My hair shedding "experiment"

**gin** · August 25th, 2019, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by AutobotsAttack

I’m soooo gonna try this. I don’t feel like my accuracy would be that well, since my shed hair tends to stay stuck amongst my other hair. But quite a bit of it comes out anyways.

Good luck! Yeah, it's amazing how many shed hairs just stay in your hair until you wash. Just looking at my numbers you can easily tell which days were wash days.

And my hair is really straight and slippery, which I would think make it easier for hairs to fall out than having curls like yours!

**iamjessica26** · August 25th, 2019, 06:03 PM

wow your experiment is amazing! I feel like I shed constantly but I'm obsessed with messing with my hair all day long. I have to sweep a lot at work and everytime I do I have a nice clump of my hair and my shower drain gets clogged everytime I turn around!

**gin** · September 6th, 2019, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by iamjessica26

wow your experiment is amazing! I feel like I shed constantly but I'm obsessed with messing with my hair all day long. I have to sweep a lot at work and everytime I do I have a nice clump of my hair and my shower drain gets clogged everytime I turn around!

I know what you mean, my hair gets everywhere too! But since I started putting my hair up more and trying to mess with it mainly in our bathroom, my hair doesn't clump around everywhere anymore. I still find my hair here and there in all corners of the house, but it's usually just 1 or 2 strands vs. a pile. It's actually super nice. We have two dogs and a cat so there's still plenty of hair everywhere!

**gin** · September 15th, 2019, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by milosmomma

While I was being hyper-vigilant with my shedding I noticed that I shed more the week of menstruation, has anyone else noticed increased shedding in correlation to the monthly cycle? I've since stopped paying so close attention but this topic is very interesting to me.

So I had my period the past few days, and my shedding definitely increased! I never noticed this before but will pay some more attention to this. I read a few articles that say this is most likely due to the change in hormones and also a drop in iron levels (from bleeding). I did also have a fair amount of blood drawn a couple day sago for some lab tests too, not sure if that compounded it either...

**gin** · December 22nd, 2019, 09:52 PM

Alright, time for an update to this thread! I'm actually glad I really did this experiment, because it made me a lot more aware of my shedding in general. Turns out, when I did this experiment, my scalp wasn't in its best condition (at the time I thought it was fine/normal, but after some scalp experimentation I came to realize it wasn't - but that's another topic!). After making some changes to my routine, my scalp has been much better, and I decided to re-do this experiment, though I was a little more liberal with leaving my hair down more often around the house (my scalp is happier that way), so there were probably hairs that I didn't get to count. I allotted an extra 10-15 hairs for those times.

When I first did this experiment for this thread, I was averaging around 75-80 shed hairs a day. Now, I average about 45-50, some weeks lower 40s. This is a 38-40% decrease. Turns out, keeping that scalp happy makes a difference!

**Tinyponies** · December 23rd, 2019, 11:02 AM

Wowza that’s a big difference. Thanks for the update it’s so interesting!
I must have fallen out of the loop, what did you tweak in your routine ?

**gin** · December 24th, 2019, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Tinyponies

Wowza that’s a big difference. Thanks for the update it’s so interesting!
I must have fallen out of the loop, what did you tweak in your routine ?

Long story short:
- I stopped putting my hair up in a bun all the time and opt for loose braids or wrapping it instead. If I do a bun now, it is usually a high bun on top of my head rather at the back, unless I know it's going to be for a short period of time.
- I wash more often (from 2x/week to 3x/week)
- I started blow drying just my scalp after washing to minimize how long it was damp.

**lapushka** · December 25th, 2019, 04:42 AM

Originally Posted by gin

Alright, time for an update to this thread! I'm actually glad I really did this experiment, because it made me a lot more aware of my shedding in general. Turns out, when I did this experiment, my scalp wasn't in its best condition (at the time I thought it was fine/normal, but after some scalp experimentation I came to realize it wasn't - but that's another topic!). After making some changes to my routine, my scalp has been much better, and I decided to re-do this experiment, though I was a little more liberal with leaving my hair down more often around the house (my scalp is happier that way), so there were probably hairs that I didn't get to count. I allotted an extra 10-15 hairs for those times.

When I first did this experiment for this thread, I was averaging around 75-80 shed hairs a day. Now, I average about 45-50, some weeks lower 40s. This is a 38-40% decrease. Turns out, keeping that scalp happy makes a difference!

Hormones might help your hair not shed as well! Hormones are a big part of hair.

**gin** · December 25th, 2019, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by lapushka

Hormones might help your hair not shed as well! Hormones are a big part of hair.

For sure, though these numbers were still the same prior to finding out I was pregnant.

Also my thyroid/hormone levels were tested earlier this year and came back normal.

It'll be interesting to see if anything changes during the pregnancy!