Does everyone have sheds?

[countryhopper]

I'm not talking a few strands... I'm talking about posts where people say, "My hair sheds most...." or, "I lost a lot of hair during a major shed.." etc.

I've never experienced any kind of thing like this, is this normal?

[Finoriel]

I was about to say: Yes, as long as you´re not a bichon type dog... :silly: but then I read more than just the headline.

I think everyone goes through cycles of periodically shedding more or less hair. A shed can be triggered by many things, like genetics, health, nutrition or the change of the seasons. It´s unusual for "mammals" to not have periods of shedding.
But I guess not everyone pays enough attention to their hair to notice them. I sure never noticed my annual fall-shed before signing up here :wink: monitoring shed hair was not exactly on my very-important-list.

[countryhopper]

I was about to say: Yes, as long as you´re not a bichon type dog... :silly: but then I read more than just the headline.

I think everyone goes through cycles of periodically shedding more or less hair. A shed can be triggered by many things, like genetics, health, nutrition or the change of the seasons. It´s unusual for "mammals" to not have periods of shedding.
But I guess not everyone pays enough attention to their hair to notice them. I sure never noticed my annual fall-shed before signing up here :wink: monitoring shed hair was not exactly on my very-important-list.

So how much hair is typically lost during a shed? How long does a shed last?

Excuse my ignorance! Sheds sound like something I hope to avoid if I can!! I don't have an abundance of hair to begin with!

[Fethenwen]

Well, shedding a lot more than 100 hairs a day I'd say is more than usual.
Never really experienced any major shedding myself either, sometimes I shed less and sometimes a lot more depending on what I do to my hair.

[Finoriel]

The amount one is shedding in a shedding-period is totally individual I guess.
The only way to really know if you are going through a shed is to know how much one sheds on average and compare the numbers of individual shed hairs.
General standard number of normal amount of shed hair is 100 per day, though.

I occasionally count the shed hair when taking my hair down from the updo it has been in for the day. If done at different times of the year one get´s a pretty good idea about what the average is for oneself.
And if it seems like you´re shedding more than usual it´s a good number of comparison.
My own average is quite low at about 25-50 hairs a day, when the number raises above this I know that I´m going through an increased shedding-phase. For me that´s just a nice-to-know though, nothing I tend to worry about much.