Words by Frankie Jabarkhyl
If you’ve noticed more hair than usual in the shower or on your brush lately, you’re not imagining it. Autumn shedding is a thing, and while seeing more strands come out than usual can be worrying, there may be a perfectly normal explanation for it.
So, what can you actually do about it? We tapped Hair + Me’s Consultant Dermatologist, Dr Margo Gkini, for her advice on managing hair shedding and supporting healthy growth – from the everyday habits that matter to the treatments with evidence behind them.
Stay Hydrated And Eat Well
Drinking plenty of water and maintaining a balanced diet rich in protein, iron, zinc, biotin and vitamin D can help support healthy hair growth and scalp health. Where deficiencies exist, identifying and correcting them can be an important step in supporting healthier hair.
Prioritise Quality Sleep
Hair follicles are active units with different types of cells, and their repair happens during sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation can increase stress levels, causing hormonal imbalances, including cortisol and melatonin, while inflammation may increase. As a result, hair may appear thinner, growth can be slower, and hair shedding may be more profound.
Don’t Overdo The Microneedling
Microneedling can help with hair loss when done appropriately, but we’re seeing a trend of people overusing at-home devices, rolling their scalps multiple times a week, or even daily. This can cause scalp trauma and doesn’t allow the skin time to heal, potentially triggering inflammation rather than supporting hair growth. There’s also a risk of infection if devices aren’t properly disinfected or are shared. It’s therefore crucial to perform microneedling appropriately to promote hair growth. Overdoing it does not solve the problem, but may actually make it worse!
Protect Your Hair From Heat And Humidity
Heat and humidity can increase damage to the hair shaft and can affect the scalp. During the summer months, hair loss is well documented, and it’s related to the fact that more hair follicles enter the telogen phase (resting phase), which results in hair loss.
Be Patient And Consistent
Consistency matters in hair regrowth for a key reason: hair grows slowly, and there are specific phases in each hair cycle that are repeated – the anagen, catagen and telogen phases – and most treatments only work if they influence those phases continuously over time. Normally, improvement in hair loss is seen after 3-6 months.
Manage Your Stress
High levels of stress or a prolonged stressful period can shift hair follicles from the growth phase (anagen) into the resting phase (telogen). It’s then that telogen effluvium appears, and more hair than usual falls out 2–3 months after a stressful event. Luckily, this form of hair loss is temporary and fully reversible in the majority of cases.
Protect Against UV Rays
UV rays can affect proteins in the hair shaft, which results in damage and weakening, making your hair feel dry and brittle, which increases the risk of breakage and hair loss. UV radiation is also a key epigenetic factor causing oxidative stress, which can have an effect on the hair cycle and the hair.
Rinse After Swimming
Sweating, saltwater or bleach in pool water can affect the scalp microenvironment and contribute to scalp irritation and itching.
Don’t Be Scared To Wash Your Hair
There’s a common myth that washing your hair more often can make thinning worse. What people are usually noticing is normal shedding. We naturally lose around 50–100 hairs per day, and washing simply dislodges hairs that were already in the shedding phase of the hair cycle. Seeing them in the shower can make it feel like washing caused the loss, but in reality those hairs were going to fall out anyway.
Know Your Treatment Options
For female pattern hair loss, minoxidil has the strongest and longest-established evidence and remains the mainstay of treatment. Topical minoxidil is usually the starting point for female pattern hair loss. It has very good evidence behind it, but people need to understand that it is a long-term treatment, as all medications for pattern hair loss are. Hair shedding may occur during the first 6 weeks, but do not panic. This is a response to treatment. Oral low-dose minoxidil is also available as an alternative, and there’s now a growing body of evidence supporting its use. It has transformed our practice in pattern hair loss management in the last few years.
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