I get a lot of questions from hair loss sufferers about falling hairs that have tapered ends. Questions about hair with tapered ends are just as common as questions about loose hair with white bulbs at the root. People often look at both sides of their loose hair for clues. And many people assume that the tapered tips and white bulb may be significant in terms of indicating the cause of hair loss or the status of its recovery.
I’ve heard someone say, “I know this is going to sound weird, but I examine a lot of my fallen hairs. And I can’t help but notice that most of them are sharp on the end. Why is that the side away from the bulb?” does it taper off? What does this mean? Does it mean anything in terms of why my hair is falling out or does it mean I’m not recovering?”
There are many theories about the possible reasons for tapered ends in hair loss. One possible reason is that hair with tapered ends is hair that has not yet been trimmed or cut. When you go to your barber and get your hair cut, the scissors will make the hair blunt at the ends where it was cut. Therefore, the hair that has been cut (and it is likely to be older hair) will not taper, but instead will be blunt.
In this case, the person writing said that most of what he was seeing falling was hairs that were sharpening and this creates another set of possibilities. You would have to ask yourself if it had been a long time since you cut your hair or if it was possible that you were experiencing hair loss conditions like chronic telogen effluvium or androgenic alopecia where you were going through new growth.
You see, when you have chronic teleogen effluvium, your hair can go through a few cycles where it falls out, tries to grow back, and then falls out again before the trigger that started the hair loss is the first place it’s removed to that normal hair cycles can begin again. So that’s a possibility.
Another possibility is androgenic alopecia. There is a theory that the sebum that accumulates with this condition prevents the hair from growing and therefore those pronounced sharp ends are evidence of that process. Many describe these types of ends as having almost a small round bump on the end. You can literally feel them if you run your hand down the shaft of your hair. This looks (and feels) very different from tapered hair that has never been cut or even hair ends that are affected by telogen effluvium.
It may be helpful to note the length of these worn hairs. If they are short, it is likely a new growth that is cycling due to shedding or your scalp is unable to support its new growth (as is often the case with androgenetic alopecia).
Finally, here is one last consideration. Some hairs that have been affected by an autoimmune hair loss condition called alopecia areata produce what are called exclamation point hairs. These hairs also have tapered ends, but I must tell you that this condition is relatively rare and often the hair loss is patchy rather than diffuse. Therefore, there can be many reasons for tapered ends, including: hair that remains uncut; that is in the part of its life cycle that is shedding: or hair that is falling out prematurely due to different hair loss conditions.