My hair through the years

Most people don’t need to be told that the hair you are born with is not the same hair that you will grow old and die with. Consistency, color, thickness and how your hair feels to the touch will all change throughout your life.

So what causes our hair to go through all of these stages?

A number of things are responsible: age, stress, pollution, but most of all it’s down to hormones, and how they change with age.

Birth to 1 year: Hair in the early years can be fine, and sometimes barely there. Don’t fret: babies who are late bloomers in terms of the amount of hair they have can very well turn out to have thick hair, just as they can have very fine hair.




• Toddler to teens: Children have ‘perfect’ hair in that it rarely gets oily and is abundant. This is the golden period! But when the hormones start to kick and sebaceous glands go into overdrive in the early teens, hair can begin to get limp and oily and is more prone to dandruff.
• Adulthood & pregnancy: A healthy individual will not have many hair ‘changes’ from the mid-twenties to the late thirties. This is with the exception of pregnancy, when most women rejoice in the experience of having thicker-than-usual hair due to an influx of hormones. Post-partum, however, hair loss is common and sometimes severe, but generally grows back with time.
• Fifties and up: Sebaceous glands are definitively on the downswing. This period is characterized by thinning hair in some women and in most men and, of course, graying hair. As hair grays it gets coarser and less soft to the touch.