- Comic
- Comic
Hair
Humans don’t like body hair. Unless they do. It depends.
- Photo story
- Photo story
‘My Hair Is Not…’
Eight Black people talk about their relationship with their hair – their hairstyle history, their experiences, and how they decided to have natural hair.
- Comic
- Comic
New hair, same me
Curiosity must come with respect.
- Photo story
- Photo story
My body, my hair
To depilate or not to depilate? Farah Esset and Eden Rickson share a collection of personal pictures and stories that explore the intimate interplay between body hair and identity.
- Article
- Article
What our facial hair says about us
Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.
- Photo story
- Photo story
How wigs help children handle hair loss
For young people who lose their hair during cancer treatment, a wig can make them feel normal again. Carmel King photographs some of the processes and people involved with a charity providing beautiful human-hair wigs for kids.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Historical ways to hang on to your hair
Could upper-class hair-hygiene regimes cause baldness, or does hair health depend on a blast of deadly mercury? Maisie Jenkins scours the archives for historic follicle care.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Alopecia in men
Men break their silence about total hair loss in these intimate portraits and interviews by Orlando Gili.
- Article
- Article
How your hairdresser could save your life
Barbers and hairdressers have a unique view of us – one that means they can spot potentially dangerous health problems. Find out how buzzcuts can lead to blood-pressure checks, and dip-dyes show the way to the dermatologist.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Advice for (medieval) old age
Whether it was an abstemious, pious preparation for death or drinking gold in the quest for eternal life, those seeking advice on what best to do in their later years were never short of inspiration.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Electric marvels in the age of enlightenment
How our understanding of electricity has grown, from novelty to the pulse of modern life – and the inner fire that powers the human machine.
- In pictures
- In pictures
From rockets to raves
Find out how hydrogen peroxide has been used to do everything from investigate murders and propel rockets to treat teeth and bleach hair.
- Article
- Article
The making of ‘Quacks’
How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?
- Article
- Article
Keeping death close
Scattering her father’s ashes, Lauren Entwistle found herself longing for something physical that proved he once was a living, breathing person. Here she reflects on the objects that help us to grieve and remember.
- Article
- Article
Identifying skin lightening agents in cosmetics
Could your moisturiser be damaging your health? If it contains skin-lightening agents, the answer is yes. But this is an area where consumers definitely do not have the upper hand.
- Article
- Article
How to talk to kids about race
When her daughter decided blonde was best, a red flag went up for Pragya Agarwal. In this essay, the behavioural scientist discusses childhood development, race and representation.
- Article
- Article
Our endless quest for eternal youth
From poisonous 16th-century cosmetics to the latest “vampire facelift”, discover the fashions in unsavoury methods for improving our appearance.
- Article
- Article
Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music?
Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.
- Comic
- Comic
Bald
Don't let your selfish hair mask your cranial beauty
- Comic
- Comic
Facts
More hair grows on your eyeball than your armpit.
- Article
- Article
Witches
Many of the women persecuted as witches in the 16th-century “witch craze” were over 50 and exhibited signs of menopause. Helen Foster suggests that the stigma of the wicked witch still affects older women and how they deal with menopause.
- Article
- Article
Doris Day blows against
Dodie Bellamy remembers a heady summer watching Doris Day grimace and gust in vintage movies, her expressive exhalations changing her onscreen world with a puff.
- Article
- Article
Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child
As mother of an autistic child who questions her gender, Jude Lax describes cherishing her growing daughter as she explores her identity.
- Article
- Article
Building resilience in a racist world
With the resurgence of racism in today’s UK, Louisa Adjoa Parker reflects on the trauma of growing up in a racist society and explores how victims could begin to heal.
- Article
- Article
The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming
Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.