Do plucked grey hairs cause two to grow back?

“I wish that by plucking a single hair you would get more to grow back,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. “It would be a great solution for people who are thinning and unhappy about it.” Unfortunately, it’s a myth.

Our scalp is covered in follicles – essentially tiny hair factories – and each one produces just a single hair shaft. Plucking a hair won’t cause multiple hairs to grow from the same follicle. In fact, repeatedly pulling hairs out can have the opposite effect. Over time, the damage may mean the hair never grows back at all.

Tobin points to the ultra-thin eyebrow trend of the 1990s and early 2000s, when many people overplucked and found their follicles simply stopped producing hair. “They weren’t getting two for every one,” he says. “They were actually getting none.” Damage is the key issue.

Ireland, Dublin

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