Losing 50 to 100 hairs a day is normal. Everyone loses hair. The question worth asking is whether you are losing more than you are growing back — and if you are, why.
Some causes of hair fall are genetic and medical, and no oil will fix them. But a large share of the hair fall people deal with in Pakistan comes from a handful of everyday, fixable things. Here are seven of them, honestly assessed.
1. Hard water
Most of urban Pakistan runs on hard water — high in calcium and magnesium. Those minerals deposit on the hair shaft over time, leaving a film that makes hair feel rough, look dull and tangle more. More tangling means more mechanical breakage when you comb.
What helps: a final rinse with filtered or boiled-and-cooled water, or a shower filter if you can manage one. A gentle, non-sulfate shampoo also builds up less residue on top of the mineral deposit.
2. Heat — from the weather, not just the styler
Between April and September, direct UV exposure degrades the keratin in your hair and dries the scalp. Add a blow dryer or straightener on top and the cuticle takes damage from both directions.
What helps: cover your hair in strong sun — a dupatta, a cap, anything. Air dry where possible. If you must use heat, keep it on the lowest setting that works and never on soaking wet hair.
3. Dust and pollution
Particulate matter settles on the scalp, mixes with sebum and clogs follicles. A blocked follicle produces weaker hair, and an inflamed scalp sheds faster. In smog season this gets measurably worse.
What helps: wash more consistently in high-pollution months, not less. And use a shampoo gentle enough that washing twice a week does not itself become the problem — that is the case for something like Allivera Rosemary & Red Onion Shampoo, sulfate and paraben free so it cleans without stripping.
4. Protein and iron in the diet
Hair is made almost entirely of keratin, a protein. When protein intake is low, the body deprioritises hair — it is not a vital organ. Iron deficiency is also strongly associated with hair shedding, and it is common, particularly among women.
What helps: daily protein at every meal — eggs, daal, chicken, yoghurt. If you are tired as well as shedding, ask your doctor for a ferritin test rather than guessing. This is one where a blood test beats any product.
5. Stress
Sustained stress pushes hair follicles prematurely into their resting phase. The frustrating part is the delay: telogen effluvium typically shows up two to three months after the stressful period, so people rarely connect the two. You are shedding now because of what happened in June.
What helps: sleep, mostly. It is the least marketable advice and the most effective. Stress-related shedding is usually temporary and reverses on its own once the trigger passes.
6. Tight hairstyles
Tight buns, tight braids, tight ponytails worn daily create constant tension at the follicle. Over years this becomes traction alopecia, and unlike most hair fall, it can become permanent along the hairline.
What helps: loosen it, vary where the tension sits, and give your hair a day off. If your scalp hurts when you take your hair down, it was too tight.
7. Neglecting the scalp entirely
Most hair care targets the lengths — the part you can see. But the lengths are already dead. Everything that determines the quality of your next hair happens in the scalp: circulation, inflammation, the health of the follicle itself.
What helps: regular scalp massage and a lightweight oil that absorbs rather than sitting on top. Multivera Hair Oil was built around this — rosemary for circulation, jojoba because it mimics the scalp's own sebum and absorbs cleanly, argan and fractionated coconut for the shaft, hydrolysed keratin and vitamin E to finish. For targeted application on thinning areas, the dropper on Multivera Serum places it exactly where you need it.
What to actually do this month
- Oil and massage the scalp twice a week, five minutes each time.
- Switch to a sulfate-free shampoo and wash with lukewarm water, never hot.
- Get protein at every meal, and a ferritin test if you are also tired.
- Loosen your hairstyle and cover your hair in direct sun.
- Take a photo of your part line today. Take another in 90 days. Memory is unreliable; photographs are not.
When to see a doctor instead
Go and see a dermatologist if you notice sudden patchy loss, a visibly widening part line over weeks rather than months, hair fall alongside fatigue or weight change, or a scalp that is scaling, painful or inflamed. Those patterns point to something a product cannot address, and the sooner they are identified the better the outcome.
For everyday shedding — the kind driven by hard water, heat, dust, diet and a neglected scalp — consistency over three months does more than any single product ever will.
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