Hair Breakage

I have bleached blonde hair which I have been bleaching for about 1.5 years now. For the past 10 months or so I have only bleached the roots and experienced the regular breakage associated with bleaching. It has all been quite normal and certainly nothing to be alarmed about. However for the past 2 – 3 months I have noticed a large amount of hair loss at least 50 hairs a day which is very unusual for me. The other unusual thing is that for example at the moment I have brown regrowth of about 1 cm length. If I purposely pull a hair out of my head it is blonde all the way down with 1 cm of brown at the root. However every single hair that comes out of my head on its own has a tiny 1 mm of brown on the end as opposed to the 1 cm of regrowth that I actually have. Every single hair that comes out has this 1 mm of brown on the end which is making me wonder if it is actually coming out from the roots or not as the roots are much longer. I am started to get very concerned and would appreciate any answers you could give. Thanks.

It is always difficult for me to interpret the meaning of what you are seeing without making my own observations of your clinical examination. I generally employ densitometry (a science I invented and patented) which allows me to visualize the degree of miniaturization of the hair and the area in different parts of your scalp. First, I need to know if you have genetic balding. A good visualization with high magnification would serve to address the diagnosis.

The average person loses 100-150 hairs per day, so your report of 50 is not alarming. Although we undergo asynchronous hair growth, many people do see some cycling of the hair loss, not to the degree of animals with synchronous growth (shedding), but certainly what you describe could be present on a temporary basis. Time will clearly tell us and after you get a good diagnosis (reassuring yourself that you do not have genetic balding), then waiting this out is a reasonable next step. The hair character does change with age, and it is possible that you are changing the character of your hair which makes you more conscious of your recent past history of hair loss and hair breakage. You might consider letting your hair go natural brown and see if the hair loss slows down, but the first thing to do is to get a good examination and diagnosis.