We often hear people compare very small sizes to “the width of a human hair.” Fair enough—most of us have a general sense of the size of a hair (it’s typically 50–130 microns wide, if you like to be specific!).
Have you every actually looked at a hair at the surface texture scale? We acquired this sample using a Keyence optical profiler. It’s fascinating to see how scaly the surface of a hair truly is. The new Enhanced Shadows feature in the OmniSurf3D lighting options does a nice job of highlighting the scale edges.
This data file includes an image overlay, which you can view by clicking the Image Overlay (camera) icon in OmniSurf3D:
While this hair sample was in fact brown, the color in the image overlay is coincidental. In reality, under the microscope, hair tends to look transparent, whether it’s brown, blond, or “other.”
Measured via: Keyence VK-X3050, 150x objective, laser confocal mode
Data source: Digital Metrology Solutions
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How to cite
If you use this dataset, please reference it as follows:
Digital Metrology Solutions. “Surface Library.” Digitalmetrology, digitalmetrology.com/dataset/human-hair. Accessed Mar 29, 2025.