Help - Hair breaking while shampooing

**Ahsan** · 07-27-2016, 08:00 PM

Hi all,

I am Ahsan and I have couple of questions and need serious help.

First question: How many hairs normally break while shampooing?
Second question: How can we reduce the number of hairs that break while shampooing?

Thanks in advance.

**afrokinkyhair** · 07-29-2016, 02:47 AM

Hi, Ahsan,
Hair shouldn't break normally. It isn't normal for breakage to happen. However, shedding is normal and you shed about 100 strands per day. You can reduce breakage by being gentle with your hair, wash in sections, and detangle before washing.

**Ahsan** · 07-29-2016, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by afrokinkyhair

Hi, Ahsan,
Hair shouldn't break normally. It isn't normal for breakage to happen. However, shedding is normal and you shed about 100 strands per day. You can reduce breakage by being gentle with your hair, wash in sections, and detangle before washing.

Thank you for your response. Really appreciate it.

Sorry, I meant "hair shedding", not hair breaking, my mistake. So if I shed 100 hair daily, that's normal?

Also would like reviews from members here on two of my experiments I am conducting right now.

First: I am not going to shampoo my hair for 7-10 days and see how it goes. Today is the 4th day without shampoo for me. However, I do wash my hair with only water.

Second: I am not combing my hair. I just comb the tips of hairs (I have a little long hair). However, I am not deep-combing at all.

So far the result is that I am still shedding around 30-40 hairs daily (50% when I wash my hair with water, and 50% with I set my hair using my fingers).

I think 40 hair shedding is still too much. What do you all think, would these experiments reduce the hair shedding process, and are these experiments healthy for my hair?

PS: FYI, I have straight hair.

**afrokinkyhair** · 07-29-2016, 07:29 PM

Unfortunately, you can't stop shedding. It's a phase of growth. There are three phases with hair, anagen phase (growth), catagen phase( transition) and telogen phase (resting/shedding). At all times your hairs on your head are in a different phase (meaning that every hair is in a different phase) so thats why all your hairs grow at a different rate and all your hair don't shed at the same time. So really you can't stop shedding. You can try to reduce it by combing less, so maybe try to comb 2 times a week or something like that to cut back on manipulating your hair too much. Try finger detangling as well. If you find that your shedding is excessive then it might be something going on elsewhere.
I think combing less would help to reduce it. Hair sheds about 100 hairs daily so don't freak out about that. But if you consider your shedding excessive (more than 100 hairs per day) then you might have other issues.

**afrokinkyhair** · 07-29-2016, 07:32 PM

Hey Ahsan,
You can read more about it at https://afrokinkyhair.com/2016/05/29...-natural-hair/. I hope that help you out a little to understand how much your hair should shed.

**Ahsan** · 07-29-2016, 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by afrokinkyhair

Unfortunately, you can't stop shedding. It's a phase of growth. There are three phases with hair, anagen phase (growth), catagen phase( transition) and telogen phase (resting/shedding). At all times your hairs on your head are in a different phase (meaning that every hair is in a different phase) so thats why all your hairs grow at a different rate and all your hair don't shed at the same time. So really you can't stop shedding. You can try to reduce it by combing less, so maybe try to comb 2 times a week or something like that to cut back on manipulating your hair too much. Try finger detangling as well. If you find that your shedding is excessive then it might be something going on elsewhere.
I think combing less would help to reduce it. Hair sheds about 100 hairs daily so don't freak out about that. But if you consider your shedding excessive (more than 100 hairs per day) then you might have other issues.

That was a big help @afrokinkyhair. Many many thanks for the info and tips.

I'll surely update y'all about how my experiments after completing 10 days.

Will also check your post, thanks for the link.

**afrohairsolutions** · 08-07-2016, 02:56 PM

Just try to be very gentle when washing your hair. Massage your scalp using your fingertips when shampooing and then let the shampoo run down your hair, this is enough to clean your hair. Also when drying your hair use a t-shirt to dry it.

**LBellatrix** · 08-07-2016, 06:58 PM

Hi Ahsan,

Offering another perspective: The average non-balding person has around 100,000 hairs on their head. 100 hairs a day is 0.1%, which is nothing. If you're healthy, those empty follicles will immediately start producing new hairs.

My attitude about shedding has always been: If I'm not seeing any thinning spots on my scalp, I'm good. Having entered perimenopause I have experienced overall thinning in recent years, but nothing super drastic.

Note that hair will shed regardless of whether you comb it. Because I don't comb my hair with a comb very often, and I have tightly-coiled Afro-textured hair, when I do comb it with a comb I see quite a bit of shed hair come out. Again, I don't really worry about it, especially now that it's (relatively) short again.

Re your washing experiment: When my hair was TWA-length I shampooed every 4th day and rinsed with plain water the other days. Never had any issues. In fact the only time I ever had any issues with daily rinsing was when I had mature locs and the water wouldn't evaporate quickly enough, causing mildew.

The length of time you can go between shampoos really depends on what you and your scalp can tolerate. I shampoo once a week but I can go about 10-14 days before my scalp starts screaming for a wash.

**Ahsan** · 08-09-2016, 09:34 AM

Thanks for your tips @afrohairsolutions and @LBellatrix. I will surely do that.

Update on my No Shampoo Experiment: I feel great to share that I have successfully completed my 10 days no shampoo experiment.

The main reason I went through this experiment was to see if I can reduce hair shedding (from 100 hairs / day), but I didn't see this happening. I did lost 100 (or near to 100) hair daily. I lost hair when I used to scratch or lightly comb them. I guess since my hair were mostly tangled, that would have caused the shedding. But as long as it is 100 hair per day, I think I don't have to worry about it, still losing 100 hair daily is pretty much, hehehe.

However, the best part of this experiment was that I was living a comb-free life. My hair did get oily till 7 days (even when I was washing them daily with water only), but on 8th day something weird happened, in a good way. That day my hair become pretty much oil-free and I didn't felt the urge to wash my hair like I was doing for the last 7 days because of oil, build-up and scratchiness. And that felt so good that I didn't washed my hair with water for the next three days. That is right, my experiment got expanded to from 10 to 11 days without using shampoo.

How I completed the experiment:
I bought a coconut oil and couple of lemons. First I poured coconut oil and lemon juice and mix them altogether on my hair. After massaging the scalp for almost about 10 minutes with the mixture of coconut oil and lemon juice, I took another 15 minutes to get the oil and lemon juice all settled. After that, I massaged using only lemon juice. And right after that, I went to shower and shampooed my hair.

What's Up Now For Me?
Well, I am making my mind up for another similar experiment. In the new experiment, I will not comb and not wash my hair for 7 days, not even with water. Let's see if I can go with it. What would you suggest?

I would like to thank all members here who have shared their valuable tips and experiences. Keep up the good work people.