In the field of forensic science, small evidences in the form of fabrics and hair strands proves to be very important. This is because they have the ability to shed light towards solving a crime in all simplicity and accuracy.

When you really think about it, hair and fiber characteristics forensic is a rather interesting field. Forensic experts are able to pinpoint the involvement of a certain suspect to a crime by simply recovering a single hair strand at the crime scene. Before, this development, fingerprints are the only things criminals have to be wary of. But now, even their hair and the minute pieces of their clothes could serve as a strong evidence that they, indeed, have been present in the scene of the crime. If they cannot deny the presence of these small elements, then it won’t matter if they have effectively gotten around the fingerprint concern with the use of surgical gloves.

Hairs are composed of a type of protein called keratin. Hairs are formally defined as the slender outgrowths found on human or animal’s skin. Each type of animal, including humans for that matter, grow a type of hair that is different in shape, length, color, appearance, and of course, innate microscopic features, that makes it distinct from one specie to another.

And these same hairs each animal grows are also different from each other depending upon where they are located. For example, the human hair found in the arms are different from the ones the grows on a person’s head. The same is true with other mammals. Animals have fur hairs, whiskers, and guard hairs – and these are all different in characteristic from each other.

This makes hair somewhat unique. And during physical contacts, hairs can easily be transferred. When in a particular scene of crime a single strand of hair is located, forensic examiners move at once to detect if it is from the victim or not. If it isn’t, then they would just need a match and they would be able to identify one suspect to the crime.

Basically, the process of examining human hair inside a forensic laboratory setting is done through the application of light microscopy. It runs on two phases. The first phase requires that the hair sample is analyzed and identified. The second phase is for comparing the recovered hair strand from a person or maybe an entry in the database. The whole purpose of hair microscopy is to determine whether there has been a single or more than one individual that comes in contact with the subject or object under question.

Basically, the same principle is applied to fabrics. A single strand of fabric can be used to determine the type of cloth it came from. And most of the time, a person’s clothing is enough to identify him or her involvement. The color, texture, and make of the fabric can indicate the type of person who uses it.

Hair and fiber characteristics forensics are very useful in solving crimes violent in nature such as aggravated assault, homicide, and sexual assault. These are the  most common types of crimes that involve physical contact. But even so, the same principles can be applied on non-violent crimes such as armed robbery and burglary as well. Shedding a hair or two is a possibility while the perpetrator is doing the crime. His or her dress being caught in the process is also likely.

But the value of recovering hair in the scene of the crime commensurate the ability of examiners to analyze it. Here is where the need of powerful microscopes come into play. For forensic laboratory setup, a comparison microscope is needed. To accurately scrutinize a hair strand, the competence of equipments, as well as the training and expertise of the investigator, is crucial. While hair strands are valuable evidences, if it cannot be assessed down to its microscopic characteristics, then it would be impossible to draw conclusive conclusions at all.

And so a high quality comparison microscope is required. A comparison microscope is a device that is actually two compound microscopes that are connected to each other by a bridge. This optical bridge is what allows the investigator to view two hair strand samples simultaneously.

More often than not, investigators put the recovered hair strand from the crime scene on one stage and then a sample of the suspect’s hair on the other. Looking though the microscope, they can see the two hair strands side by side. It now becomes easy for them to know for sure whether the hair strand does come from the suspect or from an entirely different person.