Alope­cia Uni­ver­salis can be char­ac­ter­ized as hair loss through­out the body. Alope­cia Uni­ver­salis can be defined as the most severe alope­cia con­di­tion, indi­vid­u­als with this con­di­tion expe­ri­ence total hair loss of the scalp and body.  Many indi­vid­u­als with alope­cia uni­ver­salis are born with the con­di­tion but are healthy oth­er­wise. There are not enough stud­ies to ver­ify specif­i­cally what causes alope­cia uni­ver­salis, what has been dis­cov­ered is that this dis­or­der is inher­ited as an auto­so­mal reces­sive trait.  It is caused by a muta­tion in a gene, the “hair­less” gene only found in peo­ple with this dis­or­der. Aside from genetic ten­den­cies, the con­tribut­ing causes of alope­cia uni­ver­salis are not known. Fin­ger­nails and toe­nails can also be affected. Symp­toms in the nails are pinprick-like inden­ta­tion to sever dis­tor­tion of the entire nail. The lack of body hair leaves area like scalp, eyes and nasal cav­ity par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble, it is impor­tant that those with the dis­or­der take extra care to pro­tect them­selves from the sun and bac­te­ria to avoid get­ting infec­tions or skin cancer.