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.

[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.

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.

[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. I think hair texture can also change when you go on hormonal BC, so yeah, it probably changes all throughout our lives.