Do hair products cause hair loss?

I have heard a lot of people saying that product X or Y makes them lose a lot of hair. I haven’t experienced anything like that given the WIIIIDDDDDE array of products that I experiment with. So I decided to dig a little into the scenario 🙂

The living/growing part of your hair is your hair follicle which lies below the scalp surface. Refer this post for a pictorial idea. Anything that happens to the shaft outside cannot affect hair’s natural growth or physical structure. The ingredients in hair products are usually too large to penetrate into the follicle and cause an effect.

Having said that, product build up can indirectly cause hair loss. Your hair’s natural sebum + dirt + dead scalp cells + product buildup can block your hair pores preventing hair from growing out. This can be easily avoided if you keep your scalp clean by washing as often as you feel it is dirty (at least once or twice a week).

Also chemical laden products like dyes, bleaches, straightening creams and the like can weaken the hair strands causing breakage making it look like you are losing hair.

So why does it look like you lose a lot of hair while using certain products?

1. Your wash day may have coincided with your natural hair death phase.

Old hair strands shed and a new hair continues to grow in those follicles. Around 50 to 100 hairs die daily and this is considered normal.

2. There was a gap of many days since your last hair wash.

The dead hair strands from each day don’t fall off easily until you comb or wash your hair. So when there is a gap of say 4 days after your last wash, all the dead hair from the last 4 days would have fallen off all at once onto your bathroom floor making it look like you lost a lot of hair on that day.

3. The products are not doing their job well.

Let’s say your shampoo is very drying. And to top that your conditioner doesn’t help you with detangling your hair. You have to tug and pull at your hair which can cause unwanted breakage of the living hair strands as well. Use products that help you with detangling easily, that have a lot of slip and those that aren’t drying.

Here are 4 nutrients for healthy hair and 7 ways to grow healthy hair. If you think you have other hair fall issues, read this – Hair fall : Causes and Remedies