Hair shedding is a mostly natural process where you shed between 50 and 100 hairs per day as the strands fall through the follicle and off your body, while hair breakage is normally a result of friction, pulling, or ripping hair that is damaged.
Hair shedding and hair breakage can become more frequent with specific outside factors. For example, if a person is stressed they can shed more hair, and when people use heated tools and don’t hydrate or pre-treat with heat protectants, they will have dry hair that is more prone to breakage.
When you’re stressed your hair may go into a resting phase called Telogen effluvium where simply brushing or washing your hair could cause more strands to fall out. This may seem like breakage because you applied friction, but it may actually have been the result of your body dealing with something else.
Dry hair is more prone to break as the moisture in the cortex gives your hair its elasticity so it can bounce back into shape after you brush it, sleep on a pillow case, or when adding and removing hair accessories like hair ties and hair clips.
If you wake up and see hair on your pillow case, you may assume it is shedding, but it could be that your hair is currently damaged and the material of the pillow case added friction causing your hair to break. This is why using silk pillowcases over cotton is recommended if you have hair breakage issues. And the same goes for hair wraps and scrunchies, choose silk scrunchies over cotton for sleeping.
Hair shedding and hair breakage may seem similar in that you lose hair, but hair shedding is a naturally occurring process that can increase when you shock your body, and hair breakage is likely a result from improper hair care and hair health.
