Stars with a similar mass to the sun evolve towards the tip of the red-giant branch with a degenerate helium core. More massive stars leave the red-giant branch early and perform a blue loop, but all stars with a degenerate core reach the tip with very similar core masses, temperatures, and luminosities. After the helium flash they lie along the ZAHB, all with helium cores just under 0.5 M ☉ and their properties determined mostly by the size of the hydrogen envelope outside the core. Lower envelope masses result in weaker hydrogen shell fusion and give hotter and slightly less luminous stars strung along the horizontal branch. Different initial masses and natural variations in mass loss rates on the red-giant branch cause the variations in the envelope masses even though the helium cores are all the same size. Low-metallicity stars are more sensitive to the size of the hydrogen envelope, so with the same envelope masses they are spread further along the horizontal branch and fewer fall in the red clump.