What Are The Stages Of Natural Hair Growth?

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:

• Stress
  
• You recently gave birth. Sometimes during pregnancy shedding is decelerated and it can resume at an accelerated rate immediately post-partum. 
  
• Other hormonal changes (pregnancy, birth control pills, etc.).
  
• Nutritional deficiencies. 
  

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!

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