I think, not. :dubious: How about you?
Except for the root, hair is really dead, yes.
QtM, MD
Really, really dead. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to cut/curl/color/perm/straighten it without a general anaesthetic
It’s really most sincerely dead. However, even hairdressers, who know better, get tired of fighting their customer’s ignorance and some just go with the popular “wisdom.” I had a hairdresser once who told me to think of my long, long hair as a fabric (or as natural fibers) and treat it as gently as you would old silk. Long hair has been exposed to the elements much longer than short hair.
If it were alive, it would bleed when you cut it.
It could be alive and still not feel pain.
It could be alive and still not bleed.
But hair is not alive. None of the hair outside of the very proximal tip of the hair follicle metabolizes at all. It’s nothing but a long chain of keratinized dead cells.
This is why I put vitamins in my body, but ignore “vitamin-enriched” shampoos that “nourish” my hair. It’s dead! It does not need vitamins. Or whatever pseudo-scientific nonsense they put on the labels.
I do like it to be clean and shiny, and may it rest in peace. (And do what I want.)
“But I’m not dead yet!”
“Shut up! Yes you are!”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are!”
Apparently so. The web page hasn’t been updated in years! 
“Dead” would suggest that hair was once alive, but passed away.
Let’s just say it isn’t living tissue.
HAIR METAL RAWKS, DUDE!!
It’s not dead, it’s just hibernating…VIVA POISON!
Thank you! Those commercials annoy the hell out of me. Every time one of them comes on I have to suppress the urge to yell at the screen, “Putting vitamins ON your hair won’t do anything, you idiots!”
And I especially love the graphics, which show how the “vitamins” are settling into the great gaping holes in your hair and “smoothing them out”…even IF vitamins were of any use to already-grown hair, that’s not why they would be.
It’s just pining for the fjollicles.
And the only reason that it stayed on your head is that it had been nailed there!
But it was alive at one point, wasn’t it?
Anyway, this thread makes me feel good about my buzzcut.
No, it wasn’t. Living cells at the base are secreting non-living tissue - hair. Hair itself is just protein. No cellular structure at all.
If hair being dead surprises you, then you have to hear this: All the visable skin on anyone’s body is also dead.
If it bleeds, you can kill it.
Life is essentially a cellular phenomenon. Setting aside viruses, which aren’t relevant here, the cell is the smallest unit of life. Only cells and groups of cells can be said to be alive. Living organisms are composed of cells and sometimes the products of cells. Products of cells include hair, teeth, nails, shells, coral skeletons, etc. But these elements are not, and never were, alive – only the cells that made them are/were.
So hair is just cell poop.