First off, coloring your hair over a long period of time (professionally) will NOT make your hair thin. Bleaching and over processing the hair can "burn" the scalp, and cause dryness, or irritation, and even hair loss due to breakage. But in 40 years in the salon ,I have never heard of people's hair thinning from topical use of hair color products. Damage, yes, loss, no.
SO, what are the many reasons for hair loss and thinning?My particular alopecia is an auto-immune response disease that ran it's course and stopped. The hair wont grow back because my immune system wiped out the hair folicles and the roots. WHY? no body can give an answer on that.
The other major players are:
Nutritional, when your body is deprived of certain nutrients, it has a unique way of protecting vital functions, and that is by eliminating others. Good nutrition is the main element of all health, skin, hair, eyes, bone, teeth, nails. Which is why most Hair regrowth remedies focus on nutrition. (Biotin, Folic acid, vit C, B complex, etc)
Hormonal. hormones seem to give us trouble all of our lives! at puberty we have so much the skin breaks out, the hair is oily, and we are generally anxious and moody, not to mention in love at the drop of a hat. later on though we have to come to terms with living without them, as we age. Male pattern hair loss can be treated with topicals that block free TSH in the skin, and with rogain or minoxidil . If you are female, I advise a hormone panel done with your bloodwork, if the loss is excessive or extremely troubling to you.
Tension alopecia. Long term use of tight ponytails, braids or hair clips can and will cause the root of your hair to stop producing hair. I have no real explanation why, but it does. very heavy, long hair extensions that are left in or replaced and worn for long periods of time will also cause tension alopecia. When you get hair extensions, your operator should be wise enough not to put extensions back in the exact same place over and over. The new extensions should be moved slightly to a section of hair that did not have an extension in the prior application.STRESS! why does stress casue your hair to thin. the main theory is that as stress builds, we tighten up (relaxation failure) the scalp becomes tight and hard. this does not allow adequate blood supply to the scalp. This is why we do a good scalp massage in the salon when you get a shampoo. Many of you have heard me tell you that your scalp is too tight, and to massage with hands or a good hairbrush to loosen the scalp and increase the blood flow.
Heat. people who wear hats int he hot Florida sun can find their hair thinning. It is important that the hat you choose is lightweight and breathable. Your body sheds a total of 1/3 of your body heat through the scalp when trying to cool itself. When you add the internal heat to the external heat, your hair roots will suffer.
I am sure there are many more reasons, and then some unexplained causes of hair loss and thinning hair. But these are the main ones. What you need to remember is to look at the big picutre and first try to identify any of these causes that you feel may be what id causing your trouble. If you are suffering stress related hair loss, hormonal remedies most likely wont help. on the other hand nutritional support can NEVER hurt. So as a dog chases it's tail, here we are back where we started , wondering where has my hair gone?
Hope this can help
