Hair Growth Phases

Hair growth is divided into three different cycles of growth or phases. They are known as the Anagen. Catagen and Telogen phase.

Anagen is the growth phase. Catagen is the regressing phase. Telogen is the resting phase. Each phase also has an Exogen sub-phase, which is an exiting phase that is when hair tends to shed - when it’s reached the end of its cycle. Shedding is normal, and happens with any human being. We shed on average 100 hairs a day. If your hair is straight you won’t really notice it, however if your hair is curly you’ll notice the hairs when you touch your hair as they have been caught in the curls and come loose as you manipulate your hair. It’s not that you are losing more hair than before -but rather it’s more obvious than if your hair was straightened and it shed throughout the day on its own.


Normally 90% of hair is in the Anagen phase at any given time, while 10-14% are in the Telogen phase and 1-2% n the Catagen phase. This is good news as it means that most of your hair is growing most of the time!

The growth phase for hair on the head lasts 2-7 years. At the end of the Anagen phase, a signal causes the hair to go into the Catagen (regressing) phrase. During this phase, the hair growth stops for 2-3 weeks while a club hair is formed ending just prior to the Telogen (resting) phase kicking in.

During the Telogen (resting) phase, the club hair, which began forming in the Catagen stages, is now fully formed. It is now a dead fully keratinized hair. Hair is normally shed at this phase as well. We can of course minimize the abnormal hair shedding/breakage that is not due to the Telogen phase.

The length of the Anagen (growing) phase is genetically pre-determined. We thus cannot change how long our hair grows for and stays on our head - what we can however change - is how we treat the hair that does come out to make it last as long as the Anagen/Catagen/Telogen phase allows it.

This means that every person is on average capable of keeping up to an average of 3 years growth on our heads which is normally 18-24 inches of hair length.

These are all average statistics. Now imagine if you went above the average by treating your hair above the average?