You’ve been to the barbers and they’ve cut your hair too short, or you’ve tried to cut your own hair (terrible mistake), in any case you’re calculating how long it will take for your hair to grow back and look decent once more. Or you might just be bored and wondering about it. Whatever the case, here’s how fast hair grows.
Hair grows at a rate of 0,4 millimeters per day
That’s an average, of course. The exact rate at which hair grows strictly depends on a series of factors, such as your physical (and psychological) state, your age and your lifestyle, amongst others, such as genetics, hormones and diet.
There’s actually a hair growth cycle and it’s not steady; that is, a portion of your hair (80% on average), is in the growing phase, called anagen, and the rest is either in a transition phase, called catagen, or a resting phase, called telogen. They are all stages of the larger hair growth cycle.
The average growth per day during the anagen stage is 1.2 centimetres per month, or 0.4 milimetres per day, which is at its fastest pace between the ages of 16 to 46. The growth rate is then subsequently reduced after 50.
Interestingly enough, the hair growth rate is also affected by the seasons, and autumn is the time of the year when hair loss is at its highest.
How Many Hairs Does a Person Have?
People have an average of 100,000 hairs on their heads, although blond men and women can have as much as 1.5 times more, which is partly due to the fact that their hair is usually slimmer. On the other hand, red haired men and women have slightly less, an average of 80,000 hairs on the head, again due to the fact that their hair is usually thicker. As we can see, the number of hairs is mostly determined by genetics.
How Thick is Hair?
Whereas Asian people have an average hair thickness of 0.06 to 0.08 milimetres, European men and women usually don’t go beyond the 0.06 milimetre line. African hair, on the other hand, is usually not thicker than 0.05 milimetres.
What Can I Do for my Hair to Grow Faster?
Other than eating keratin-rich food, there’s 2 main ways to make hair grow faster:
- Using Hair-Growth Shampoo
Hair on the anagen stage is very active metabolically speaking, meaning that they are very sensitive to hormonal changes, changes in food, diet and to our surroundings, such as temperature, humidity, and other factors. One of the actions we can take to protect our hair and make it grow faster (and stronger), is to use stimulating hair products, such as shampoo.
Assuming you’re in good health and you have not damaged your hair with dyes, a bad diet or too much heat from your hair dryer, a good strengthening shampoo with aloe vera and keratin will keep your hair from breaking in its growth stage. This, however, will only have a limited impact if you smoke, for instance, if you consume immoderate doses of alcohol, or if you have bad sleeping habits.
- Certain Pharmaceutical Products
Pharmaceutical laboratories are currently experimenting with many products to enhance hair growth and prevent breakage, hair loss and hair deterioration. We will see some of these come out in the following years. At the moment, there’s one that has delivered better results than any other hair product, and that’s Minoxidil.
Minoxidil (known as Rogaine in the USA), is usually found in foam or liquid form, used as a spray. Evidence shows that a substantial number of people have experienced enhanced hair growth and hair loss reductions due to it. However, its effects are limited and even nonexistent in many patients, which means that a medical evaluation will be necessary before determining whether it is applicable to your particular case.
Something very similar happens with another widely-known hair growth product known as Finasteride, which can only be bought with a medical prescription and similarly shows great results in certain people while zero to almost none in others. Finasteride, in particular, is only applicable to men, and can have secondary effects on women.
How Much Hair Loss is Normal?
Not a single day goes by without new hairs growing on your head and old ones dying. And you know this very well, every time you shower. On average, between 50 to 100 hairs fall out per day on a normal basis. So don’t worry if you can almost make a wig with all the hair that falls in your shower. This is perfectly normal and should not concern you. It’s the cycle of life: old organisms leave so new ones can take their place.
The length of the growth phase will also vary from one person to another, according to genetics. That of a person might take 5 years (before the hair falls), while another person’s normal growth-and-death hair cycle might take 2 years. One of the best ways to avoid excessive loss is actually cutting your hair, as excess length will make it heavier, and it will enter a decaying phase.
This measure will not work with everyone, however, no matter if good life habits are maintained or not, as hair loss and baldness can also be hereditary, and hair products or hair regrowth tactics may be useless. In such cases, a hair transplant procedure may be undergone. At the moment, many people travel overseas attracted by the affordable hair transplant Turkey cost.
Why Do Men Go Bald?
Almost 75% of men suffer from severe hair loss at some point of their lives, and some of these cases are irreversible. Some of them experience this early in their lives, like in their 20s, whereas others don’t suffer this condition until their 40s or even later.
Generally, when a man finds himself at 30 years of age with a full head of hair, this means that his hair density will remain more or less invariable. These are the lucky few. Their hair will whiten to be sure, but they will be spared from being bald.
Bald men should not pity themselves, however, as men and women alike consider them manlier in many cases. One of the reasons behind this is the single most important factor behind hair loss: excessive amounts of testosterone. You might have heard about that already, in case you didn’t, that’s basically the male sex hormone, found in insignificant amounts in women.
A lot of testosterone is also behind a bigger beard growth, which explains why bald men usually have thick beards. Oh and, for your information, men with a full head of hair usually have a greater amount of the female sex hormone: estrogen.
