What Every Woman Needs to Know About Aging Hair
Aging is a fact of life that brings different types of change. But when it comes to our aging hair, we all share a commonality: delicate, dry tresses prone to breakage and thinning.
Here at Better Not Younger, we believe change is a beautiful part of life. There are so many benefits that our older age brings—like wisdom and confidence that our 20-year-old selves could never begin to imagine.
These very gifts of time inspired our founder, Sonsoles Gonzalez, to develop the first hair care brand for women over 40. She believes aging is a daily opportunity to look better, so Better Not Younger speaks to empowered women like you, who think it’s possible to look better without looking younger.
Unlike the many anti-aging hair-care products out there, our products don’t aim to conceal the effects of aging. Instead, they enhance aging hair, from our Silver Lining Purple Brightening Shampoo, which helps silver strands shine, to our Superpower Serum, designed to nourish the scalp and support thicker, healthier hair.
Our mission to promote age inclusion and diversity, challenge stereotypes around women and aging, and give all women access to clean, cruelty-free, high-quality products designed to improve their hair, scalp, and inner health as they age is what drives us forward every day.
Let’s start with the basics, shall we?
Why Your Hair Is Changing
As we grow older, our bodies change. And that means our hair does, too. We can trace most of these changes back to our hormones, namely estrogen, which, once in decline due to menopause, disrupts the hair growth cycle. When our bodies have less access to estrogen, this impacts our sensitive hair follicles, causing them to spend more time in the resting phase and to shed hair strands sooner, triggering hair loss—not to mention a whole slew of other hair transformations. Lower levels of progesterone also impact hair loss. Progesterone’s role, beyond preparing the endometrial lining for a fertilized egg, is to help mitigate levels of hair-thinning DHT (dihydrotestosterone). This testosterone derivative now has more prominence due to decreased estrogen. With less estrogen and progesterone in our bodies, we can have more sensitivity to DHT.
Age-related hormonal changes even affect how efficiently we produce natural oils that are so essential to protecting our hair and scalp. These oils, or sebum, provide moisture, strength, and elasticity to our tresses while preventing hair breakage.
Other Factors Affecting Your Aging Hair
Stress Takes a Toll
Stress makes everything worse, and the hormonal shift associated with menopause only exacerbates anxiety, mood swings, and even depression. An abundance of stress can convince your hair follicles to curb hair growth so they stop producing new strands. Why? Stress affects your cortisol levels, which disrupt regular hair growth cycles, leading to hair thinning or loss. Self-care activities that promote calm and relaxation, like yoga, meditation, and mindful thinking, all support stress reduction and are an intelligent plan of action to complement your healthy hair habits.
Harsh Hairstyling Adds Up
Hot styling tools may help your hair look smooth and shiny, but all that hot air isn’t doing your delicate aging hair any favors. Rule No. 1: If you must use a curling iron, blow-dryer, or flat iron, first shield your tresses with our No Remorse Heat Protection & Taming Spray. This miracle-moisturizing mist offers incredible heat protection and conditions dry strands from damage caused by heat up to 450 degrees while also taming frizz!
An even better option: Try one of our easy, no-heat hairstyling hacks designed to hold the heat so tresses stay happy and healthy. Other hairstyling habits to kick ASAP: Too-tight ponytails that pull delicate strands and aggressive brushing, especially when hair is wet.
Nutrients Are Now More Important Than Ever
Our ability to absorb nutrients decreases as we age. So a healthy, nutrient-rich diet alone is often insufficient to feed all our vital organs, not to mention accessory organs like our hair.
Our tresses' thickness, elasticity, and overall health can suffer when we don’t supply them with the necessary nutrients to grow. These include iron, biotin, and folic acid, not to mention an alphabet’s worth of vitamins like A, B, C, D, and E.
All these vitamins and minerals are essential to healthy follicles, a hydrated scalp, and thick, shiny hair. This is where daily supplements like our Significant Other Hair, Skin & Nails Supplement + Retinol Boost, and our Power Within Skin & Scalp Collagen Gummies come in as terrific alternatives to anti-aging products by boosting the health of our aging hair from the inside out.
To learn more about the benefits of supplements, including collagen and biotin, check out our blog!
The Science: How Your Hair Changes with Age
Now that we know what’s causing our hair to change let’s take a closer look at all the possible ways our hair and scalp begin to transform after 40.
Gray hair color Makes an Entrance
The most obvious shift we see is a loss of pigment, otherwise known as gray hair. Silver strands can start sprouting as early as our 30s and even our 20s, but after 40 is when accelerated graying typically occurs. A decrease in melanin is to blame, and genetics usually play a role in the amount of graying that occurs.
Hair texture changes with age
Gray hair also changes the texture of your tresses. It’s normal for aging hair, especially the silver strands, to feel coarser, finer, thinner, and frizzier—primarily due to the loss of melanin.
Shrinking Follicle Lead to Thinning Strands
Beyond a change in hair color and texture, our follicles become lazy as we age, and our hair strands become finer and more brittle. As our follicle diameter shrinks, so does our hair density. The result is thinner-looking tresses.
Less Sebum = Drier Scalp
While all this is happening, the amount of sebum, a natural oil produced by the scalp’s sebaceous glands, starts to decrease. Sebum has a few functions, most notably to nourish your scalp and support shiny, hydrated, and healthy-looking hair. When our scalp is dry, you can often expect flaky skin, inflammation, shrinking follicles, or clogged pores.
The New Hair-Care Routine for Women Over 40
With all that’s happening with your hair these days, it should be no surprise that the hair products that worked in your 20s and 30s probably won’t deliver the same results today—especially when creating fullness and volume. Aging hair requires special care, so we take a holistic approach to hair wellness, including scalp and inner health care.
Since your shampoo and conditioner are the building blocks of healthy hair, we’ll start there. While most volumizing shampoos dry out the cuticle to add fullness to fine strands, we understand that aging hair is already dry!
That’s why we created a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo that boosts volume, body, fullness, moisture, and manageability while strengthening thin strands and diminishing breakage. Yes, it certainly packs a punch! Our Wake Up Call Volumizing Shampoo is clinically proven to reduce breakage by up to 95%! And it will never strip your hair of essential oils or weigh it down.
Of course, no hair-care regimen is complete without a conditioner, so our Wake Up Call Volumizing Conditioner is equally nourishing, volumizing, and strengthening and reduces breakage up to 98%!
And for those days when your tresses are extra thirsty for hydration, our best-selling Hair Redemption Restorative Butter Masque with our proprietary plant-based butter blend makes for a pampering 2-minute treat that instantly smoothes and repairs dry, brittle hair while reducing frizz and adding shine. It’s also terrific as a deep-conditioning overnight treatment.
Beyond Shampoo and Conditioner—Serums, Hair Thickening Sprays, Supplements, and More!
We’ve created a complete arsenal of products to protect your aging hair and address all your hair, scalp, and inner health goals from hair thickening products like our double-award-winning Lift Me Up Hair Thickener, which wraps around thinning hair strands, lifting them at the roots for allover volume and fullness to our Superpower Fortifying Hair & Scalp Serum.
This award-winning bestseller is packed with scalp-and-hair-follicle-nourishing ingredients that rebalance scalp oils and promote thicker, healthier hair in as little as 8 weeks. Applied with our Superpower Liquid Comb Massaging Serum Applicator, it becomes a soothing and stimulating daily treat for your scalp and tresses. Click here for everything you’ve ever wanted to know about this Superpower Serum!
We also couldn’t resist a shout-out to our New Dawn Activated Charcoal Cleanser. Like a facial for your scalp, this first-ever charcoal-activated and AHA-infused cleanser exfoliates, detoxifies, stimulates, and rebalances dry, itchy scalps with a unique built-in massaging applicator designed to brush away dirt, oils, and buildup for a healthy scalp and better hair. And last but not least, we have our supplements—because what we put in our bodies is just as important as what we spritz or slather on!
Let Better Not Younger Solve Your Hair Loss Issues
Not sure which products are right for you? We designed a quick and easy quiz to take the guesswork out of finding a personalized hair-care regimen for your specific goals. In just under 90 seconds, The Better Hair Quiz identifies your hair-care needs and recommends the perfect products for your hair type, texture, and concerns.
Want to peruse all our product offerings? You can view our complete collection of hair-care, scalp-care, styling, and inner health products in our Online Shop.
Each product features all the key benefits and ingredients, the science behind the formulas, and a bunch of FAQs to help answer any questions you may have along your better hair journey.
Tell Us: Are you ready to experience great hair today and even better hair tomorrow? We want to hear about your hair goals and concerns. Share in the comments below!
For even more hair-care solutions and advice for aging hair, visit us on Facebook and Instagram. Better Not Younger has everything you need to bring resilience and life back to your aging tresses.