The hair follicle usually consists of between 1-4 terminal hairs with associated sebaceous glands, tiny muscles, which can make your hair stand on end and a surrounding collection of blood vessels, nerves and binding collagen fibres. It is felt that this follicular unit constitutes a distinct physiologic entity and should be respected as such.  In contrast, when a hair is looked at in vertical section the follicular unit as such is less obvious. However it is useful to look at an individual hair to understand some of the terms that are commonly used when a patient is reading about androgenetic alopecia, male pattern baldness. Read more