Motorcycles have been around for more than a century already, and they are not going away. But is your hair going to be affected if your lifestyle involves a lot of motorcycle riding?

There’s a common belief that wearing a motorcycle helmet causes hair loss. However, it is a little more complicated than that. To fully understand the factors at play here, you need to know the reason why hair loss happens.

Motorcycle Helmet and Hair Loss

A couple of conditions related to hair loss are supposedly caused by regular use of the motorcycle helmet, and this, in turn, leads to hair loss. These conditions are the following.

Traction Alopecia 

When our hair is subject to constant pulling or tension for a prolonged period of time, it can damage the hair follicle from which the hair grows. Traction alopecia is how it’s called, and it’s more often observed in people that sport tight, pulling hairstyles such as cornrows.

But there’s also another thing that can cause traction alopecia, and that is wearing a helmet, like a motorcycle helmet. When you wear a motorcycle helmet that fits too tightly around your head, it will be pulling down your hair the whole time it is on your head.

The choice between wearing a motorcycle helmet or not when riding a bike is rather dull even to ask. If you are going to ride, you’ll use a helmet, and it better be a good one. Choose a motorcycle helmet that is not too tight to avoid pulling out your hair.

How to Avoid Traction Alopecia

Also, here’s a couple of tricks. 

When you place the helmet on, wiggle it a bit on your head to let the hairs loose under it. You can also use a head bandana or headscarf on your head before putting the helmet on. It will act as a buffer between the helmet and the hair, shielding it from the pulling traction.

Scalp Infection

Your helmet is going to get dirty fast. And you don’t want any of that filth on your head. The accumulation of sweat and dirt gets easily inside your helmet and into the padding that is inside protecting your head.

The padding’s constant contact with your scalp passes bacteria on it, which could lead to an infection of the hair follicles. Known as folliculitis, the infection causes the individual hair follicles to swell, giving an appearance of acne. Left untreated, the follicles are damaged, and the hair sheds.

How to Avoid Scalp Infection

To avoid this, simply clean your helmet regularly, thoroughly washing the padding inside with disinfecting soap at least once a week. Wearing a headscarf or bandana to act as a buffer will also protect you from this.

So, for the original question about whether wearing a motorcycle helmet causes hair loss, the answer would be, “Yes, it does.” In the aforementioned situations, the motorcycle helmet can cause hair loss over time.

Fix Hair Loss with a Hair Transplant

In the case that there has already been a significant hair loss due to a motorcycle helmet and it’s not growing back, there’s only one solution: a  follicular unit excision (FUE) hair transplant. 

In this method, the surgeon takes healthy hair follicles from the back of the scalp and plants them into the balding area via microincisions.

Our surgeons place the grafts following your hair’s growth pattern, allowing natural-looking results. Contact us to have a second chance at having great hair if you are having trouble with hair loss.