Everything to Know about Hair Ageing

We’ve all heard about skin ageing – it would be impossible not to, when we’re always being told what we should and shouldn’t be doing to our faces if we want them to stay young and wrinkle-free. Obviously, skin ageing is a very real thing, and we know the science behind it: when free radicals damage our skin cells, our DNA is altered, leading to signs of ageing.

But something that’s less talked about in the beauty world is hair ageing. When was the last time you saw an anti-ageing hair care product? Most likely never, right?

Quite honestly, hair anti-ageing does sound a bit stupid. You might be wondering how your hair can possibly age when it’s always producing new stuff, while the older bits get snipped off by your hairdresser. Well, your skin does the same thing, remember: when individual cells die and are exfoliated away, new cells are produced to replace them. This doesn’t mean the new cells that are produced aren’t affected by ageing.

One of the clearest signs of hair ageing is, of course, greying. But other signs to look out for include texture changes, characterized by strands not being as full, shiny, or manageable as they were; thinning or “miniaturizing” in which individual hairs become thinner; and overall thinning.

Many of us would be fine with our greying hair if it wasn’t accompanied by thinning. Unfortunately, we’ll probably all experience this gradual thinning process, known as andro-genetic alopecia.

Over time, your hair follicles shrink more and more, producing finer and finer hair. This eliminates the signs of healthy hair, leaving behind hair that is drier and more brittle, with less lustre and shine. You might find that your hair doesn’t grow long as easily, and if your hair was once curly, it’s probably now frizzier.

So why does this actually happen? And why are some of us more prone to hair ageing than others? It’s time for a quick science lesson. As we’re probably all aware, men and women both have male hormones. Some of us have hair follicles that are overly sensitive to the changing levels of male hormones, which slowly get smaller and produce hairs that are slightly finer and slightly shorter.

Men tend to experience more dramatic consequences of hair ageing, losing hair at the top until they’re left with a noticeable bald patch. Women experience more of an overall reduction over the whole head, which doesn’t normally lead to baldness. You might notice your hairline slowly moving back, your part widening, or your ponytail shrinking — and that’s when it’s time to look for treatment.

Andro-genetic alopecia is caused by two major factors: hormones or/and genes. While you can’t do much about your DNA, you can, at least, turn off the hormones to stop them from causing greater havoc. A couple of fancy international clinics have products to do just that, as well as treatments ranging from low level light therapy, platelet rich plasma injections, certain supplements and prescription drugs.

As we don’t all have thousands of pounds to splash out on hair anti-ageing treatments (or, quite frankly, we don’t want to), we took to the internet to find out what the hair anti-ageing product scene looks like currently. Trawling through the skincare products, we managed to find an anti-ageing scalp serum, a shampoo, a nourishing cream, and several vitamin supplements. These cost around the £15 to £50 range, so more of a payday treat than a weekly buy.

Luckily, there are a few totally free natural things we can do to prevent hair anti-ageing that, to be honest, probably work better anyway. Making sure to eat a healthy diet and taking vitamins to supplement nutritional deficiencies is the way forward. And if you’re the type to regularly miss breakfast or have a smaller lunch, try to change your eating habits. Hair is a non-essential tissue, so when you skip meals, it’s not going to get any vitamins, minerals and energy, which will make it far more difficult for it to stay healthy.

Ultimately, though, there’s not really any stopping hair from really ageing – not unless someone manages to develop a way to freeze time. With that in mind, you may as well embrace your hair as it is, rather than fretting about how you can make it look/feel nicer. Just like getting a wrinkle or two isn’t something to lose sleep about, neither is your thinning hair.