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Woolly hair is a difficult to brush hair, usually present since birth and typically most severe in childhood. It has extreme curls and kinks and occurs in non-black people. The hairs come together to form tight locks, unlike in afro-textured hair, where the hairs remain individual. Woolly hair can be generalised over the whole scalp, when it tends to run in families, or it may involve just part of the scalp as in woolly hair nevus.
The presence of woolly hair may indicate other problems such as with the heart in Naxos–Carvajal syndrome. Diagnosis is suspected by its general appearance and confirmed by scanning electron microscopy.
The condition is rare. Alfred Milne Gossage coined the term woolly hair in 1908. Edgar Anderson distinguished woolly hair from afro-textured hair in 1936.