We have around 5 million hairs on our body at any time.
1 And it’s designed to fall out!
Over a hair’s ‘lifetime’, it goes through three stages: anagen (growth), catagen (transition) and telogen (rest).1
Hair begins to grow during the anagen stage. The follicle (the bit that’s attached to your scalp) takes on its onion-like shape and ‘sprouts’ a hair fibre, which appears on the skin’s surface. The hair continues to grow and can do so for several years.1
The catagen stage is much shorter, only lasting a couple of weeks. The hair follicle begins to thin into a ‘club hair’ and the shaft may look thinner too.1
The hair follicle and shaft have stopped growing by the telogen stage and will eventually shed. About 10 to 15% of all our hairs are in this stage at any given time. Different hairs remain in this stage for different amounts of time: our eyelashes shed much faster than the hairs on our head, for example.1
When the hair sheds, a new follicle will begin to grow in its place and the cycle starts again.1