An abundance of hair is universally considered alluring in women. This may have a genetic origin, as a healthy appearance is advantageous when it comes to finding a partner. It is interesting to note that the cells which go to form that hair, the eyes and the teeth all derive ultimately from stem cells located early in development in the epidermis, i.e. skin cells.

As our ancestors sought to procreate with the most healthy possible mate, a full head of lustrous hair – or bright eyes and a bushy tail – would have been a fair indication of reproductive viability. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as females with abundant hair tended to be selected as mates and gave birth to offspring who went on to develop a similarly healthy appearance. And so on, until the present day, where hair is still rated by men as a prime factor in sexual attraction.

This goes part way to explain why balding in women can have such a catastrophic effect on self-esteem and tends to be avoided at all costs. And there’s no getting around it – baldness is more of a social stigma for women than it is for men. This is why it is rare for a woman to simply accept hair loss and appear in public with her paucity of hair exposed. She is more likely than a man to look for a solution. Nowadays there are a wealth of products and techniques at her disposal for achieving the desired effect of a healthy head of hair.

Hair loss in women is not necessarily permanent – temporary hair loss may be caused by illness, direct damage to hair, medication and certain skin diseases. But a woman whose balding is likely to prove permanent and even progressive will be interested in finding a solution and finding it fast.

Understanding alopecia in women is the first step towards doing something about it: each hair on your head grows from its follicle for between 2 and 6 years, after which it rests before finally falling out. While the failure of follicles to produce new growth in women’s scalps is not completely understood, hair thinning does tend to be associated with endocrines, or hormones, and more especially with male sex hormones. This would seem to imply that bald men have a higher sexuality than those with a full head of hair – an idea most men would be entirely happy with, but which does little for a balding woman’s self-esteem. And while male alopecia tends to follow patterns of thinning and balding in certain parts of the scalp only, women sufferers undergo an overall thinning of the general body of hair. This thinning tends to become progressively more marked after the onset of the menopause, when the balance of hormones is disrupted.

There are plenty of products on the market for dealing with this thinning, which roughly fall into four main categories: techniques and products to disguise the fact that the woman is going bald, treatments which inhibit further thinning, products to actively stimulate hair growth and products to prevent the hair from thinning in the first place. The choice of product or treatment is up to the individual woman, depending on tastes and budget, but since hair loss in women is largely irreversible, prevention, as is the case with the teeth and eyesight, is better – and in the long run probably more cost-effective - than cure. At http://www.female-hair-loss-center.com, you can find more information about female hair loss.

For the most effective prevention, expert opinion and analysis should be sought at the earliest possible sign of symptoms of hair loss and the necessary tests carried out to formulate the most effective personalized prevention treatment programme in each individual case. Whatever the ultimate choice, there is no reason in the modern world for a woman’s self-esteem to have to suffer because of hair loss.