LOCKDOWN HAIR CHANGES
Salon Director Fiona Chandler-Day says:
“It’s very important for me to tell this story as sharing may help to give people peace of mind and clarity as to why they have been noticing or experiencing unusual things happening to their hair since the pandemic.
Through conducting in-depth consultations, I’ve been studying and monitoring what clients are feeding back about their hair’s texture (the appearance of hair – how fine or thick each individual hair is), it’s density (how much volume of hair they have – abundant, normal or sparse) and its behaviour. Many are noticing increased sparsening of hair, weakening of hair strength and increased amounts of hair loss. Clients are also reporting that their hair is frizzier if naturally curly and increased amounts of frizz even on those with straight hair. Other symptoms include increased knotting, with hair being less manageable. Clients were also concerned about what they perceived to be breakage (fluffy root areas) which actually tended to be new hair growth appearing not old hair breaking.
Hair usually sheds at a rate of 100 hairs per day. The average head of hair contains between 90 – 150,000 hairs, dependant on natural pigment/colour. So, after Lockdown one, I noticed a pattern. When I look at the length of hair as a strand, it’s easy to see the actual changes along the length of the hair shaft. Hair grows on average ¼-1/2” per month so its fairly easy to pinpoint chronological anomalies in an accurate timeline, which is why hair follicle drugs tests are often used (as drugs present in the blood stream become a part of hair cells as hair grows).
When people have experienced hair loss for a definitive reason, when hair then grows back you can see a definite regrowth line. For instance, we usually notice this when people become vegan/vegetarian, post-pregnancy, illness, shock, poor diet or those who are under medical treatment like chemotherapy or extreme stress. For instance, it is well documented that some people have reported complete changes in hair type, texture and density when hair grows back after losing their hair to chemotherapy.
Wanting to find out more about whether Covid had directly caused or impacted hair changes, as an experiment I measured the hair of several clients and worked out the time of lockdown 1 and how long it takes for the hair to grow from the root follicle to a length and established that my timelines were correct. When studying this in more detail, I noticed a pattern and the same regular definition line for the timings of lockdown 1, lockdown 2 and lockdown 3. There were definitive regrowth lines in 80% of people whose hair I examined and the changes in hair’s texture, density and condition was visible. Most clients are quite shocked as they had not previously really noticed it, especially those with long hair where due to the length the variations were very obvious. In clients that had contracted Covid 19, the hair loss and changes were more extreme in the vast majority of cases.
When I explain my theory to clients they are very grateful, reassured and relieved as they can also see when I show them that their hair is growing back and improving. When I’m cutting, these factors impact my decision making as where hair is sparsening in the timeline, it’s important not to cut to this length – for instance with fringes, because the change in hair texture and density can make the hair sit very differently. It’s important to highlight these findings to the general public so we have a greater understanding of the impact of the pandemic on hair and how hairdressers can deal with it accordingly”.
To find out more about Fiona’s Density & Hair Loss Clinic please click here. Please contact reception to book.