Hair loss in Japan: The causes—and solutions
I was losing so much hair! Almost clumps were lost daily after I arrived in Japan. This would be hard to swallow for anyone, but as a 20-something female, it was beyond troubling. I researched my symptoms online (which is always problematic) but found very little information about what I was experiencing. I hadn’t had this issue in Canada… was it Japan, or was I going crazy?
After scouring the internet, desperate for advice, I finally found a private Facebook group for women living in Japan. There, I found a plethora of people who were suffering in the same way I was.
It turned out I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t the only one.
All of us were in our 20s or 30s and it seemed impossible to me that our problems were completely independent of our new surroundings. How could each one of us have completely separate issues that sprung up as soon as we landed in Japan?
More importantly, how were other people with the same problem supposed to find this tiny little pocket of information without being a member of the Facebook group?
I want to shed light on this stressor and help anyone who might find themselves in the same situation during their time in Japan. This was something that almost cut my time here drastically short—and I don’t want others to feel alone.
Japanese people have such beautiful thick hair! Why is my hair falling out so much?
The answer to this could be equal parts simple and frustrating. Are you of European or Celtic descent? Unfortunately, this might put you at a predisposition to lose more hair in Japan. Westerners tend to have much softer, finer hair. There are many reasons why our hair can freak out as compared to when we’re in our home countries. Let’s run down the list of some of the things that can weigh heavily on our tresses.
