To understand why we lose our hair, it is important to understand how it grows. Hair is considered dead, technically speaking. But at the root of every hair strand is a living essence of the hair. Therefore, it is alive and can die after all.
The Hair Structure
Hair grows anywhere in the body except in the soles and palms. It is divided into two major parts: the root and the shaft. The shaft is the appendage while the root lies beneath the skin surface. Basically, it is in the hair follicle where the hair grows. At the base of every hair follicle is the dermal papilla, which contains the essential nutrients for hair production.
The Hair Cycle
The hair undergoes three different stages in the hair growth cycle: anagen or growth phase, catagen or transition phase, and telogen or resting phase. The entire hair growth cycle repeats every four to five years at any one time.
Anagen Phase
In the hair matrix are rapidly proliferating cells that would generate the hair in the internal root sheath. These cells would later move up and become keratinized to form the hair.
The anagen phase is marked with the proliferation of these keratinized cells at a pace faster than any other cells in the body. Approximately 90% of the hair in the scalp is undergoing anagen phase, which lasts from three to five years. Each month, the hair grows to an average of 1.5 inch.
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Catagen Phase
The catagen phase is the short transition between the anagen and the telogen phase. It lasts for about one to two weeks. In this stage, at least 1% of the hair starts dislodging from the dermal papilla, causing the follicle to shrink to 1/6 of its original length. The effect would be club hairs.
Telogen Phase
In the last stage, the telogen phase, approximately 10 percent of the hair starts shedding off. The hair stays attached to the follicle but stops growing while the dermal papilla stays in the resting phase. However, through washing, combing or the wind, the hair follicle dislodges the telogen hairs. This phase could last up to 5-6 weeks. When the telogen phase ends, the hair growth cycle begins anew.
The Bottom Line
There is a normal process by which we lose our hair. That happens during the telogen phase. In fact, we lose 50-100 hair strands a day as part of this renewal process. However, the hair growth cycle can be disrupted, causing abnormal loss of hair. These hair loss triggers include genetics, ageing, hormonal imbalance, stress, and medications among others.
I don’t have anything to say but thank you, thank you for posting this fact article about the life cycle of the hair.
Only ourselves can help to minimize the hair loss problem, the common things that we can do is to maintain the proper nutrition and keep yourself free from stress…
I’ve just known that 1.5 inch is the average of the hair as it grows every month, i thought it was only 1 inch…good to know this…
So thankful that I’ve found this site. It really is good to read it and knew its cycle.
Great post! it’s like i’m in the science classes..haha
As watching the image, i now imagined more on why do hair is easier to lose when wet…
But oh, it really is hard to avoid ourselves free from stress..
We can really help ourselves to minimize the hair loss problem, the common things that we can do is to maintain the proper nutrition and keeping yourself a stress free.
Only ourselves can help to stop our hair loss problem, the things that we can do easily is to maintain the proper nutrition and keep ourselves free from stress.
While i am looking onto the picture, i imagined why do hair is easier to lose when it is still wet.
This shows that we must give more care of our hair, because it’s the primary thing that gives us beauty.
If a person wanted to avoid hair problems, the best thing to do is only to take care of it, avoid some activities that cause hair damage and etc.
If we loss 50-100 strands of hair, how many is the possible hair that grows?oh well, that would be too hard to determine since almost all the people are experiencing abnormal hair loss.
Yes, there is a normal process by which we lose our hair, but with some carelessness, we lose our hair too much, that is abnormal already.
We just have to be careful with our hair to not to lose it too much.
This post must be given an importance.
Only our care for our hair is what it (hair) needs, or else, only us who will suffer the result of our carelessness…
I enjoyed reading this article. It really is good to read and know the hair cycle.
Only us people who can minimize hair loss problem. It depends also to our lifestyle.
We just have to take care of our hair specially when choosing shampoos..
Aging is totally one of the causes of hair loss and even diseases.
Only up to 1.5 inches our hair grows in a month, but so easy to lose it. That’s is why we must be careful with our hair specially in every moment we choose products to be applied on it and even in time of combing.
Much better if we minimize being stressed, try to avoid it even if very busy at work or anywhere.
This is such a great information that you have posted. thanks for this.
We may say that hair is just a very small thing that’s part to our body but it has a very important role to some of our body parts.
Hair is really the one that gives us the beauty.
That’s true Cormier, one of the importance of the hair is to give us nice looks, sometimes, our beauty depends to our hair styles.
Ageing do really triggers into hair loss problem.
Such a great information that you’ve shared to us.
We normally lose 50-100 hair strands, if we will not take good care of our hair, we may lose more than the normal and is hard for us to have it back if we are really experiencing hair loss problem anymore.
Many are trying to find out of what would really the causes of their hair loss.
We may say It’s just a hair, but it holds a very important role, so we must be more sensitive when it comes to hair care.
Such a great article. Keep sharing your article honey.
Seriously, some hair are choosy when it comes to shampoo.
Hair has its life cycle, it normally losses some strands but if with our carelessness, we will loss more and more hair strands.
Wow, i thought it’s only .5 inch that our hair grows a month, but it is actually 1.5 inches.
It’s so nice to know about the hair cycle. Keep it up.
So we loses our hair if it is in its telogen phase, right?