Whether, blue, blonde, neon yellow, or some different shade of your natural hair color just to try it out, dyeing and coloring is a very popular way to make your way more your own.

If you’ve ever gone to a CVS or Walgreen’s, you can see how actively women use hair coloring by means of the endless  wall of different shades, each with a tassel of manikin hair dangling from the price tag. 

Whenever someone puts product in their hair, there is an inevitable wonderment about possible damage. 

Hair dyeing and coloring doesn’t cause hair loss or stop the growth of new hairs, but it can cause shedding. Here’s how…

Shrinkage and Other Forms of Damage

The Follicle – the hair’s ‘heart’ lies submerged beneath the scalp and therefore cannot be reached by hair dying products. As such, there is fundamentally no possibility for serious hair loss, such as you’d see from heterogeneity or alopecia.

Let’s start with the basics. 

How do you apply hair dye? It involves a lot of rubbing, massaging, and other mixing-it-up motions which can shake loose hair shafts that were already destined for the floor or your soup bowl.

Second, most hair dyes contains both ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, which also loosens telogen hairs.

The most common cause of hair loss related to hair dyeing however is physical weakening of the hair shaft by disruption of the protein backbone.

Peroxide is found in high volumes in colors which will lighten your hair from it’s natural color.

Peroxide is needed to clear away pigments on the shaft to replace them with the blonde colors. 

Many individuals who dye their hair from brunette to blonde will notice shortening of the hair or the need for less frequent haircuts. This is due to breakage at the distal end of the hair shafts, which are the oldest and have accumulated the most cuticle disruption, a phenomenon known as weathering.

Bleach Blondes

Bleaching, as the name implies, is obviously the most intense damaging hair-coloring treatment one can subject their hair to.

If you’re starting from a dark brown or black and trying to go all the way to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese blonde, the hair can be so damaged as to develop a rough texture.

Even worse, the breakage can be so extensive that it affects the base of the hair shaft where it meets the scalp.

This can cause the look of alopecia, an irreversible condition.

Fortunately, the treatment recommendation is simple. The patient should no longer lighten their hair color and pick another darker shade. 

Hair coloring or dyeing is something many women do fairly regularly. The dangers should  be considered, but know that you CANNOT develop a permanent hair loss condition from a little purple now and again.