The Anxiety of Watching Your Hair Fall Out
You notice it in the shower drain first. Then on your brush. Then on your pillow. The hairs seem to be everywhere, and once you start noticing them it is impossible to stop. You find yourself counting. You compare today's loss to yesterday's. You wonder whether it has always been this bad and you simply never paid attention, or whether something has recently changed.
Most of the time the answer is reassuring. Sometimes it is not, and the useful thing is knowing which situation you are in — because the second one needs a doctor, not a shampoo.
What Normal Hair Shedding Actually Looks Like
The American Academy of Dermatology defines normal daily hair loss as between 50 and 100 hairs per day. This figure reflects the natural cycling of hair follicles, each of which progresses through a growth phase (anagen), a transitional phase (catagen), and a resting and shedding phase (telogen). At any given time, approximately 85 to 90 percent of your follicles are in the growth phase, and 10 to 15 percent are in the shedding phase. That constant, gradual turnover produces the 50 to 100 figure.
On days when you wash your hair, you may shed more, because you are physically dislodging hairs that have already entered the shedding phase but remain attached. If you wash every three days, you may see what looks like three days' worth of shedding in one shower — which is alarming to look at even when the weekly total is completely normal. This is the single most common reason people think they have a problem when they do not.
When It Is Worth Getting Checked
Anything consistently above 150 to 200 hairs per day, a sudden noticeable increase on your own baseline, a widening part, a receding hairline, or hair coming out in clumps is worth taking to a GP or dermatologist rather than to a product.
A sustained increase in shedding typically means a higher-than-normal proportion of follicles have prematurely entered the telogen phase. This is called telogen effluvium, and it is commonly triggered by physical stress, illness, surgery, childbirth, rapid weight loss, nutritional deficiency such as low iron or vitamin D, thyroid disorders, and certain medications. Most of those are diagnosable with a blood test and treatable once identified — which is exactly why guessing at it with haircare is the wrong move. Telogen effluvium also has a delay built in: the trigger is usually two to three months before the shedding starts, so the event that caused it may be something you have already recovered from.
Shedding Versus Breakage
These are different problems and they look similar in a drain. A shed hair has come out from the root and has a small pale bulb on the end. A broken hair snapped somewhere along its length and has no bulb — both ends look cut. Tip the contents of your brush out and look at them in good light.
Breakage is not hair loss. It is mechanical damage, and it responds to how you wash, detangle, heat-style and tie up your hair. Shedding from the root is a follicle-cycle matter and does not.
What Haircare Can and Cannot Do Here
Let us be plain, because this is a category that routinely is not. No shampoo or conditioner changes what your follicles are doing. Nothing you rinse out of your hair extends the growth phase, reverses thinning, or brings a follicle back. Any cosmetic product suggesting otherwise is making a claim it cannot support.
What a gentle routine does do is remove one variable while you work out the real one. If your scalp is uncomfortable, if a product is irritating it, or if you are losing length to breakage on top of whatever else is happening, those are worth fixing — and they are the parts that are actually in your hands.
What We Make
Tasic Pure Oils makes Long and Strong — a shampoo, conditioner and mist built around organic aloe vera pulp and coconut milk. Australian-made in small batches, with no sulphates, silicones, parabens or palm oil.
It is not a hair loss product and we will not sell it to you as one. It cleans gently, conditions the lengths, and leaves the scalp comfortable — which addresses the breakage half of the picture and nothing else. If your shedding is genuinely increasing, please see a doctor first. Have a look at it here.
References
• American Academy of Dermatology (AAD): Hair Loss — Who Gets It and Why
• Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Vol. 133 (2013): Telogen effluvium and hair cycle disruption
• Rele AS, Mohile RB. Effect of mineral oil, sunflower oil and coconut oil on prevention of hair damage. J Cosmet Sci. 2003.
