5 sneaky reasons why men and women experience hair loss, & what to do about it

While it’s normal for humans to lose about 50 or 100 strands of hair a day, what’s not normal is finding a huge chunk of hair trapped in your brush or seeing a bald patch grow where your parting is.

Contrary to what most people think about hair loss, it doesn’t only happen to people who are older. Besides age, there are many other reasons for hair loss that can sneak up on you, such as tying up your hair into the season’s slicked-back bun or having a nutrient-deficient diet.

The good news is that making changes to your lifestyle can bring back healthy strands, so read on to discover five sneaky reasons why men and women experience hair loss, as well as what you can do about it!

Scalp tension

While Y2K hair trends have made us obsessed with plenty of tied hairstyles like the Bella Hadid-inspired slicked back spikey bun, face-framing feather braids, and high-swept bubble braids, pulling your hair up into a tight ‘do regularly can actually contribute to your falling strands.

This type of hair loss is called traction alopecia, and it’s caused by too much tension or strain on your scalp that comes from pulling back your hair too tightly or too often. The result is a receding hairline or the widening of your parting – sadly, an everyday slicked-back “clean girl” hairstyle has its costs.

Besides straining your hair from the root, sweeping your hair up into tight braids or ponytails can also cause already thin or weak strands of hair to break (at its lengths), giving you a thinner, less voluminous mane.

What you can do:

Instead of using slim elastic bands (the same ones used for feather braid or bubble braid hairstyles), you can choose to use silk scrunchies, spiral hair ties, or even the trendy claw clips to keep your hair up and out of your face while preventing breakage.

Silk is a wonderful fabric for the hair as it’s gentle and causes less friction on the strands. Silk scrunchies are, therefore, a good choice, not just because they’re looser and cause less strain on the scalp, but also because they prevent damage to the strands too.

Bonus: you’ll enjoy less frizz and reduce kinks on your hair, which will allow you to let your hair down in the middle of the day, even if you tied it up when you left the house this morning.

Chemical or heat treatments

Besides scalp tension, chemical or heat treatments are also another reason for hair loss due to breakage.

Overprocessing your hair by bleaching your hair too often will easily cause your hair to become thinner and more prone to snap off at its lengths.

Even heat-styling your hair daily can damage your strands, and it’s always best to make sure that you shield your tresses with heat protectants, or give your hair a rest from the curling rod or straightener in-between.

What you can do:

Instead of light hair colours that require bleaching, you can go for gentler options that are less damaging to the tresses, such as deeper chocolate, honey, or chestnut browns.

You can also go for a hairstyle that doesn’t require as many visits to the salon, such as a balayage.

Balayage boasts an ombré design, with a darker colour near the roots and highlights that flow into full colour at the ends; this allows the hair to grow out more naturally, giving your strands a chance to “breathe” for longer intervals between salon visits.

Imbalanced diet

It’s true – your nutritional intake does make a difference to your hair’s health, especially when it comes to hair-supporting nutrients like protein, iron, and vitamin C, to name a few.

Fun fact: your hair strands are made of protein. It only follows that having a sufficient intake of protein in your daily diet is important for healthy hair growth.

Foods like eggs, dairy (milk, yoghurts, cheese), chicken, and seafood (fish, scallops, clams) are rich sources of protein; a healthy, balanced diet with enough protein will give you healthier, stronger, and more lustrous strands.

Besides the hair strands, the follicles also need sufficient nutrients for hair to grow well. While iron isn’t a mineral that’s needed by the strands, low levels of iron (in the blood) can disrupt the nutrient supply to hair follicles, which affects hair growth cycles and causes strands to fall easily.

Taking iron-rich foods like red meat, chicken, and fish will ensure your body has an ample supply of the mineral. Vegetarians can also consume leafy greens like spinach, broccoli, and kale.

Coming hand-in-hand with foods rich in iron should be ones that contain vitamin C, as vitamin C enhances iron absorption in the body. Vitamin C also helps the body to produce collagen that’s important for hair growth since collagen makes up the hair strands and capillaries surrounding the hair follicles.

Some examples of vitamin C-rich foods include citrus fruits (oranges, lemon, kiwi), strawberries, tomatoes, and bell peppers.

What you can do:

Make sure that you’re getting enough protein, iron, vitamin C, as well as other hair-supporting nutrients or minerals in your diet. There’s no need to overload your body with these nutrients, instead, ensure that you’re taking them in healthy, balanced amounts.

Should you find it difficult to adopt a daily balanced diet, you might also consider taking oral supplements that help with hair growth or consulting a dietitian for meal plans that fit your lifestyle.

Stress

While you’re stressing out about your hair loss situation, you should know that another big culprit for hair loss? Stress.

When under significant stress, the body releases a hormone called cortisol – the “stress hormone”, which is known to disrupt the hair growth cycle and cause hair loss.

You might notice that your strands drop rapidly, and even brushing or washing your hair in the shower can leave a huge number of strands on the floor after.

Stress can also affect your appetite and your body’s ability to absorb nutrients. Since nutrients are important for healthy hair, stress is certainly a factor when it comes to hair loss.

What you can do:

Should you notice rapid hair loss after experiencing physical or emotional trauma (this could include sudden weight loss to psychological stress), visit a dermatologist. Dermatologists are doctors who are trained to diagnose conditions that affect not just the skin but the hair and scalp too.

Poor scalp health

Putting all your focus on the lengths of your hair but neglecting to take care of your scalp? Guilty.

Many of us pour our efforts into nourishing our mane, but, unless we’re prone to itchy, flakey, or oil scalps, leave scalp care behind.

However, our scalps have thousands of hair follicles from which hair grows, which means that taking care of it doesn’t just keep the skin at our roots in mint condition, but also leads to healthier hair growth.

When our hair follicles are clogged with residue, dead skin cells, oils, dirt, or other impurities, strands aren’t able to grow properly, which results in hair that’s thinner, weaker, and more brittle.

Over time, follicles might even become permanently inactive, which is when you’ll start to shed hair right from its roots.

What you can do:

Inside the shower, use scalp-friendly shampoos and conditioners that’ll cleanse your scalp and nourish your locks without stripping moisture from your scalp. We’re referring to products that use natural ingredients, sans harsh chemicals that can irritate the skin at your roots.

Besides regular shampoo and conditioning, employ scalp scrubs every seven to 10 shampoo washes (or as the product directs) to give your scalp a truly thorough cleanse. Scalp scrubs loosen the debris and dead skin cells that clog your hair follicles, so your skin is fresh and hair can healthily grow.

Out of the shower, hair serums are a great way to target hair follicles; these could contain peptides to strengthen the roots or hair growth-stimulating ingredients like Redensyl. Simply massage the serums into your scalp, no rinsing needed.

DR ZERO’s Redenical Scalp Revitalizing Essence is a serum that encourages hair growth by boosting blood circulation at the scalp, allowing a better supply of nutrients to the hair follicles.

Redensyl, a natural hair growth-galvanising ingredient, stars in this serum’s formulation.

How Redensyl works is that it stimulates the stem cells and fibroblasts (cells that produce collagen and fibres important to hair growth) at the hair follicles, thus encouraging the growth phase (anagen phrase).

It can even activate hair follicles that have been dormant for some time and delay the telogen (resting) phase, so you see more hair emerging from your scalp over time.

Since men’s and women’s scalps are different, DR ZERO’s Redenical Scalp Revitalizing Essence is especially ideal. It comes in two formulations, one for men and the other for women.

The Scalp Revitalizing Essence for Women is infused with eight types of female hormone ingredients to encourage hair growth. On the other hand, the Scalp Revitalizing Essence for Men is made with eight types of sebum care ingredients and piroctone olamine, which reduces hair fall.

Both infused with 3% Redensyl, the serums stimulate the hair follicles directly and effectively encourage hair growth. At the same time, they ​​moisturise and soothe inflammation so that you can say goodbye to an itchy and flakey scalp!

DR ZERO’s Redenical Scalp Revitalizing Essence Women retails for S$43.20 instead of S$54 at the Japalang Store.
DR ZERO’s Redenical Scalp Revitalizing Essence Men retails for S$43.20 instead of S$54 at the Japalang Store.

You can also find the products at Watsons, Metro, Lazada (Redmart), and Shopee.

This article is brought to you by DR ZERO.

Feature image credit: user18526052/Freepik