5 Reasons for More Hair Fall and Dry Scalp in Winter

It wasn’t that long ago that people sneered at the idea that hair loss was seasonal.

Yet modern research has shown that there is a seasonal element. In fact, there are clear reasons for more hair fall and dry scalp in winter, as we’ll explain below.

Hair Fall and Dry Scalp in Winter

The hidden factor

For a long time, people didn’t grasp that the shorter sunlight hours of winter would have an effect on the hair. In hindsight, that’s odd because it seems now so obvious!

Many people were told they were imagining their additional winter hair loss and even ridiculed for suggesting such. That must have been frustrating but at least now we can set the record straight.

It’s very simple. During the summer, your body reacts to sunlight in many different ways. One of those is to speed up hair regrowth to help protect the scalp from damage.

Once the sunlight hours drop and autumn and winter arrive, your body no longer needs that extra hair and you’ll shed rather more than usual.

What does this type of hair loss mean?

In short – absolutely nothing!

Although an increase in hair fall and dry scalp can be alarming, if it’s due to seasonal factors, then you have nothing to worry about. What you can do is to increase your use of moisturising and conditioner products plus perhaps some vitamin and protein-boost shampoos.

The problem is though, you can’t be 100% sure that this is the cause.

Unusual volumes of hair loss may be nothing but it might also be a symptom of any one of several more serious conditions that could affect the overall volume of your hair on a permanent basis. Unless you’re a qualified hair care expert and diagnostician, at best you’ll be guessing.

That could have disastrous results for your hair if you’re wrong and some conditions that may start with modest hair loss symptoms can subsequently prove to be very serious.

It’s best not to guess and hope for the best. Get to a specialist sooner rather than later for their analysis and confirmation of what’s behind your hair loss.

Other winter hair fall factors

There is a range of other reasons you might see more hair loss during winter:

• your diet. There are links between the healthiness and diversity of your diet and your hair’s health too. In modern Australia, things like diet-based vitamin deficiency during the winter months should be rare for almost everyone but it’s still a possibility. A doctor will usually be able to diagnose and prescribe things like vitamin supplements;
• Some forms of illness can be more commonplace during winter and the medications used MAY be having an effect on your hair;
• Home heating can be very drying and many of us use hair dryers more in winter too – both things that may badly affect your hair and scalp;
• reduced sunlight. The sun is a major source of vitamin D for our bodies. Spending too much time inside in winter may have an effect on your vitamin D levels and from that, on your hair. This is an entirely separate factor to that mentioned above relating to your body’s natural tendency to shed hair in winter anyway.

In summary, don’t panic if you start seeing slightly heavier hair loss symptoms during winter. It’s almost certainly nothing but get checked out to be sure and get advice on hair fall solutions.