thailand, as having the longest scalp hair. At that time Hu was 85 years old. His hair measured 5.15 meters (16 feet, 10 inches) in 1999 (6), and he was reported to have not cut it for 70 years. According to the Guinness website (www. guinnessworldrecords. com), Hu washes his hair annually in detergent and wears it wound up in a "beehive" hairstyle. From photographs, he appears bald in the frontal area and his extensive growth of hair appears to be primarily from the rear portion of the scalp. Hu's brother also has hair nearly 5 meters long. Our literature search revealed three people today with hair near that length. The following facts on beard and mustache length, although not specifically relevant to this article, are listed for the interested reader. The longest beard on record was that of Hans N. Langseth of Norway, who was born in 1846 and died in the USA in 1927 (6). According to Guinness, at the time of his death in 1927, his beard measured 533.4 cm (17.5 feet) in length. It was presented to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, in 1967. The Guinness source lists the beard of Janice Deverse of Bracken County,