It’s not something that is discussed often enough, but hair texture can and will change over the course of your lifetime. So if you happened to notice your hair isn’t as full as it was 7 years ago, you’re not alone.
Over time, just like skin and our bodies, hair changes. It can go from full and thick to feeling a little limp, or a little thin. Curly hair starts to feel straight over time, or maybe the complete opposite, and becomes unruly. It can be unnerving to see more than the “100 strands a day” in your hairbrush. And the more you think about it the more it seems to change, it’s a vicious cycle.
We want to remind you to be kind to yourself. This is a normal hair cycle and everyone goes through this, there’s nothing “wrong” with your hair. Our hair experts share some of the main reasons you may be feeling differently about your hair, and ways to help get your hair back on track.
Hormones & Stress
There’s a lot of changes that happen to our bodies during a lifetime. Puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause. During pregnancy our bodies get an extra boost of estrogen that makes our hair feel thicker and shinier, after giving birth you may notice that the hair you gained is starting to fall out at a rapid pace. This is nothing to worry about, what hair you’ve grown during pregnancy is all that is falling out and can happen months later. Stress can affect you in the craziest ways. One way is for your body to force your hair follicles into a resting phase. This isn’t permanent, hair will start to grow back after a few months. In the meantime, you can help your hair back to its normal state by using a collagen mask.
Medical conditions
More often than not what’s going on externally with your hair, skin, and body is caused by something internally. Vitamin & mineral deficiency, anemia, thyroid conditions are all contributing factors to hair loss or change in texture. Women are naturally deficient in iron and any lack of iron or vitamin B can potentially thin your hair, while having a thyroid condition can slow your hair growth, changing the texture as it grows. Not getting the right amount of nutrients for your body and lifestyle have long term effects and can thin out hair.
Heat Styling Tools
Flat irons, curling wands, blow dryers, day-to-day hair routine may be the cause of your hair woes. When it comes to heat, we tend to notice brittleness towards the ends of our hair, the tension from pulling on top of the temperature opens your hair shaft making your hair feel coarse and promotes damage. Using hot tools regularly doesn’t have to be so bad, and can actually be remedied by using a heat protecting serum or cream every time will help protect your hair, our experts recommend using TO112 Hair Cream or Oribe Power Drops Damage Repair Booster Serum. Also try letting your hair air dry every so often, if you don’t have plans the following day, let your hair dry naturally with an overnight mask.
Product Build-up
Some people like to wash their hair every other day, some once a week. There’s no problem with either so long as you care for your scalp and remove any build-up that happens in between washes that clog your follicles. If you’re a once a week kind of gal, a clarifying shampoo would be your scalps best friend. For those who like clean hair everyday, you may be stripping your natural oils away, what our experts recommend is using Olaplex No 4 Bond Maintenance shampoo, perfect for compromised hair, made with premium ingredients to repair and protect by re-linking broken bonds.
The bottom line is simply this: hair changes. Whether it’s from a medical reason, age, genetics, stress, hormones, chemical or heat styling, it’s not unusual to see changes in your hair over the passing years.