Talk:Hair whorl

counter-clockwise hair whorl
Would that be counter-clockwise from the exterior point of view, or the scalp's point of view? Because they are opposite directions. :p —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.241.215 (talk) 14:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * thought Maybe if you live below the equator it would go in the opposite direction. 2605:2B00:40FF:6C00:34D8:1B63:4131:A6A3 (talk) 02:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Was wondering exactly the same thing. Any description dealing with direction or distance needs a point of reference! This whole article is pretty vague, actually. It talks about abnormal whorls, but fails to define what makes a whorl normal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.120.38 (talk) 00:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Material moved from article
I've moved the following material from the article here, because it was both unreferenced and written in a style which would need copyediting into house style to be incorporated properly into the article. -- The Anome (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Horse Hair Whorl Theory


 * Did you know that studies shown that you can predict a horse's personality by the whorl pattern of its head? Many horsemen believe in the old age tale of the predictive value of hair swirl patterns of horses. Bedouins in Arabia believed in this theory, so did the European gypsies, who were known for their bond to horses. Even "old time" horsemen from the 1940s put quite a bit into this theory.


 * A whorl is a patch of hair that grows in opposite direction from the surrounding hair, usually in a pinwheel arrangement. Whorls are unique to each horse, almost like a fingerprint. Hair whorls are formed in the fetus at the same time the nervous system is developing. It is believed a single whorl centered on the horse's forehead betwwen the eyes tends to be linked to an uncomplicated nature, where as more than one whorl on the forehead tends to indicate a higher strung horse.

Hair whorl connections to sexuality and handedness
These things have not been scientifically established, it should be stated that they are questioned. See here for a nice summary: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythhairwhorl.html Cstanford.math (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Definition of hair whorl

 * A hair whorl is a patch of hair growing in the opposite direction of the rest of the hair.

Growing in the opposite direction? That doesn't make sense and doesn't describe what it actually is. It's a patch of hair growing in a circular direction around a visible center point. Cstanford.math (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2017 (UTC)