Does Your Hair Really Change Every 7 Years?

By Lindsay Colameo, Allure (Photo: Delphine Achard/WWD) If you've ever run your fingers through your hair and thought to yourself, Gosh (yes, gosh) my hair feels different than it did when I was a kid...or in high school...or even college, you are not alone. I often think back to the days of my thick, shiny golden pigtails (and later, my glorious adolescent hair flip) and sigh as I comb hair that now feels fine and wispy. And for years, I've accepted the explanation I get from stylists that about every seven years, your hair changes. But this week I finally got to the root of the matter (forgive the pun). I spoke to Carlos Wesley, a cosmetic surgeon and hair loss specialist in New York City, to find out more about the hair growth cycle. First, a quick biology lesson. There are three phases in the hair-growth cycle: The anagen phase, when the hair is actively growing; the catagen phase, a transitional stage in between the growth and resting stages; and the telogen, or resting, phase, when the follicle is dormant for up to four months and eventually sheds its strand of hair so that a new one can enter the anagen phase. "We are born with 100,000 hair follicles on our head that are all preprogrammed to go through a certain growth cycle," explains Wesley. "The typical cycle is about four to seven years." But this is only true for the first couple of cycles. As your hair naturally sheds, the anagen phase becomes shorter and the hairs that grow back are a little different. "The...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news