The scalp, a living terrain
Beneath your hair lives a whole ecosystem, and a cycle that has been turning since you were born. Two ideas from trichology that illuminate almost everything else.
We talk a great deal about hair, and rather little about where it comes from. Yet that is where everything happens: on a few hundred square centimetres of skin, more densely populated with follicles and glands than almost anywhere else on the body.
Two ideas cover the essentials: the microbiome and the hair cycle.
An ecosystem, beneath your hair
Like the gut, the scalp hosts a flora: bacteria, yeasts and fungi living together in balance. Cutibacterium and Staphylococcus dominate on the bacterial side, Malassezia yeasts on the fungal side. These micro-organisms live on the sebum produced by the sebaceous glands, and in return help maintain the hydrolipidic film that protects the skin.
That balance stays dynamic. It shifts with age, hormones, season, washing frequency, water hardness, stress. When it moves markedly in one direction, the scalp says so: itching, a sense of tightness, flaking, excess sebum.
Caring for your hair begins with caring for the skin it grows from.
What this means in practice comes down to a few gestures: lukewarm water, a thorough rinse, a washing frequency suited to your own scalp, and gentle massage with the fingertips, which stimulates microcirculation.
The hair cycle, in three movements
Each follicle works independently, following a cycle that repeats throughout life.
- Anagen, the phase of active growth. It lasts from two to six years, and at any moment covers the great majority of the head of hair. It is during this phase that the fibre is made, and therefore when diet, sleep and hormonal balance leave their mark.
- Catagen, a brief transition of two to three weeks. The follicle retracts, activity stops.
- Telogen, rest, around three months, at the end of which the hair falls to make room for the next.
Losing between fifty and a hundred hairs a day matches the normal working of this cycle. Because follicles run out of step with one another, the head of hair keeps its density while each one advances at its own pace.
What changes for a silver fibre
The hair cycle runs exactly the same way on a depigmented hair: growth, transition and rest stay unchanged. What evolves lies elsewhere, in the composition of the fibre produced, and in its relationship with light.
The terrain, on the other hand, matters more. A fibre that has left behind the protection of pigment draws a clearer benefit from a balanced, well-hydrated, well-irrigated scalp. That is why our approach starts with the terrain, before turning to the reflection.