Hair change during puberty?

[sapphire-o]

Can hair's quality and texture change when you go through puberty? My sons both have long hair now and are in their late teens. I have a question about my 17 year-old's hair. When he was little people thought he was just like me (I'm Asian and his dad is white.). His hair was dark, straight and shined like crazy. It swung around freely and fell down heavily. However once he turned 12 it gradually changed. Now it's wavy (about 2c), fluffy and light, not smooth and heavy like mine. It compressed easily and tangled easily. It's purely Caucasian hair now. It still looks pretty awesome, but it isn't like mine or my other son's, and I need to get different products for him. At just mid-back length he's got lots of splits already, which never happened to me. :( What is going on? Some sort of gene expression thing triggered by puberty?

My other son has waist-length sheet of golden hair that has all the Asian qualities (except color). Crazy genetics. :D

[squirrrel]

I believe that hair can change completely throughout life: the biggest change being as it goes white, of course. If you ask members here, few would say that they have the hair they remember from childhood. Most have at least the colour change, if not wave pattern as well. Some people experience this change several times as time goes on, so I’m not sure that it is as simple as saying that puberty hormones change things.

[Ellethwyn]

Wow! Genetics are crazy, sapphire-o!

My hair got darker during puberty, but then lightened up dramatically in my late twenties.

My husband's hair went from being straight throughout his childhood and teen years, to curly since he hit his 30's. It's really interesting how hair color and texture can change like that.

[lapushka]

Can hair's quality and texture change when you go through puberty? My sons both have long hair now and are in their late teens. I have a question about my 17 year-old's hair. When he was little people thought he was just like me (I'm Asian and his dad is white.). His hair was dark, straight and shined like crazy. It swung around freely and fell down heavily. However once he turned 12 it gradually changed. Now it's wavy (about 2c), fluffy and light, not smooth and heavy like mine. It compressed easily and tangled easily. It's purely Caucasian hair now. It still looks pretty awesome, but it isn't like mine or my other son's, and I need to get different products for him. At just mid-back length he's got lots of splits already, which never happened to me. :( What is going on? Some sort of gene expression thing triggered by puberty?

My other son has waist-length sheet of golden hair that has all the Asian qualities (except color). Crazy genetics. :D

My hair went from 1b/c and very smooth and silky to a poofy, fly-away 2b/c during puberty. My hair, though, fell out in chunks before the change happened due to hormonal imbalance at the start of puberty. I had 3 bald patches. Yeah, no fun as a young teen. :(

Hormones can make the weirdest things happen. Like say in pregnancy. Feet can grow suddenly bigger (yes, it's a thing), like half a size to a size. And hair texture can change.

I wish I could show you pictures, but if you compare the class picture of say grade 13 to grade 14, it's so wildly different! I literally went from Pantene hair (that smooth) to what looked like a brushed out perm. Of course I had no clue how to take care of it. :o

[FaeBroom]

I used to be completely 1a as a child, stick straight hair probably until my late teens. Now I definitely have more wave, though I wouldn't venture past calling it 1b. Both my aunt and my mom started out with hair like mine, and now have very coarse, frizzy hair, so it'll probably change further as my hormones change. My younger sister is the opposite, she used to have tight little ringlets until her early teens, when they straightened out to waves. My older sister- curly hair her entire life, at almost 40! I guess it's just the luck of the draw. Have to say I'm a bit jealous of your son with the golden sheet of hair, it sounds amazing! I was childhood friends with a girl who was chinese and irish, she had thick red hair, freckles with almond eyes and facial structure like her chinese mom. I always thought she was so beautiful and unique.

Edit: I'm just remembering, around 5th grade or so, when I first started puberty, I had these random curls thay grew only at my temples. I could do *nothing* to tame them, and the rest of my hair was completely straight. It looked like this American Girl doll (I remember because I had her) https://images.app.goo.gl/WowZkHwC8TTxf48ZA. I'm SO glad those little curls went away.

[Xlena]

Yeah, puberty can hit hard. My hair was 1a when I was born, got to 1b through childhold (and it was very light blonde). It became a dirty blond when I was a teen and started to get very wavy, with 1 single random curl on the back. Then it went even darker, to a light brown, but more straight. And recently (I'm 26) it has changed to more wavy, tho the colour keeps being light brown. It never changed in thickness, but my cousin's did. She had fine light brown hair as a child and now she has super thick medium brown hair, like literally haven't seen a head with more hair than hers when as a child, she had just normal amount.

[lakhesis]

It definitely can!

My father had basically my hair when he was a child - light blonde, super straight. And it changed to black (ok, technically very dark brown) and type 3 curls during his teen years. Exact opposite!

I was very hopeful I would get curls or at least waves in my teens, but no such luck. But it is still funny to say I got my blonde hair from my black haired father!

[Bri-Chan]

It actually happens very often!
My hair was 1a straight as a child, and almost black. It went lighter with the years, like a 10 year I had light brown hair (that is pretty much the same color I have now) and around the age of 13 it went less straight (probably I was already a 2a like now) and when I was like 18 it went thinner, like from 3,15 '' to 2,8/2,9 ''.

[lapushka]

It actually happens very often!
My hair was 1a straight as a child, and almost black. It went lighter with the years, like a 10 year I had light brown hair (that is pretty much the same color I have now) and around the age of 13 it went less straight (probably I was already a 2a like now) and when I was like 18 it went thinner, like from 3,15 '' to 2,8/2,9 ''.

It is very normal for children's hair to become darker just as they grow up. But this is very much separate from actual "puberty", when hormones kick in, I mean that's the big game changer here: hormones.

[Hedwig]

My hair was 1C and very fine and silky before I hit puberty, then it started to become really thick, frizzy and moved to 2C! Now that I'm in my early twenties, it's getting fine again (probably due to stress) and have all kinds of waves, from 1C to 2B, on my head. I'm still waiting for the extremely coarse, frizzy part in the back to disappear but that probably won't ever happen. :D I think hair texture can also change when you go on hormonal BC, so yeah, it probably changes all throughout our lives.

[GoddesJourney]

Mine changed a couple of times. It was lighter, finer and straighter as a young child. Somewhere between 8 and 10 it thickened up and darkened slightly. After puberty, it became darker and more textured and thicker still (coarser). It doesn't really tangle now unless it's damaged whereas it tangled like crazy as a child. I'm sure it will change again.

[baanoo]

My husband’s hair as a child was 1C, light caramel brown, and when he went through puberty it darkened to black and changed to 3C coils! I never would have believed it but I’ve seen the photos. Puberty is a wild time.

My hair has always been more or less the same - blonder as a kid, but still blonde, and with the same texture.

[PixieWaist]

My hair's texture didn't change but the colour did. All my childhood I had blonde (white-blonde) hair. When puberty hit my hair went to a medium-dark brown with red tint

[lapushka]

My hair's texture didn't change but the colour did. All my childhood I had blonde (white-blonde) hair. When puberty hit my hair went to a medium-dark brown with red tint

Hair changing color is sometimes, most times, a gradual thing, that even, often times, precedes puberty and is a lengthy, year per year kind of thing.

Texture? That is hormone related and can happen really quickly!

But, thankfully, we're not all the same.

Did it change over time, or really only after the hormones hit? Because I can hardly imagine you were white blonde until the hormones hit. :)

[PixieWaist]

Hair changing color is sometimes, most times, a gradual thing, that even, often times, precedes puberty and is a lengthy, year per year kind of thing.

Texture? That is hormone related and can happen really quickly!

But, thankfully, we're not all the same.

Did it change over time, or really only after the hormones hit? Because I can hardly imagine you were white blonde until the hormones hit. :)

My hair was white blonde until about 12 ish, at which point i had my long hair cut to shoulder length and over the period of a year my hair turned to a hazelnut brown. I wish I could have kept the blonde but with my pale skin that colour would hardly look good anymore.

[lapushka]

My hair was white blonde until about 12 ish, at which point i had my long hair cut to shoulder length and over the period of a year my hair turned to a hazelnut brown. I wish I could have kept the blonde but with my pale skin that colour would hardly look good anymore.

Wow! That is *awesome*; goes to show how we're all different, doesn't it? I used to be a straw-colored blonde but it got gradually darker until I was a dark ashy blonde during most of my childhood. It became an ashy brown during my teens / puberty.

Sounds like a pretty color! Hazelnut is gorgeous, must be awesome in sunlight! :)

[shelomit]

I'm always shocked by seeing pictures of my dad as a kid, because he had wavy, tow-blonde hair back then. As a teenager it darkened all the way to black and his texture these days is somewhere in the upper 4s!

[PixieWaist]

Wow! That is *awesome*; goes to show how we're all different, doesn't it? I used to be a straw-colored blonde but it got gradually darker until I was a dark ashy blonde during most of my childhood. It became an ashy brown during my teens / puberty.

Sounds like a pretty color! Hazelnut is gorgeous, must be awesome in sunlight! :)

It's more red tinted now than hazelnut, I think, but personally I've never liked having brown hair, felt so plain. I bet your ashy hair looks really cool!

[lapushka]

It's more red tinted now than hazelnut, I think, but personally I've never liked having brown hair, felt so plain. I bet your ashy hair looks really cool!

It's in my signature. ;) (If you can see it? Cause IDK.)

Brunettes have gorgeous hair. I would strive for a warm color all the time, and that is the main reason I colored it too. It took me decades to get used to my ash-color! My parents would compare it to the color of cigarette ashes (not being mean, or anything, but it was just like that).

[Bright]

Yup! My hair went from a stick-straight 1a in childhood to frizzy, impossible-to-manage 2c throughout my teenage years, and then settled into 1c once I reached adulthood. The auburn color has also varied with more or less red over the years (though I think the bigger factor there has been sun exposure). I think the texture changes are hormonal?