All hair has three growth phases: 1. Anagen phase: hair growth Can last 1 to 10 years, but is 4 to 7 year on average. According to The Science of Black Hair, 88% of the hairs on your head are in the anagen (growth) phase at any one time. 2. Catagen phase: hair resting Lasts anywhere from 4 weeks to 4 months; 1% of the hairs on your head are currently in the catagen (resting) phase. 3. Telogen phase: hair shedding 11% of the hairs on your head are currently in the telogen (shedding) phase. These hairs either come out on their own or are pulled out during styling. If you have braids or dreadlocks the shed hairs don't fall out because they are restricted from doing so. It is normal to lose 50 to 100 hairs per day. The average head of hair has 100,000 hairs on it so don't worry you're not going to go bald. Excessive Shedding Do you think you are losing more than 100 hairs per day? Or is your hair thinning? This could be because of:
Most of the time, an increased rate of shedding will stop on its own. However, there are things you can do to stop your hair shedding faster...we'll talk about these another time!
The quick answer: YES.
Shedding hair is a natural process that you can't stop; it's genetically predetermined. All hair has three growth phases: 1. Anagen phase: hair growth Can last 1 to 10 years, but is 4 to 7 year on average. According to The Science of Black Hair, 88% of the hairs on your head are in the anagen (growth) phase at any one time. 2. Catagen phase: hair resting Lasts anywhere from 4 weeks to 4 months; 1% of the hairs on your head are currently in the catagen (resting) phase. 3. Telogen phase: hair shedding 11% of the hairs on your head are currently in the telogen (shedding) phase. These hairs either come our on their own or are pulled out during styling. If you have braids or dreadlocks the shed hairs don't fall out because they are restricted from doing so. This is actually one of the reasons locs can appear to be thicker than normall hair, shed hair remains matted to the loc and cannot escape. Shedding is different to breakage. Broken hair does't usually come out from the root it is broken off at an intermediate point due to stress, styling and other hair handling. How can you tell if the hair in your hand is shed or broken? A shed hair has a white/grey bulb at the end of it. Why is this? Because hair in the catagen phase doesn't produce hair color or melanin. A shed hair will also tend to be much longer than a broken hair because it detaches itself straight from the scalp. How many hairs should you shed in a day under normal circumstances? Most say 50 to 100 hair per day; others say up to 200 hairs is normal. |
I now blog about wealth creation - so if you have any money questions meet me there, you can do all sorts of cool things like leave me a voicemail.
By Heather Katsonga-Woodward
I was a natural hair blogger and mixtress living between London & Chicago from 2012 to 2017. I always thought I was 4C but some say 4B; images below - you decide! Heather xx Categories
All
Archives
November 2016
|