Hair growth chart

[Darkhorse1]

Again, from In Style magazine Hair issue. Not sure how accurate this is, but figured members would enjoy learning:

Infancy: Sudden drop in hormone levels often causes the baby fuzz you're born with to shed in your early months. Follicles will become active again by your first birthday

childhood: You have the higest number of follicles producing hair at this point in your life (about a thousand per square centimeter) and while your pigment producing cells have started working, they 're not fullyu mature, so your hair color will likely get darker down the line

teens: the sex hormones that wreak havoc on your skin also mess with your hair. Elevated levels of estrogen and testosterone can bring about changes to hairs texture and color

20s: while you have about half as much hair you did in childhoood, your strands are still in great shape. hormone levels have stabilized and a quicker metabolism means your hair grows its fastest ever

30s & 40s: decrease in hormone estrogen gradually slows hair growth, so you may notice some thinning in your 40s. With fewer pigment cells in the hairs core, strands start to turn gray

50s and beyond: hormone dips cause some follicles to shut down, so you're left with about a third of the hair you had in childhood. As long as you eat well and limit heat and chemical damage, your hair won't show it's true age.

Not bad huh?

[RancheroTheBee]

Yay! Three cheers for being in my twenties!

[xsadiemamx]

I have way more hair now than in childhood. Apparently I wouldnt eat and my hair started to fall out in clumps! I guess thats where my obssesion started with my hair lol! But not to worry now, I eat everything and anything lol!

[Natalia]

Gosh im in my 20's i wish my hair behaved that way! Maybe when im 30?

[Unofficial_Rose]

Seeing as I've experienced all of the phases except my 50's, and finding them to be more or less accurate, i.e. I'm sure I used to have thicker hair, and yes, I'm going a bit grey, this makes me think the last statement could be true also.

So, when I'm wondering whether to keep using plant dyes or switch to chemicals to cover my grey (and I WILL dye it at least until I'm 60) then think I'll continue to go for the plants option. And keep heat styling to a minimum. I'm hoping to avoid being an older lady with thinning hair in the future! :scared:I mean, I haven't even got fantastic hair now, so I need to take good care of it.

[lora410]

I have about two more years of my fastest growth then. Just enough to take me far..LOL. At 22 I had a lot more hair then I do now at 28 though.

[enfys]

Better make the most of this decade!

I never lost my baby hair and had it grow back, it just replaced itself as it went along.
Childhood I am darker than now, but I always thought this was because I avoid the sun so much now. I had thinner hair then I think, definately finer.
Teens gave me grease, and I have waves that I never used to have that appeared at 19/20.

The rest is a mystery.

[Hairizona]

Perhaps I am in denial, but I remember having the most hair as an adult, definitely NOT as a child... At this age, I have A LOT of hair. I MAY have a little less at the hairline around my forehead, but again that is hard to tell, b/c when I was in my mid to late thirties and the bulk of my hair length was beyond fingertip length, a lot more of the front was cut short and I used a curling iron on it daily to give me the 80's "big hair" look. On top of that, now I henna and that takes away from "poofiness" which would tend to make it look as though there is more hair than is really there.
All in all, I do not agree with their version of hair growth; I can see that it justifies their position on cutting!

[Pyvsi]

Hmm...I'm 28 now, which means 12 years until noticeable thinning. At my current rate of growth, my locks should be at classic by then if I don't cut them. That's a lot of weight on thinning roots.
Maybe if I notice some thinning I'll keep my hair no longer than MBL and wear updos often.:ponder:

[Raederle]

Hmm, as someone well into the last phase, I think it's fairly accurate. That said, I'm pretty sure my hair is longer than it's ever been, and I'm pretty sure it's still growing, though I don't measure. The thickness is certainly less than it was in my youth, but so far, I don't have the pink skull look going, so I'm content.

[Pixna]

That's not too encouraging for those of us over 50, though my hair still feels pretty thick and decent (thank heavens!). I'm bummed about hair growth, however. Makes me feel like even more if an idiot for that stupid chop I did two years ago (and here I didn't think I could feel any worse), knowing that it's going to take even longer to grow back to long than it did when I was a few decades younger. :cry:

[MsBubbles]

Ok I just have to say that when I read this on my phone on Friday I got really depressed. Yes I know I should get a life and not read LHC on my phone! Anyway, now I'm glad I started growing my hair at 40. My ready-made comeback in the event someone challenged me ("Aren't you too old for long hair?") was going to be "Well I figured I had about a decade of hair-growing left, so I thought I'd have one last long-hair fling". But then I found LHC and saw women in their late 50s with butt-length hair. I looked at my parents in their 70s and noticed they both had plenty of hair and weren't even really grey yet. So I thought I may be lucky to grow hair well into my 60s.

After looking at that chart, I'm going to have even LESS hair than I had as a child?! Blimey O'Reilly.

[InTheCity]

Yay! Three cheers for being in my twenties!

My thoughts exactly :D

[Hairstorm]

For females, I don't think it is a straight linear progression of hairloss as we age. I think it is cyclical, as well as being affected by events such as pregnancy and birth.

I vaguely remember some discussion in the archives about first menopause or something, and that made a lot of sense to me.

[GeoJ]

That's interesting. I know my hair has gone through changes in texture, thickness, waviness, and color. Something like the following.

As an infant: I was born with fine light reddish brown hair.
As a toddler: fine, thin, curly, and red.
As a child: slightly coarse, thick, straight, and very dark brown.
As a teen: medium texture, thick, wavy, and reddish brown.
Since then it has stayed wavy and medium in texture, dropped slightly from iii to ii thickness, and the color has changed from reddish brown to a cool-toned brown (and my response was to henna it). These changes occurred between 20's and 30's (and could have also been related to having a baby).

My DD never had baby fuzz. She was born with plenty of hair and it has been growing ever since (with occasional trims to keep the ends tangle-free).

:)

[abritta3]

Wow, very cool!:D