If you didn’t catch up on the first part of this article, I’ll advise you quickly read the content. It’s the foundation of the study on your hair growth.
Sometimes when you pick your comb or brush and you start combing, you tend to show your hairdresser or stylist the amount of hair on the comb. Sometimes you’re left frustrated, thinking: “is it my braid that caused this hair loss?”
But wait. What if the hair loss is normal. Read on and get to know all about your hair the more.
Your Hair Cycle
Each of your hair strand goes through three stages. The stages are:
- Anagen (The Growing Stage) – In this stage, the cells deep down in the dermis are busy dividing and migrating vertically upward as new cells replace the old cells. As the cells move upward via the hair follicle, they degenerate and die. By the time the cells get to the epidermis, they are already dead. The dead cells are joined together by a strong intercellular cement-like substance.
This stage lasts for between 3 to 5 years, depending on your personal diet and hereditary factor. What is certain is that the length of this stage will determine the length of your hair.
Between 80 to 90% of the hairs are in this phase, during a normal condition.
- Catagen (Transition Phase) – After the stressful work of the hair growing cells deep down the dermis, they proceed on a short rest…between 2 to 4 weeks. In this stage, the dividing and movement of the cells come to a temporary halt.
About 15% of the hairs are in the transition phase.
- Telogen (Resting Phase) – During this period, the replication of the cells at the root of the hair and the movement are inactive for between 3 to 6 months. At the end of this phase, the hair is loosely attached to the follicle so that when you wash or brush your hair, it comes out.
At normal condition, only 1% of the hair strands are in the resting phase. This account for the tiny fraction of the strands that get attached to your comb after combing your hair.
When The Hair Loss Is Abnormal
- When over 100 hair strands are shed in a day
- When you start noticing a thin hair
- When the hair shedding is not a telogen hair (you can only know the difference between the stages under a powerful microscope)
What You Should Know About Your Hair Growth
In women, the scalp hair grows at a rate of 0.4mm per day and the body hair grows at 0.2mm per day. The cycle of the scalp hair can last for between 3 to 5 years, depending on the diet and hereditary (read the previous article I wrote about this subject).
On average, a woman’s hair can reach 70 cm before proceeding on the catagen phase. Some women’s hair can even reach 100 cm. This explains the reason why some women can’t just grow their hair past the shoulder.
The growth period of the hair on the body is between 2 to 6 months, reaching a length of 1 to 3 cm.
Male body hairs grow faster than the female body hair. And the female has a rapid scalp hair growth than the male does.
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