Styling Products That Can Contribute to Hair Loss

Hair loss can be distressing and stressful for men and women alike. While genetics is often the culprit, male pattern baldness accounts for 95% of hair loss in men. Thinning hair may also stem from over-treating your strands and, more importantly, your scalp with styling products containing harmful chemicals. Most experts suggest that people experiencing noticeable thinning reassess how they wash and style their hair.

Just keep in mind how you’re styling; it plays a key role in hair condition. If you’re using a thin combed brush or blow-drying at home, you’re tugging on more strands. The ingredients in styling products do not absorb into the scalp, limiting their ability to cause damage, so the worst thing that could happen is that products make the hair look dull if they are not attended to regularly or properly.

The misconception that hair styling products cause thinning of hair may be because overloading the hair with certain formulas, particularly gel or wax, can make the hair look greasy. Oily, greasy or wet-looking hair tends to appear thinner because of the way it tends to ‘clump’ together, often making the scalp more visible, similar to how the hair looks after taking a shower.

So, even if you’re one of those men who carry harmful hair products with them for regular touch-ups throughout the day, you can rest easy knowing that, as long as you are washing your hair regularly to prevent possible build-up, this is unlikely to cause you any scalp problems or hair thinning problems. But, a point to note here is that although using hair styling products, such as wax, hair gel or salt spray, is highly unlikely to lead to hair loss, there are other connected factors that can. Allergic reactions can occur on the scalp due to styling products which can lead to hair loss.

Hair loss from styling damage is a real issue and is particularly relevant to younger men and women in the age groups between 16 to 24 years old who claim to regularly use harmful hair products and take time styling their hair every morning. Most such individuals also tend to use heated styling appliances.

Heated hair tools such as hair dryers and hair straighteners can reach remarkable temperatures that easily damage the hair. Some hair tools can reach excessively high temperatures, which can damage the hair shafts.

Regular or over-use of scorching heated appliances can cause hair damage where the hair snaps along the shaft. This can lead to thinner-looking, ‘frizzy’ hair. Styles which include tightly tying the hair, can cause Traction Alopecia, a hair loss condition caused as a result of excessive pull on the hair.

Most often, people say you have to suffer for the sake of fashion, but that definitely shouldn’t be the case when it comes to having good hair.

If you are concerned that you are losing more hair than normal or believe your hairstyle may be making your thinning worse, have a hair doctor at HairMD Clinics, Pune assess you.