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Want to know if you actually have hair breakage? Here you will find everything you need to identify and understand what damages your hair.
I was experiencing extreme hair breakage and, to some extent, I still am today. Through intensive research though, I understood why my hair was breaking and, more importantly, how to fix it.
Hair breakage is when hair strands break, snap, or split. Hair can be stressed for several reasons such as excessive combing, heat, or bleaching. When weak or damaged hair is stressed, it loses its protective layers causing hair strands to break.
To minimize hair breakage, not only is important to know what it actually is but also, you need to know if you are actually experiencing it. Sometimes breakage can be confused with new growth or normal shedding.
One is unhealthy and the other isn’t, which is why it’s important to know the difference.
Why does our hair break?
Now we know what hair breakage is but it’s essential we talk a bit about the actual hair structure. This way it will be easier for you to understand better why is it that our hair breaks.
I actually studied this in uni but don’t worry I’m not going to be too sciency about it.
Each hair is made of a hair shaft and a hair root. We are going to concentrate on the hair shaft. It is the visible part of the hair, the one you can actually see coming out of your scalp.
The hair shaft is made of three layers, from the outside in we have cuticle, cortex, and medulla.
The medulla’s the inner core of the hair and it’s surrounded by the cortex, which gives strength to our hair. The cuticle is the outer layer that aims to protect our hair.
This means that if the hair cuticle is damaged or weakened our hair is more likely to break. There are many activities and circumstances that can stress our hair, causing it to break, such as heat, bleaching, excessive combing, and many others.
Essentially, if we avoid cuticle damage or repair the cuticle if it’s already weakened, we can minimize hair breakage.
Remember though, breakage to some extent is actually normal.
Is your hair shedding or breaking?
Hair shedding is a completely natural process, in fact, is normal to shed between 50 and 100 hairs a day. On the other hand, excessive hair breakage is not healthy.
This is why it’s important for you to be able to differentiate hair shedding from hair breakage.
Hair growth happens in phases
- Anagen, in this phase your hair grows and it can last from 2-8 years depending on your genetics.
- Catagen, the blood flow to your hair follicles decreases and it can last for a few months
- Telogen, the blood flow supplies are cut off and our hair shaft sheds from the root
Basically, every day we have some hair in each of these phases which is why is normal to experience hair shedding.
Hair shedding is when our hair naturally falls from the root because it’s in its telogen phase. Whereas hair breakage is hair that is prematurely plucked from the root while still in the anagen phase or hair that breaks somewhere along the hair shaft because it is too dry, brittle, or damaged.
Aurora’s tips
if you want to know if your hair is too dry or brittle you can do the elasticity test. basically, take one hair strand and tug on it, if it breaks your hair is more prone to breaking during daily activities like brushing or combing.
Now, when your hair falls out how can you tell the difference?
The only reliable way in my opinion is the bulb test. When your hair falls out, inspect it closely. If your hair has a little while bulb at the end it is hair shedding, a hair strand in its telogen phase.
On the other hand, if your hair doesn’t have a bulb then it’s hair breakage. Also, another indicator of breakage is if the hair strand that has fallen out is shorter than your normal length.
Difference between hair breakage and new growth
Many times hair breakage can be confused form new growth. This is why it’s super important you can spot the difference.
If you have shorter hair around your hairline that is around the same size is new growth. They are usually called “baby hairs”.
Sometimes they can be tough to style but be grateful to them, they are brand new hair and you need to treat them as gently as possible.
On the other hand, hair breakage mostly happens along hair lengths and ends. If you have a few hairs through your lengths that are shorter than your normal hair length is breakage.
How you can minimize hair breakage
As I mentioned, there are a lot of causes of breakage. So, in order to minimize it, you can reduce its causes.
Here are some of the things you should and shouldn’t do to minimize hair breakage:
- Avoid tight hairstyles
- Avoid normal hair ties instead, prefer silk scrunchies
- Brush your hair gently
- Prefer wide-tooth combs to brushes
- Avoid humid environments as much as possible
- Protect your hair from UV rays
- Do not sleep with your hair down, instead, braid them loosely
This post was all about how to know if you have hair breakage.
Want to stop hair breakage once and for all?
Here’s how to do that.
