You can perform a “pull test” on your hair at home. Start with a small area of clean, dry hair, and run your fingers through it, tugging gently once you get to the ends of your hair strands. If more than two or three hairs are left in your hand after each tug, you may be experiencing telogen or anagen effluvium.
You're Hard on Your Hair
Using too much shampoo, brushing or combing your hair when it's wet, rubbing hair dry with a towel, or brushing too hard or too often can all strain your strands and make them break. Two big cause of breakage include braids that are too tight and weaves that weight down the hair.
The truth is, it's completely natural to lose hair every day. In fact, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, it's normal to lose between 50 to 100 strands of hair a day. And according to Medical News Today, the reason for this shedding is due to your body's natural renewal cycle.
Fun fact: Humans usually shed as many as 50 to 100 hairs each day during the telogen phase, per the American Academy of Dermatology, and this loss is most often noticed when you're washing, brushing or running fingers through your hair.
Hair often falls out in the shower because you stimulate your scalp when you shampoo or condition your hair. Your hairs that were already destined to fall out get the nudge they need from shampooing, and your hair comes off your head.
The way to be proactive to stop large amounts of hair shedding is by taking hair vitamins to strengthen your hair. Biotin for example can be bought at any drug store and is incredibly effective in helping to strengthen your hair and help it grow. Another vitamin that can help with hair shedding is Vitamin A.
You may notice it in the shower or in your hair brush. Hair shedding can involve a significant amount of hair falling out. However, it typically results in hair regrowing from the same follicle. This is unlike hair loss, which leads to permanent or semi-permanent loss.
On average, normal hair loss is less than 100 hairs per day. Losing 200-300 hairs per day is abnormal, especially since you've noticed a sudden increase in the amount. This may be an indication of your body responding to a stressful event, illness, hormonal imbalance or medication.
The average person loses 50 to 100 hairs a day, but it really depends on length and thickness of the hair. People with shorter or thinner hair appear to shed less. On days when people with long or thick hair wash it, they could shed between 150 and 200 hairs.
Pulling out hair by your root may damage your follicle temporarily, but a new bulb will eventually form, and new hair will grow again through that follicle. According to the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, it may take a few months or more than a year in some cases.
Here's the truth: You can't change the size of your hair follicles. If you were born with fine hair, it's genetics, and no product will completely alter that. Of course, there are ways to maintain your hair health, add volume, and keep it from getting any thinner.
According to Fenton, one study has shown that we have the highest number of hairs in the telogen phase in July, and a second smaller peak in April. "Hairs in the telogen phase generally fall out 100 days later, which means that people would see a shedding at the end of the summer and into the fall.
Only the number of shed hairs can be assessed, not the amount of hair, due to the shaft length. People with long hair do not necessarily loose more hair, they just appear to loose more hair due to the hair shaft length. Hair length does not affect shedding.
If your hair is falling out in clumps, you could have scarring alopecia, anagen effluvium, or male pattern baldness, but it's more likely to be either telogen effluvium or alopecia areata. The most important thing is to act quickly, as hair loss can often be treated more effectively in its earlier stages.
Sulfur. It's important to avoid shampoos that contain sulfur, which could worsen your hair loss. “While sulfur allows shampoos to lather well, it also strips the oils from your scalp, causing your hair to dry out and break," Taub says. "This can actually lead to the appearance of thinning hair.”
Your hairdresser may advise you that shaving your head if your hair is thinning isn't necessary yet, and instead will cut your hair into a style that accommodates your thinning hair better.
For the average person, every other day, or every 2 to 3 days, without washing is generally fine. “There is no blanket recommendation. If hair is visibly oily, scalp is itching, or there's flaking due to dirt,” those are signs it's time to shampoo, Goh says.
In women, hereditary hair loss usually starts after the age of 40. Roughly 40% of women have detectable hair loss by the age of 50. And less than half of women get through life with a full head of hair.
Although hair re-growth may be possible, you should also know when to seek professional help. If the reason for thinning hair is genetics, it will not grow back on its own. To grow back a healthy, full head of hair, you'll need to take action, and that involves reviewing different hair loss options.
But when an individual experiences a stressful event, such as COVID-19 infection, our bodies can prematurely shift a greater than normal proportion of growing anagen hairs into a resting telogen state.