How Can I Tell Whether My Hair Is Thinning?

There are two ways your hair can look thinner. The obvious one is that your partings look wider due to two causes: more space between each hair fiber because the strand is becoming finer, or fewer hairs in number on your head.

The usual places for the hair to look thinner are on the crown of your scalp, the frontal hairline, and in the middle of your scalp (the area between the frontal hairline and the crown of your head). When you part your hair, more space than there used to be may indicate that your hair is thinning.

Thinning may also occur at your temples (also called recession), or it may occur in a diffuse manner, which means that it is evenly spread over the entire scalp. In addition, there can be circular areas that are devoid of hair and feel smooth or stubbly.

A slightly different version of hair thinning is one where the ponytail is thinner; that is, you can wrap a band around the hair of your ponytail more times than you could previously. Often, your partings are similar in density to what they were previously. This could mean that your hair is breaking more, or it could mean that more long hair is falling out than is being replaced by regrowing shorter hair.

Different types of hair thinning or thinning in different areas of your scalp can indicate that a different factor is causing your hair loss. Thus, it is important to have an expert examine your condition to identify which type of hair loss you have.