Our hair holds quite a lot of weighty emotions and living, as we do, in a culture where thick, long, silky hair is the final word sign of beauty, hair loss could be emotionally crushing. When you are experiencing hair thinning or loss you will have noticed that the market has recently been flooded with products promising growth. 

Augustinus Bader’s recent haircare line encourages hair growth and, in keeping with the brand, helps with hair loss. The Extraordinary recently launched a hair range which incorporates a scalp serum designed to make hair look fuller, while Ouai and The Nue Co each offer hair growth supplements and serums. Dr Barbara Sturm has an anti-hair loss range and Oribe’s recent collection is all about targeting breakage and fallout. 

“There was a surge of interest in hair thinning and breakage previously couple of years,” confirms Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trends intelligence company Stylus. Google searches for ‘hair loss’ and ‘hair growth’ jumped to their highest rates during COVID-19 and have remained there since, with searches for ‘the best way to grow hair’ almost doubling in 2020. Meanwhile, the hair loss prevention market is set to grow by half, to $31,000 million, in the subsequent 4 years.

On Tiktok, it’s the identical story – the #hairgrowth tag has been viewed by three billion users in search of haircare advice. “I even have noticed a rise in people talking about hair loss and in search of hair growth remedies,” says hairtokker Bel, whose haircare videos have garnered 2.8 million likes. Dutch hairfluencer Duygu agrees: “There may be a noticeable increase! Daily I receive tons of messages from people the world over in search of help on account of hair loss.”

So what’s happening, and why now? Well, we’ve partly got the pandemic to thank. Hair loss was considered one of the less spoken about symptoms of COVID-19, with one study finding that 65 per cent of survivors reported hair loss on account of TE (telegon effluvium), a bodily stress response that sees hundreds of hairs prematurely switch from their growing phase to their shedding phase.

But it surely’s not only COVID-19 that could cause TE. In accordance with The Nue Co. founder Jules Miller, one in 4 women experience hair loss before the age of 40 and that number is increasing. Payne explains that is due, more broadly, to “pandemic stress and recent causes of stress akin to political unrest or inflation”. It is smart: we’re more stressed than ever. The happiness of young people within the UK has hit a 13-year low and the identical is true within the US. Meanwhile, in China, a dramatic rise in hair loss is being put all the way down to increasingly demanding lifestyles. The fashionable world is, quite literally, making our hair fall out.

Even for those without hair loss, our understanding of hair health is changing and we’re starting to pay the identical amount of attention and care to our hair as we do to our skin. It’s the ‘skinification’ of haircare, explains Dr Sharon Wong, considered one of a handful of individuals combining medical trichology with dermatology who specialises in hair loss. “The scalp skin is an extension of the facial skin and is subject to the identical insults akin to UV damage, oxidative stress and environmental pollution. The inclusion of skincare actives into scalp and haircare was subsequently a logical transition.”

A lot of these haircare products make use of plant extracts that contain biologically lively compounds, like ginkgolide from the ginkgo tree, which has been proven to stimulate hair growth, or caffeine, which Dr Wong says “has been shown in a number of studies to potentially have a helpful effect on hair growth”. Nutrients like biotin and peptides are other common ingredients that, whilst they don’t actually grow thicker hair from the foundation, “may help with the physical properties of your hair aesthetically, for instance making the hair feel thicker and adding volume.”

This health-first approach to haircare comes as a part of a wider embracing of holistic health, because the rise of wellness has seen us turn our focus to all the pieces from our guts to our mental wellbeing. “Through the pandemic, consumers were spending less money and time on make-up, but more on caring products for his or her skin, body and hair,” says Payne. For the reason that pandemic, 65 per cent of individuals are more likely to think about their health when it involves day-to-day decisions. We wish beauty that works from the within out, and the identical goes for our hair.

“We regularly forget that the body is an ecosystem. Just because something is on the ‘outside’ doesn’t mean it really works in every other strategy to other bodily functions,” says Miller. Hair supplements like The Nue Co.’s use a number of nutrients that support hair production and counteract stress, pollution and hormone imbalance – key aspects that impact hair growth. The identical holistic approach goes for scalp health. “Scalp health is so essential to the general health of your hair,” says Jen Atkin, celebrity hair guru and founding father of OUAI. “Consider your scalp because the soil in a garden — it is advisable to are inclined to the soil for all the pieces to grow.”

Social media can also be playing a component in driving our attention to our hair – each helping and hindering our relationships with it. As everyone knows, the web promotes increasingly unattainable to realize beauty standards and long, glossy hair is considered one of the numerous aesthetic ideals so as to add to the checklist. “Increasingly more individuals are attempting to develop into a greater version of themselves, so naturally there’s an enormous audience for hair care content,” says Jolene Horn, who usually receives thousands and thousands of views for videos explaining how she maintains her knee-length mane. 

But it surely’s not all bad. Platforms like TikTok and Reddit are giving users access to a wealth of useful details about their hair, including recommendations on the importance of a healthy weight loss plan. The rise in discourse helps those that previously would have suffered in silence. “Each time a video of mine goes viral, our comments are flooded with hundreds of people that have experienced hair loss,” says hairfluencer Tina. Like lots of her influencer peers, Tina’s aim is “to proceed to construct a community where we have now open dialogue about hair loss, without shame or embarrassment.”