Why Are So Many Young Women Convinced They’re Balding? (2025)

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty

“I think all my hair is falling out,” is how Beth, 26, recounts multiple phone calls to her mom through 2021 and 2022. “I’m going crazy.” She had experienced some post-COVID-related shedding and was seeing baldness everywhere. “I hadn’t thought about all my hair falling out until my phone started giving me targeted ads,” she says. “Then my whole feed became people doing Pilates, people brushing their hair obsessively, and people oiling their scalp.” Because Beth’s immune system was at “super low” after having COVID, she says she was more vulnerable to the message that something was fundamentally wrong and her (perfectly normal) shedding was a signal for something deeper. She grew fearful of washing her hair and began obsessively asking her partner, friends, family, hairdresser and even a doctor: “Am I balding?” They all resoundingly said no, but her algorithm said otherwise.

There has been an outsize focus on our scalps in the past couple of years. There are viral hair-growth gummies, supplements, scalp serums, brushes, massagers, and oils popping up every day, and more hair-loss influencers are sharing their regrowth journeys with millions of followers. Anyone with fine or breaking hair has begun to label themselves as “balding” online, and there are “scalp check” videos where young women share the top of their heads so people can weigh in online if they’re thinning or not. It feels like anyone who can slightly see their scalp now lives in fear of losing all their hair, and 20-something-year-old women without hair loss conditions are paranoid that they’re going bald. The beauty world is ready and waiting with new products and routines to save the day, but are more young people actually balding, or have we all simply become obsessed with hair health?

Julie Dickson, a fine-hair specialist and the founder of Joon Drop, says more women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s have walked into her Lower East salon in recent years convinced they’re seeing bald. “The increase is at least 100 percent,” she says. “Most of the time, it’s just fine hair, and people don’t understand it’s genetics, or they’ve looked at a photo of someone online and say ‘give me that.’” As a hair stylist, Dickson can give them the appearance of more hair — but only with expertly placed dimensional color, a good haircut, and extensions. What’s harder, however, is convincing people without hair loss conditions that their genetically fine hair is not “balding” but will never look like the long, thick waves they’ve seen on Instagram or TikTok (which many times, is, in fact, a wig.).

For Beth, it was hair-growth accounts like Golâb Beauty that convinced her she had the early signs of alopecia. “The logical part of me knew I didn’t because everyone around me was telling me no, but the content was so consistently telling me something else,” she says. “It became a weird vessel for all my other anxieties.” Of course, androgenic alopecia, male-pattern baldness, and female-pattern baldness are all real and distressing conditions. Still, much hair loss content goes beyond people with those conditions sharing their experiences. Sidra Syed, 24, noticed her hair thinning in her early 20s. Instead of asking a dermatologist, she turned to TikTok. Armed with unchecked advice, she started cycling through multiple methods and products to get more hair density. “I feel like there’s a pressure for girls to buy all these products,” she says. “The people promoting it are getting a little pushy too, like, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you buying this now?’”

Syed posted a TikTok in September 2024, blaming Mielle Organics’ rosemary oil for recent hair loss — the product had gone so viral that counterfeit products were entering the market. The video got over 6 million views and comments from hundreds of young women who swear they’re losing hair. “I’m gonna be bald in like three days,” Syed wrote in the replies. Syed is far from “bald,” but she has tried multiple things (including the rosemary oil) to increase her hair growth: biotin supplements and hair gummies (which she says didn’t work), OUAI’s scalp serum, vitamin D, and hair oiling. She hasn’t seen much difference yet, but she swears it’s because she isn’t consistent with her routine. “Hair oiling works, but I always forget to do it or put on my serums and take my vitamins,” Syed says. “If I were to be consistent, I know I would see more growth.”

There’s no doubt that hair-loss content can make those with those conditions feel less alone. What’s also true is that many others are now thinking about their scalps too much. “There’s less of a shameful stigma about hair loss, which makes people less shy about talking about losing their hair,” says Dickson. “But also, a lot of fine-hair people think they are losing their hair or their hair is breaking when it’s really just their natural fall and replacement.” After all, according to Anabel Kingsley, a London-based trichologist, it’s normal to lose up to 100 hairs a day. In order to fight back the panic, she recommends asking yourself if your ponytail was thicker or your scalp was less visible five years ago. What about two years ago? “The difference between hair loss and just having naturally finer hair is that there’s only really an issue if your hair becomes finer than it used to be,” she says.

Dr. Michele Green, a cosmetic dermatologist in New York, says she has seen a “noticeable increase” of young people experiencing balding in her practice. “The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a significant impact on this demographic,” she says. “Also, today’s social climate has heightened awareness among young people regarding changes in their hair.” For Kingsley, it’s been impossible not to notice a direct correlation between recent hair loss in young women and excessive weight loss and exercise. In the age of Ozempic, girls are pressured to be both pencil-thin and have thick hair — a combination that often doesn’t go hand-in-hand. “It’s almost an oxymoron,” she says. “I’ve seen a lot of women recently who are very health conscious to the point that it’s not healthy anymore, so their period has stopped, and this affects their hair.” But, despite what #HairLossTok may have you believe, the answer isn’t always Minoxidil.

For those who suspect genuine hair loss, it pays to consult with an expert, not TikTok. “Hair loss is multifactorial: It can be due to nutritional deficiencies, underlying medical conditions, stress, genetics, or it can come in transient bouts that just rectify themselves,” says Kingsley. “If you have fewer hairs because of a nutritional deficiency, Minoxidil is not going to fix it.” And there’s no denying that even transient bouts of hair loss can be traumatic. Penny James, a Trichologist based in New York, says we shouldn’t downplay hair-loss anxiety, something her clients (90 percent of whom are in their 20s) feel deeply. “It’s very real,” she says. “Young people feel they cannot go on a date, go to a family party, avoid work gatherings, and will not go to the beach.”

The cruel twist of seeing bald is that stress can also cause temporary hair loss, and on social media, hair loss anxiety seems to be contagious. Even in writing this article, I’ll admit that I somehow convinced myself that I might be balding before looking back on older photos to see my (unfortunately fine) hair looking exactly the same. Beth stopped seeing bald in 2022 when she chopped her hair into a short, shaggy cut, stopped brushing it all the time, and then quit thinking about it as much. “Because I wasn’t talking about it, the content on my phone changed, so I didn’t see it anymore,” she says. “I was no longer on the hamster wheel.” But for others, the cycle continues. After stumbling upon another distressed video of a 23-year-old on TikTok asking, “Am I bald?” I decided to reach out and ask how balding anxiety has impacted her life. She replied almost immediately: “Oh, that vid is old; I’m not balding now, haha.”

Tags:

• beauty
• hair
• hair oiling

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