Is Your Hair in a Fall Shed?

More hair in the brush than usual. A little extra in the drain. It arrives most years right as the light starts to go, and September and October are when we hear about it most.

Here is what is actually happening, and what is worth doing about it.

Every strand moves through a cycle. A long growing phase, a short resting phase, then release. Most of the time this happens quietly, around a hundred strands a day, spread out enough that you never notice.

Autumn is the exception. It is the most widely observed shed of the year. Through summer, a larger group of strands slips into the resting phase together, and weeks later they let go together too. What you are seeing in October was set in motion in July.

Summer leaves its marks as well. Sun, salt, chlorine and heat all reach the hair before autumn does. Then the air dries out and the heating comes on, and the scalp has to adjust all over again.

Worth knowing the difference, because they ask different things of you.

A shed is temporary and even. Hair comes away from all over the scalp, your part looks the same width, and it settles within six to eight weeks.

Thinning is gradual and specific. The part widens. The ponytail feels smaller month over month. Regrowth does not seem to arrive.

If it is sudden, patchy, or still going after a few months, see your doctor. Iron, thyroid and hormones sit behind a great deal of hair change, and no oil can substitute for a blood test.

Feed the scalp, not just the lengths. Regrowth begins at the root, so that is where attention belongs. A few minutes of oil worked into the scalp, once or twice a week, is the simplest place to start. Our Hair Growth Oil was made for exactly this.

Repair what summer took. The lengths need something different from the roots right now. A weekly mask, left on long enough to matter, does more for the way hair looks through autumn than anything you can do on the day.

Be gentler while it is happening. Loose ties instead of tight ones. A claw clip instead of an elastic. Detangle from the ends up. Turn the shower temperature down. You cannot stop a shed, but you can avoid adding to it.

Mind the dry air. Indoor heating pulls moisture from the scalp the way winter wind does. Oil before wash day helps. So does drinking more water than the cooler weather makes you want to.

Those short pieces around your hairline by late winter are not frizz. That is new growth arriving.

Which is the quiet argument for beginning your ritual now rather than in January. The follicles resting through autumn are the ones that will be growing by spring, and meeting them with a nourished, well cared for scalp is the most useful thing you can do.

Ten minutes, once a week. That is the whole practice.