Eyebrow Hair Loss: 10 Causes and Treatments
Hypotrichosis is the thinning or development of irregular patterns in the hair of your eyebrows.
Eyebrow loss or thinning can be hard to manage, especially if you’ve noticed your thick eyebrows become sparse. However, brows are considered a make-or-break part of our facial structure.
That’s why eyebrow hair thinning or general hair loss can be such a shocking experience. While there are many common causes of eyebrow hair loss, there are just as many treatments to counteract those problems.
Jae Pak MD Medical is here to outline all the causes of eyebrow loss and discuss some of the most common treatments.
Remember that these causes and treatments may overlap, and the most effective remedies may be up to you and your hair loss expert to decide. With that caveat, let’s get into our list and give you the tools you need to achieve your ideal brows once again.
1. Grooming and Plucking
Tweezing earned the top spot for a reason. Overplucking and too much grooming are the main culprits for most sparse brows. Surely you’re thinking that you never overpluck or get carried away with the tweezers, but in reality, you’re probably overdoing it.
We’ve all been there. It starts by plucking a few stragglers, and before you know it, you’ve done away with a substantial portion of your brow hair. The answer to this problem may seem overly simple, but it’s what we all need to hear.
Don’t pluck your brows for a while – we mean three or four months, in some cases – and then reassess your situation.
Enduring the “awkward” growth phase can be worth it if you can regain the brow hair you once thought was lost for good.
2. Makeup and Fillers
The market is now flooded with makeup products that claim to help thin eyebrows. These serums and creams add volume, depth, texture, and much more to our brows with just a few flicks and sweeps. However, the results may not last as those visual improvements could be short-lived when brow hair declines in quality – or quantity.
Makeup products may contain unnatural components that harm the skin and hair at the root. Then there’s the psychological component that encourages users to keep adding more fill-in products.
That is why it is important to switch to natural products when available and allow your brows to help regain their strength naturally.
3. Environmental Causes
From water supply to air, food, and even household cleaning products, protecting our hair from harsh environmental factors is a constant struggle to stay above the fray and maintain optimal health.
How does this relate to our brows? Everything is interconnected with our health, and a loss of brow hair may indicate that your environment is less than healthy.
Start by analyzing everyday items like food, clothes, skincare products, fragrances, and daily habits. See if you can skip or minimize your use of plastics and polyester items for natural linens and cotton goods.
Living a more natural life could benefit your looks (including brows) and overall well-being.
4. Genetic Factors
Let’s not overlook one of the essential factors in how our eyebrows look and change over time: genetics.
Our DNA determines everything from the size and shape of our brows to the growth cycle of the individual hair follicles, hair production, hairline, and balding.
It’s just one of those unfair aspects of reality, as some people hit the jackpot with eyebrow genetics, maintaining perfect brows for decades no matter what they do. Meanwhile, others are fighting an uphill battle and need all the help they can get in the brow department.
Focus on what you can change now and commit to it. Learn how to work with what you have.
5. Nutrition Deficiency
Brow hair requires a mix of proteins, fatty acids, enzymes, vitamin A, and other building blocks from the foods we eat every day. Not getting enough biotin, for example, could cause a loss of eyebrow hair.
Without that steady flow of nutrients to keep up production, eyebrow hair may slow down or stop entirely with time. This points to the importance of good nutrition, not just for our immune system but also for our appearance.
If you’re deficient in specific nutrients, the changes you experience may be significant and appear on the surface – especially on your eyebrows.
If you need another reason to ditch the processed foods, this is it. Healthy eating could help aid in brow hair regrowth, so why not go all-in?
6. Stressful Lifestyle
Stress is said to cause eyebrow hair loss, and recent research substantiates those claims. That goes for scalp hair and the hair on the brows, which may be affected by high stress levels and poor lifestyle habits.
The problem is that stressful events can happen no matter what, but they shouldn’t cause your brow hair to fall out immediately. Instead, it’s how we respond to those stressful situations – whether with willpower, mindfulness techniques, or healthy forms of stress relief.
While you can’t run from stress, you can combat it in healthy ways that help maintain your mental balance and appearance, including brow hair.
7. Chronic Dry Skin
Many can relate to the ongoing saga of dry skin and how it affects features like eyebrows over the long term. Our brows grow best when skin is not too dry or oily, and that ideal middle zone is hard to maintain.
If this struggle sounds familiar, your priority may be skincare optimization rather than a direct brow replenishment plan. Focus on finding the skin’s ideal moisture levels to create the best environment for brows to grow strong and healthy.
Taking care of dry skin may lead you back to working with diet, lifestyle, or other factors.
8. Medical Interactions
A long list of medications can impact skin health and hair growth. If you’re taking any prescription meds in the short or long term, it’s worth discussing these concerns with your dermatologist. This is another reason to view hair health from a broad, top-down perspective and see how all these factors come together.
9. Trauma or Injury
Cuts, burns, and other traumatic incidents may disrupt eyebrow hair growth, even if the injury did not directly affect this area.
The same principles apply to certain conditions and other illnesses that cut short the life cycle of follicles and prevent further growth on the brow. While these obstacles may be discouraging, other methods are worth exploring, including restorative surgery in brow transplant, reconstruction, microneedling, and more.
This emphasizes the importance of working with a hair restoration specialist like Jae Pak, M.D., who can draw from a broad range of experience to formulate the ideal strategy.
10. Hormonal Imbalances
The results can be unpredictable and odd when hormones are thrown out of balance. Men and women may find that hair grows in strange ways or cannot grow where it once did, including the eyebrows. Hypothyroidism, when the thyroid gland produces insufficient amounts of the thyroid hormone, can also cause thinning brows.
The endocrine system is beyond complex and is still a developing field of study. This may leave some patients without a clear course of action when dealing with hair loss from hormonal imbalances. It only reinforces the role of using proven experts to find the right treatment options, including a hair transplant or an eyebrow transplant from Jae Pak MD Medical.
Hormonal changes won’t be a quick fix, but they could be monumental in regaining healthy brow hair and overall quality of life.
Restore Your Ideal Brows with Jae Pak MD Medical
While some people turn to microchanneling or semi-permanent tattoos, there may be a better way. Use this guide as a launchpad for your eyebrow restoration efforts.
So what are you waiting for? Now’s the time to connect with hair loss professionals who can give you the support, resources, and treatments you need.
Contact Jae Pak MD Medical and schedule your appointment with us today!
Sources:
Biology, Structure, and Function of Eyebrow Hair | ResearchGate
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