What Is Normal Daily Hair Loss?

Seymour M. Weaver,III, M.D.

Board Certified Dermatologist

There are over 100,000 hair producing follicles on your head, and normal daily hair loss refers to the normal amount of hair that a person loses in a day through the normal process of elimination. You can lose about 100 strands or so of hair in a day as part of your normal hair care routine. This amount of hair loss is actually normal and expected and occurs because hair follicles pass through cyclical phases of activity.

The first is an active growing phase called anagen, the second a regression phase called catagen, and the third is a resting phase called telogen.

Anagen, is when the hair actively grows. It can actually last anywhere from 2-5 years.

Catagen is the next phase of hair growth. This is a transition phase that sits between the Anagen and Telogen phases. It is a form of regression it only lasts 2-3 weeks and only a small percentage of your hair is going to be in this phase at any given time.

Finally, during the normal growth of hair the third phase is Telogen. It is the resting phase and can last as long as 4 months. In this phase, your hair is simply waiting to be removed from the body, either through regular grooming or through standard fall out.

It is completely natural to lose hair in this manner. In fact, there are some people who may even confide that they feel like they are shedding. There are certain times, especially when your body is stressed excessively or taking medications that you may experience hair loss at a greater than normal rate and some people may experience lower amounts of hair loss based on hair care.

If you are consistently losing hair at a rate of about 150-200 strands you may want to have your hair loss looked into by a doctor as regular loss of this number of strands a day indicates there may be a medical condition behind it.

There are a few things that can have an effect when it comes to normal hair loss. For example, medication and diet can have a significant impact on the normal rate of hair loss.

Regular conditions including maintenance can not cause you to experience excessive hair loss even if it does seem that brushing brings out an excessive amount of hair it can just be the normal loss. There are of course factors, which will change the normal amount of hair loss on a daily basis, but the averages usually stay about the same.

What can seem like excessive hair loss can actually be normal. Though there is actually no way to count all the hairs that are lost in a given day, there are ways to know whether or not the hair loss is normal.

If you suspect that your hair loss is not normal, consider speaking with your doctor about it to determine if your hair loss is excessive other than normal hair loss can occur through genetics, stress, malnutrition and a host of other conditions including the taking of medication.

Only a health care provider or hair loss specialist can tell whether your hair loss is excessive or normal if there are no other obvious signs of hair loss.

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