Worried you are shedding your hair after the menopause? These are the merchandise high specialists suggest for older girls to revive energy and gloss to their locks

On Dec 29, 2024

Published: 08:01, 28 December 2024 | Updated: 02:24, 29 December 2024

Over the years there have been plenty of body parts I wished I could extend, lift or flatten. I am short of leg, heavy of boob and rather chubby of cheek.

But my hair has always been good to me, despite years of abuse.

Thick as a thatched roof, healthy and low maintenance, over the decades it has withstood feather cuts, wedges and too many dodgy highlights to count.

During the late 80s and 90s it endured perming solution so toxic it made me hallucinate. Yet not once did my mane complain, continuing to grow like a beanstalk.

However, a few months back I noticed something was off. The sides suddenly seemed thinner, the texture untamable.

The overall effect was crispy. I’d heard friends complain that the menopause had turned their hair stringy, coarse and lacklustre. But it has taken me until my late 50s to become an official member of the Cranial Pubes Society.

Hair loss is the number-three beauty concern for consumers in the UK, according to a recent report from marketing data company Kantar. More than half of women over 50 experience it, but until now it had never happened to me. And in my search for solutions I realised that midlife hair has become big business, hitching itself to the menopause health and beauty wagon (an industry expected to be worth £19 billion by 2030).

There are a bewildering number of shampoos and treatments out there promising to restore your hair to its youthful glory. Big brands offer products for under a tenner, such as Charles Worthington’s MenoPlex range (from £9.99, boots.com) containing hyaluronic acid and clary sage, and Pantene’s Hair Biology Revitalise & Soothe Menopause Shampoo (£8, boots.com), which claims to calm the scalp. Or you can splash out on luxe options like Dr Barbara Sturm Anti-Hair Fall Shampoo for £50 and Scalp Serum for £80 (drsturm.com), containing extracts of larch and camellia.

But with ‘menowashing’ on the rise – the aggressive marketing of menopausal products without scientific evidence – how do you get results rather than being literally rinsed? My first port of call is Aveda’s Covent Garden Lifestyle Salon & Spa. It offers a Scalp Renewal Headspa & Blowdry (£110, aveda.co.uk) that uses a microscopic camera to assess damage, before hair is treated and massaged with specialist products.

‘Most people don’t associate what happens to their hair in menopause with the scalp,’ says Aveda creative director Michael Lendon. ‘But as women age, oestrogen levels drop, the scalp becomes thinner and blood flow is reduced. This means there is less oxygen and fewer nutrients delivered to the hair follicle, leading to the strands becoming dry, frizzy and prone to breakage.’

I stare at a computer image of my scalp that looks like it’s been invaded by dandruff spacecraft. ‘You’re a six out of ten,’ declares Lendon. ‘This is dry build-up that needs removing so new hair can get through.’ Two hours of cleansing and massaging later, the spacecraft have disappeared, and my scalp score shoots up to a nine out of ten.

‘We’re selling more hair-thinning products than ever before,’ says Lendon. ‘It’s a combination of the menopause being a hot topic and clients now happier to talk openly about it.’ Aveda’s Scalp Solutions range (from £15, aveda.co.uk) has undergone eight years of scientific research and 13 clinical trials. ‘There is a lot of menopause bulls*** out there,’ says Lendon. ‘My advice is that before spending any money, do the research, look at the clinical trials.’

Stylist Paul Windle, owner of Windle salon in London’s Covent Garden, was asked so often by his clients to come up with a solution for mature hair that he created his own laboratory, Windle Lab, which is based in Cumbria. ‘With ageing hair, you want products that strengthen,’ he says. ‘Avoid ingredients that weigh it down, such as silicone, often marketed with the promise of “silky” hair. I would also be wary of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) which tends to strip your hair. People often think their hair is only clean when the shampoo foams, but this can do more harm than good. Better to massage the scalp to get the circulation going.’

Windle Lab has created a range for mature hair (from £18.50, windlelondon.com) with ingredients that include antioxidant-rich rooibos tea, which Windle believes promotes hair growth. ‘Lifestyle factors play a big part, too,’ he says, ‘with iron and protein key to healthy older hair. I’d even encourage women to take a test to check their body’s iron stores.’

Then there’s going back to basics. ‘A client came in the other day despairing about her thinning hair,’ says Windle. ‘I said, “Your hair’s not thin; you just need a good haircut.”’

As for me, a few weeks of massaging the Aveda and Windle products into my scalp and discovering a good supplement (Better Gut, from £47.20, thebettermenopause.com), I’m happy to report less breakage and a softer, glossier texture.

How to tell if your hair loss is normal

By trichologist Anabel Kingsley

Everyone’s normal is different. Some people might lose 50 hairs a day, while others can shed 100. It’s when you start to see significantly more than usual for you that something is amiss. The name of excessive hair loss is telogen effluvium, and it is not subtle: people can lose up to 300 hairs a day (more than three times the usual amount). Your balled-up hair from the shower shouldn’t be much more than the size of a 50p if you have long, straight, fine hair – if it’s curly or thicker, expect a little more.

Your hair loss may not be normal when…

Your brush fills up with hair much faster than usual.

Your shower drain needs cleaning more regularly.

Even after shampooing and conditioning, hair continues to fall out when you style, brush or run your hands through it. Keep an eye on your clothes and the floor where you do your styling.