Shedding : How much is ok?
It is probably fair to say that most of us have had the experience of looking towards the drain or looking at your hands after shampooing and being disturbed by how much hair has been lost in one wash. Even running your hand through your hair can pull out what seems to be an alarming amount of hair or doing a post hair dryer review of your hair brush, can be enough to make you think that there is an issue.
Facts and Stats
In reality, the majority of the time when you wash your hair properly or give it a good brush, it will remove any loose hairs as part of your body’s natural shedding process. On average, 50 to 100 hairs are shed daily. You are probably thinking that is way more than you were expecting and you don’t feel your hair grows that fast to make up for that, but most people have 80,000 to 100,000 hair follicles on their head alone, so 100 dropping off a day isn’t anything to worry about. Each hair strand has a life span of up to 5 years. The natural shedding process on average lasts 3-4 months with studies showing shedding occurs most often in Autumnal months.
On average, women lose more hair in a day than men, which is due to the differences in men and women’s daily hair routines, with women generally exposing their hair to more heat, styling and colour treatments. Add hormonal changes into the mix and women can lose 50 hairs more in a day than men.
Men aren’t excluded from hair loss experiences thanks to male pattern baldness and genetics - close to 7 million men are currently living with this in the UK and 50% of men in the UK will experience male pattern baldness to an extent by the time they are 50.
When to see and Expert
An easy at home test is the ‘pull test’ which can be done if you have suspicions that you may be experiencing hair loss that is more than natural shedding and has been going on for a prolonged period of time. Ensure your hair is clean and dry hair, then gently pull your fingers from the scalp to the tip of your hair and check the amount of strands in your hands after this exercise. If an excessive amount has been pulled (i.e. 10 to 15 hairs per segment), it might be a good time to give MHR Belfast a call. We offer free, no obligation consultations, so if you are worried and just want a hair loss professional provide an assessment, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We can take steps immediately to stop hair loss increasing any further until we are able to diagnose the cause of the hair loss, so you will be in safe hands. However, we may be able to look at your hair and diagnose straight away that it is just in the natural shedding cycle, but it’s always good to get peace of mind from a hair loss professional.