• Question: Why is Harry Styles' hair curly but Louis Tomlinson's hair is straight?

    Asked by 1drawsome to Cathal, Daphne, Darren, Jon, Katherine on 10 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by esmethegreat.
    • Photo: Daphne Ng

      Daphne Ng answered on 10 Mar 2012:

      Ahh… you listen to One Direction too. In fact, I’m listening to What Makes You Beautiful as I’m typing this.

      Hair texture is determined by our genes but not everything is known yet. Genes are pieces of DNA that determine many of our characteristics. To keep things simple, there are genes that code for curly hair and there are genes that code for straight hair. Genes are passed down to us from our parents. So for Harry Styles to have naturally curly hair, one or both of his parents must have the genes for curly hair which were passed to him. Similarly, Louis Tomlinson’s parents must have passed on the genes for straight hair to him.

    • Photo: Darren Logan

      Darren Logan answered on 10 Mar 2012:

      One of the genes Daphne mentions is called “trichohyalin”. If you are European, the version of this you get will go some way to determining whether you have straight or curly hair. So its likely that Harry has one version of this gene and Louis has another.

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