Hair Shedding or Hair Loss – Is Your Hair Shedding Normal?

June 3, 2024 BY JAY SMALL, HAIRSTYLIST AND CO-FOUNDER OF AREY

Hair Shedding – When Should You Worry?

Are you noticing more hair shedding than usual on your pillow or hairbrush? Maybe you’re seeing what looks like a lot of hair on the shower floor. Don’t panic. It’s quite normal to shed 50-100 hairs a day.¹

Lots of factors affect hair shedding – stress, the time of year, your haircare routine, or even your hormones. As a stylist and Trichologist (haircare expert), I know that sometimes you just shed more hair than usual, and excessive hair shedding often stops on its own.

My clients often ask me when to be worried about hair shedding. The answer – there’s a big difference between hair shedding and hair loss. While hair shedding is a normal part of your growth cycle, hair loss occurs when there’s something actively stopping your hair regrowing.¹

Here’s everything you need to know about hair shedding and hair loss, and the best ways to prevent and reduce excessive hair shedding.

What Is Normal Hair Shedding?

Normal hair shedding is a natural part of your hair growth cycle. Each of your hair strands will grow, rest, and eventually fall out. These four stages of your hair growth cycle are called the anagen (growth), catagen (transition), telogen (resting), and exogen (shedding) phases.

The best way to boost hair growth is to eat a hair-healthy diet rich in fruit and vegetables. You can also take a hair health supplement like Not Today, Grey, that delivers the vitamins your hair needs like B6, folic acid, biotin, and iron.

As a stylist, I know your hair health is a reflection of your diet. That’s why our very first Arey product Not Today, Grey was designed to deliver the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants you need to grow thicker, fuller hair. Not Today, Grey works from the inside-out as a proactive treatment that also slows the growth of grey hair.

How Much Hair Shedding Is Too Much?

If your bathroom floor is looking like it’s the end of the day at a hair salon, you could be experiencing excessive hair shedding (telogen effluvium).¹

Excessive hair shedding can be caused by any of the following stressors:

Significant weight loss: losing 20lbs or more can cause hair loss.
An illness with a high fever: many women report hair loss after COVID-19 infections.²
Surgery: hair loss can occur 2-3 months after a major illness or surgery.³
Stopping birth control: a lot of hair may fall out at once after ending birth control.⁴
Giving birth: postpartum hair loss peaks at about 4 months after giving birth.
Lifestyle stress: like divorce, illness, or redundancy.

Stress-induced hair shedding is normal and temporary. It usually begins a few months after the stressful event and peaks at about four months. After that your body readjusts and your hair regains its normal fullness.

Sudden hair shedding after hormonal stressors can be scary. You might see a lot of hair coming out all at once and a significant change to your hair. Don’t worry, with a healthy diet and good haircare habits, most women’s hair goes back to normal after 9 months.¹

Find out more about the best diet for thicker and healthier hair.

Do You Have Hair Shedding or Hair Loss?

If you are living with long-term stress, your excessive shedding may turn into hair loss. Hair loss is when something stops your hair from regrowing after it falls out.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology,¹ there are several causes of hair loss such as:

Hereditary hair loss
Chemotherapy and certain other drugs
Too-tight hairstyles or hair extensions
Harsh haircare products

Your haircare routine could be contributing to your hair loss. Harsh chemicals, additives, and artificial fragrances can all contribute to excessive hair shedding. That’s why all Arey products are clean and free from sulfates, formaldehyde, phthalates, parabens, gluten, artificial colors, and fragrances. They are also always vegan and cruelty-free.

Harsh cleansers like sulfates can over-cleanse your hair and scalp, leading to an unhealthy scalp and dry, brittle hair. The baseline for healthy hair growth is a gentle cleansing shampoo like Wash that leaves your hair soft and clean without stripping the natural oils (sebum) from your scalp.

If your hair loss is in a pattern (hereditary hair loss), or you think it’s caused by a drug or treatment, then be sure to consult your Dermatologist or Trichologist.

How Much Hair Shedding Is Normal in the Shower?

When you wash your hair, you naturally dislodge hairs that are in their resting or shedding phase. This is normal and healthy. In fact, losing the older strands makes way for fresh new growth.

Sometimes the amount of hair in your shower drain can look like A LOT. All those hairs gathered together are probably your normal shed, but they can make quite an impressive clump if you have long or textured hair. That’s why Dermatologists created a visual scale showing how hair fall can look for different hair types.⁵

How To Reduce Hair Shedding in the Shower

If you’re noticing more hair falling out than usual in the shower, there are several things you can do:

✅ Try a detox scalp massage: scalp massage increases blood flow to your hair roots and stimulates hair growth.⁶

✅ Exfoliate your scalp: we created Scrub to clear away pore-clogging debris and excess sebum that can impact hair growth.

✅ Detangle before you shower: use a wide-tooth comb to separate strands and reduce hair shedding while shampooing.⁶

Learn how to give yourself a scalp detox massage.

Why is a scalp scrub an important extra step in your haircare routine? Because the buildup of product, sebum, and dead skin cells on your scalp can block your pores and stop them from absorbing the nutrients in our science-backed haircare. That’s why you need a clean and exfoliated scalp and why we added Scrub – a buildup-busting scalp scrub – to our haircare system.

Hair Loss vs Hair Breakage

If you’re noticing that your ponytail is thinner and your hair looks choppy, it could be breakage that is making your hair lose volume. Heat styling and color take their toll on your tresses. The good news is there’s a lot you can do to reduce damage to your hair.

Here’s how you can avoid dry, brittle hair that breaks easily:

✅ Use a mild, balanced sulfate-free shampoo

✅ Wash your hair in cool or luke-warm water

✅ Consider highlights instead of all-over color

✅ Keep your heat tools on a low setting

✅ Always use a heat protectant when heat styling

Heat protectants work by coating each hair strand in heat-diffusing and moisturizing ingredients. A dime-sized amount of Arey’s Mend leave-in conditioner and heat protectant is clinically proven to reduce breakage by up to 45%.

For your healthiest hair now and in the future, don’t skip the heat protectant. Every time you style without a hair heat protector, you are adding on thermal damage. Your strands can become dull, dry, and vulnerable to breakage and split ends.

Here’s how the ingredients in Mend work:

sr-Hydrozoan Polypeptide-1 (Vegan collagen) plumps hair strands
Mend’s heat-protecting complex reduces the appearance of split ends
Polyquaternium-37 moisturizes, softens, and adds volume

Mend is lightweight so it doesn’t build up on your hair over time. On non-heat styling days, you can use it as a de-frizzing leave-in conditioner.

Arey – Proactive Haircare for Your Healthiest Scalp and Hair

All our products are designed to proactively protect, boost and restore your hair and scalp health. That’s why Arey haircare is Credo certified as Clean Haircare. We never use ingredients that could damage your hair and your scalp.

We want you to see your best results so we offer a 15% discount on all auto replenish orders. Our way of helping you stay on track with your hair health goals.

We are Arey.

We want you to feel happy and confident with your hair. Have questions? Say hey@areygrey.com or check out our FAQ page.

Jay Small with customer

AuthorJay SmallJay Small is a sought-after hair stylist and Trichologist in Los Angeles with over 22 years of experience. His clients consist of high-profile business and creative leaders. He trained as an apprentice to the owner of Paul Mitchell and worked in education and product development for Paul Mitchell Systems. Jay is incredibly passionate about the creative process both in terms of styling hair and developing effective products.

REFERENCES:

The Safest Way to Color Your Hair? At Home or in the Salon?

Why You Need to Nourish Your Hair From the Inside Out

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