Your facial hair growth goes through a similar cycle as your hair on your scalp. This cycle has three phases; anagen, catagen and telogen.
At the anagen phase, the hair grows continuously. The catagen phase is a resting phase, and the telogen phase is the phase when the hair falls out from the follicle.
On average, a healthy person’s thick full beard holds 30 thousand hairs. It is normal to lose 50-100 of them on a daily basis. You may experience facial hair loss when this cycle is not working as it should be. There might be so many reasons why you are losing your facial hair. It can be poor nutrition habits, hormonal reasons or natural shedding.
Reasons for hair loss in beard and moustache
We know that androgenic male hormones trigger the facial hair growth. If you have a naturally thick beard and moustache and they suddenly started to fall out, you may be experiencing low level androgenic male hormones.
In addition, poor nutrition habits cause facial hair loss. If you are going through an aggressive diet, it may be the reason why you have bald spots on your beard and moustache. You need to take enough vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, vitamin E and vitamin A to make your hair follicles operate in full capacity. So, it’s not a bad idea to take multivitamin supplements once in a while.
The worst enemy of your health, stress, can also be the cause of hair loss in your beard of the moustache. Your stress levels affect the cortisol, which disrupts the natural hair growth cycle.
Some autoimmune disorders as Alopecia Areata can cause inflammation on your skin. In some cases, alopecia lasts through a lifetime, but in others, it can come and go. This disease can be treated with prescription medication.
External Factors of Hair Loss in Beard and Moustache
Apart from this, too harsh beard care routine also damages the hair follicles. If you are washing your beard too often, it will dry your skin and harm the hair follicles beneath it. Washing your beard once in three days would be enough. You should also use a proper beard shampoo, not a shampoo made for your scalp hair.
Hair is most vulnerable when it is wet. The drying process is really important not to harm them. You shouldn’t apply too much heat on the beard and moustache. If you need to blow-dry them, try not to overdo it.
Above all, sudden weight loss shocks the body; the hair falls out as a result. If you lost your hair because of sudden weight loss, your body would get used to the new weight within six months, and the hair will come back.
How to prevent hair loss in beard and moustache?
You can prevent beard hair loss if the reason is external factors such as heat, diet or stress. For instance, over-styling and stress are the biggest non-medical reasons for hair loss. You may be using harmful products, or you may not be consuming enough nutrients. The key to prevention is finding out the steps that you have been doing wrong and simply stop doing them.