Over 40? Congratulations and welcome to the club. If you’re like most of my clients, being over 40 brings many blessings, including a stronger sense of yourself and your place in the world. When it comes to your best hair over age 40, you may also be noticing some changes. Not all of them good.
What Happens to Your Hair Over 40
As a Trichologist (haircare expert), I get it. Your hair isn’t as easy to manage as it was in your 20s. But, with a few changes and the right haircare, you really can have your best hair in your 40s and beyond.
Shop: Arey collection for fewer greys and thicker, fuller hair.
You may be noticing more silver along your part, or your hair may feel dryer, coarser, and harder to style. Many women aged 40+ also notice a dry, itchy scalp.
Here’s why your hair feels so different1 in your 40s:
- Hormone fluctuations mean dryer hair and scalp
- A shorter growth cycle (anagen stage) means less hair volume
- You produce less melanin (pigment) which causes more grey hair
Unwelcome changes to your hair thickness, color, and quality can be frustrating. The good news is that you have a lot more control over your hair health journey than you may expect. Only a small part of what’s happening to your hair is from genetics. 70% of the reason your hair goes grey relates to your diet, lifestyle factors such as sun exposure and stresses, as well as aging. Here’s what I advise my clients on the best ways to boost hair health and color after age 40.
My Trichologist Tips for Your Healthiest Hair in Your 40s
The good news is that it’s never too late to improve your hair health. Whether you're dealing with damage from heat-styling, chemical processing, thinning, greying hair, or scalp issues, there’s a lot you can do to heal your hair.
Here are my science-backed solutions to hair issues after age 40:
✅ Boost Your Hair Color and Reduce Grey Hair
Your hair turns grey because your follicles produce less melanin – the pigment that gives your hair its natural color.
There are two key ways you can boost melanin production:
1 - From the inside out: Yes, you are what you eat. A Mediterranean diet rich in antioxidants is a good place to start, but aging makes it harder to get all the nutrients your hair needs from diet alone. I recommend a hair health supplement like Not Today, Grey to boost hair health and help boost pigment production.
2 - From the outside in: You can help your pigment-producing follicles with To The Root™ – a lightweight topical serum that delivers pigment-boosting antioxidants and nutrients directly to your roots.
Used in combination, To The Root™ and Not Today Grey is The System – Arey’s clinically-proven haircare product that slows, delays and can reverse greying hair.
✅ Is Your Shampoo Helping or Hurting Your Aging Hair?
Because hair over 40 is dry and delicate, you need a gentle, balanced, sulfate-free shampoo. Sulfates and sodium sulfates are harsh cleansers found in many shampoos – even ones that promise to deliver moisture. That’s why Arey products are always free from harsh chemicals and potential scalp irritants like parabens, phthalates, sulfates, gluten, sodium, artificial fragrances and formaldehyde.
Your first step in healing hair damage may be to switch out your shampoo. I also recommend my clients add a little blood-flow-boosting self care to their shampoo routine with a detox scalp massage. Increasing blood flow to your hair roots is believed to boost hair growth, plus it gives all those anti-aging ingredients in Wash more time to be absorbed. For extra benefits you can use a scalp massage brush to boost the blood flow to your hair roots. Read more here about how to use a scalp brush to boost hair growth.
Related: how to give yourself a detox scalp massage
✅ Avoid Hair Heat Damage
As your hair changes after age 40, it can become coarser and harder to style. It can be tempting to turn up the temperature on your heat tools to tame those unruly tresses. It might work in the short term, but over time you are doing more damage to the outer layer (cuticle) of each strand, making your hair even rougher and coarser.
Mend absorbs deeply into your hair to hydrate, smooth, and protect the cuticle up to 450°. Mend also helps reduce the appearance of split ends and prevent breakage by up to 45%.
✅ Healthy Hair Over Age 40 Starts With a Healthy Scalp
Your scalp faces special challenges after 40. Estrogen is key to your scalp’s healthy production of sebum (a natural skin moisturizer) so, when your estrogen levels drop during perimenopause and menopause, your scalp begins to dry out. The result – itching, flaking and irritation.
Scrub also contains Arey’s Mela-9™ Complex to help delay new grey hair growth and even repigment existing grey hair.
✅ Why Your Hair at 40+ Loves Dry Shampoo
Because your scalp produces less sebum, your hair can become dry and coarse. Even if you’ve switched to a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo, you can still hurt your hair through washing too often. That’s why Trichologists recommend using a good-quality, non-aerosol dry shampoo like Wait A Sec® to extend the time between washes.
Over shampooing can stress your hair and make it more vulnerable to split ends and frizz. I recommend my clients shampoo their hair no more than twice-weekly.
Related: read more about how dry shampoo can be good for your hair.
✅ Rethink Your Color Strategy Over Age 40
If you’re regularly using permanent color to cover your greys, you may want to consider reducing your chemical exposure. Talk to your stylist about switching to lowlights or highlights instead of allover color. Those techniques mean less direct contact between your delicate scalp skin and the chemicals in your hair dye.
Related: The safest ways to cover grey hair
Whether you decide to cover your greys, embrace your greys, or repigment your greys, make sure you are taking the best care of yourself, your scalp, and your hair. Aging is a privilege and you should never feel pressure to hide the signs of aging. Those silver strands and laughter lines are a sign of a life well-lived.
Why Proactive Haircare Is the Best Care for Aging Hair
It’s never too late to start improving your hair health, color and texture. The sooner you start, the faster you will see results. Our clinical study of The System showed that 88% of participants had less grey hair growth after only 3 months.
Your scalp and hair health is important to us. That's why we offer up to 25% off on all subscription orders to help keep you on track with your hair health goals. Because we believe that science + consistency = results.
We are Arey.
Have questions? Check out our FAQ page or say hey@areygrey.com.
Jay 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:
- https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/how-your-hair-changes-as-you-age-plus-what-to-do-about-it#aging-hair
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