Whether you’re new to hair loss or it’s been a long running issue in your life, you’re certain to be fascinated with the life cycle of your natural locks. Understanding the stages of hair growth can teach you a lot and could even help you understand the temporary or permanent hair loss or thinning you are currently experiencing.
There’s so much more to hair growth than hair falling out and growing back again. Hair growth is defined by four separate stages – namely the anagen, catagen, telogen and exogen phases – each of which can take months or even years to complete.
In this blog post, we take a closer look at the life cycle of hair so you can get to grips with hair loss and thinning.
The first stage is the anagen or ‘growing’ phase, which lasts approximately 3 years for most people. For some people, the anagen phase is much lengthier – often as long as 7 years! – here Verywell Health explains why:
“Scalp hair stays in this active phase of growth for two to six years. At any time, about 80 percent to 90 percent of the hairs on your head are in the anagen phase. The amount of time that a hair follicle stays in the anagen phase is genetically determined. Some people naturally have longer anagen phases and can grow their hair very long, while others will never see their hair get much longer than a foot and a half.”
Whatever the length of your anagen phase, your follicles will be actively growing and will do so until the hair is cut or falls out.
The catagen phase is every hair follicle’s transition period. It signals the end of active growth as affected follicles are disconnected from the blood supply that has fuelled them for the past 3 to 7 years and begin to shrink. The shortest of all the hair growth phases, the catagen stage lasts around 10 days.
Known as the resting stage, the telogen phase sees growth cease completely but it’s not time to wave goodbye to the strand just yet. The telogen phase can see the hair remain in its follicle for roughly three months as new hair begins to form at its base.
After a brief rest, the hair is ready to be shed. It’s the exogen or early anagen phase that makes way for new strands as the cycle starts all over again.
The shedding process takes time, with between 50 and 100 hairs being lost every day from a healthy scalp. The exogen phase takes up to five months, with the initial anagen phase resuming as old hairs fall away.
Just how the hair life cycle is disrupted depends on the type of hair loss you are experiencing. Those suffering from age-related pattern baldness for instance will see follicles stop producing hair completely to cause thinning.
Autoimmune condition alopecia areata affects the hair cycle a little differently. The activity of selected follicles is suppressed by the sufferer’s immune system to cause patches of thinning and baldness. But the activity could resume at any point providing the condition does not develop into alopecia universalis, which causes permanent hair loss.
For people with stress-induced telogen effluvium, a large proportion of follicles will enter the resting or telogen stage. The telogen stage only usually affects 10 to 15% of follicles at any one time. The next growth phase will also fail to start meaning hair will fall out without being replaced. The result is temporarily thinning hair, but its symptoms are reversible if the underlying cause is managed or dealt with. Most sufferers see new hair growth within 3 to 6 months.
As a leading provider of high quality wigs and hairpieces, we help individuals with varying issues restore the confidence that’s so easily taken away by hair loss. Whether it’s temporary or permanent hair loss you’re experiencing, you’ll want to explore our collection of wigs and hairpieces.
