The other day, I received an email from someone who said: “Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of shed hair on my clothes, floor, and pillow. But, I have a very thick head of hair. I’m wondering could it be normal to shed more if you start out with hair that is pretty thick?” I’ll address this question in the following article.
How Much Hair Shed Is “Normal”?” Generally speaking, we are given normal ranges for how much hair is normal to lose. This can be more or less depending upon the seasons, the time of the month, or any medical circumstances that there might be to consider. Usually, it’s a small percentage of what you start with that is considered typical loss. But most times, we’re told that anywhere from 50 -100 shed hairs per day is nothing to worry about so long as you don’t notice an increase of what is normal for you happening for a prolonged period of time.
And, these ranges can vary depending on how much hair you have to work with. For example, natural blonds generally have the most hair starting out (as their hair tends to be fine, but plentiful) so they may have nothing to worry about if they are losing 100 hairs per day for a short period of time as long as they aren’t on this high end for an extended period of time. Redheads have the second thickest heads of hair (and it’s often more course so they get better coverage,) followed by brunettes. There are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, the more fine your hair, the more hair you begin with because you need more hair to get decent coverage and volume if your strands are fine textured.
How Much Hair Loss Or Shedding Is Too Much (Even If You Have A Thick Head Of Hair): We’ve all known people who shed gobs each day but who continue to have very healthy and thick hair despite the loss. And, most of us have known people who shed very little but whose hair looks pretty thin despite this. There are many variables that go into this, but two of the most important are whether you’re outside of normal ranges for a prolonged period of time and the quantity and quality of your regrowth.
Many of us can tolerate being outside of normal shed ranges for a short period of time and we will recover pretty quickly as we regrow normal healthy hair. But, if the shedding or hair loss is so prolonged that the regrowth never has a chance to catch up, then we will eventually suffer noticeable net loss. And, some folks shed even normal or below normal amounts, but their regrowth either doesn’t come in or it comes in miniaturized and more fine than before so that the same amount of hairs are providing half the amount of coverage and make for a noticeable and troubling difference.
So, the answer to the question: “how much shedding is too much” really is it’s too much if it effects the cosmetic appearance of your hair. Some of us can shed a lot and because we are good re growers our hair looks the same over the long haul. And some of us don’t have this luxury because the shedding just lasts too long or our regrowth just can’t keep up.
