Is your scalp shining through your hair? Here’s what to do.

My scalp is shining through my hair. Yikes! Am I balding?

I remember feeling horrified after lunch one day after a colleague made the off-handed comment that he could see my scalp shining through my hair.

One of the most embarrassing things you can go through is when someone notices a sign that you are balding, like your scalp shining through your hair. So after experiencing this first hand, I immediately did a little research. A scalp shining through hair is usually caused by intense lighting from certain angles, hair styles which lift the hair off the scalp as well as thinning hair. Let’s look into what these mean and what you need to do to keep that scalp from shining through your hair.

I can see my scalp through my hair when wet, is that a sign of balding?

Not necessarily. It is perfectly normal to see parts of your scalp through your hair when it’s wet. The reason why you can see your scalp through your hair when it’s wet is because hair tends to clump together under the weight of water. 

When the hair strands come together under the weight of water, it tends to pull the strands together the longer the hairs are. 

So when the hair is pulled in clump together under the weight of water, the base of those strands of hair exposes more of the scalp.

However, the more of your scalp you can see when your hair is wet, the more likelihood that your balding.

The difference between seeing the scalp when the hair is wet on a person with a full head of hair to one who is balding is that you will see more scalp between the individual hairs at their base.

Is it normal to see your scalp when you lift your hair up?

Actually it is quite normal to see your scalp when you lift your hair up. In fact, part of the issue of the scalp shining through your hair is because when the hair is lifted off the scalp, your scalp becomes more visible. 

Your scalp is more visible because the hair is no longer lying flatter on top of it, but standing from its roots. 

Since hair strands are relatively thin even among those with thick hair, some scalp visibility is quite normal.

Though, if you have balding or thinning hair, you may be able to see more of your scalp than someone with thicker strands of hair. 

This is because hair thickness is determined in the follicle not outside the follicle. 

This means that as the hair grows out from the follicle people, with thicker hair normally have thicker strands in diameter than those with thinning hair.

During the male pattern baldness process, testosterone is turned into DHT via the five alpha reduced enzyme. This testosterone, when converted into DHT, attaches itself to your hair follicles. 

This attachment causes the hair follicles to slowly shrink and prolong its dormancy stage of the hair follicle’s life cycle. 

When hair does continue to grow, it grows finer as well as more translucent in color. So if you have thinning hair due to male pattern baldness, the hair that does grow will be thinner than someone who doesn’t experience male pattern baldness. 

Degrees of thickness are quite miniscule when you think about it. 

However, when you have literally thousands of these hairs on your scalp and you lift them off, it does make a big difference in the appearance of thickness and density. Especially when light is directed onto the scalp, causing it to shine through these thinner hairs.

Is it normal to see the scalp through short hair?

Actually it is normal to see the scalp through short hair for a similar reason that you can see your scalp when you lift your hair away from it.

The shorter the hair is, the less it lies close to the scalp. So you, at least aesthetically, have less hair in appearance. When hair is lying flat on the scalp you have coverage from the hair growing from the scalp as well as it’s length covering it. 

Therefore, when you have short hair your hair stands up straighter, it exposes the scalp more than if it were lying flat. 

Obviously when your hair grows, it grows straight up from the scalp. So without it lying directly on the scalp covering it, even the dimmest of lights when shown upon your hair will make your scalp more visible through the hair standing and growing from it.

Is it more normal for males to see their scalp through their hair than females? 

I would say yes, it is more normal for males to see their scalp through their hair than it is for females. The only reason I say this is because of male pattern baldness basically affects mostly males.

However, that does not mean that females do not also experience their scalps shining through their hair as well. They do. This is due to two reasons mostly. 

First, is that women tend to experiment with more hairstyles that actually lift the hair off the scalp more often than men. 

It’s basically a way of trying to have their hair appear more voluminous than it actually is. The results being that light, especially strong light, can penetrate through the individual hair strands much easier than if the hair was either pulled back or styled to lay flat on their scalps.

Another reason is that not all women have thick hair. Some women have quite thin hair. 

In fact, multinational corporations make a variety of hair thickening shampoos, conditioners, treatments and serums to help add volume and texture to thin or fine hair. 

These aren’t only for men. If you can’t tell by the packaging and coloring, most of it is marketed towards women. 

However, just because a woman may have thinner hair or fine hair does not mean she has thinning hair or baldness.

Although women do experience baldness it is certainly not as common as male pattern baldness among men and usually can be attributed to either an inherited DNA trait or some underlying illness or medication.

My hair is so thin I can see my scalp, what can I do?

You can start by evaluating where your hair is thinning on your scalp and then take the appropriate measures and treatments for thinning hair.

These treatments can vary from: 

• Minoxidil.
• Dermal rolling in conjunction with Minoxidil treatments.
• Natural DHT Blockers.
• Propecia.

If you are really determined to fight baldness you can opt for either a hair system or hair transplantation surgery.

Then again you could do the opposite and either get a buzz cut or shave your head totally bald. Then there won’t be any need to worry about your scalp shining through your hair. 

That’s because in the end, you will have taken that scalp shining as a sign that you need to accept, embrace and own your baldness. 

You can own your baldness by simply shaving your head, showing off the beauty of your scalp for the whole world to see and accept that it was meant to be.

How can I stop seeing my scalp through my hair under light?

There are a couple methods that you can try right now to help control and hopefully stop your scalp shining through your hair.

Please note these aren’t 100% guaranteed solutions, but definitely worth a try.

Hair styles and Hair cuts.

The first thing you can do is style your hair differently. If you’re seeing your scalp shining through your hair, it’s usually because your hair is lifted off from your scalp.

This causes light to be able to not only penetrate the strands of hair growing out from your scalp, but can even reflect off these strands onto your scalp. 

This is what creates that scalp glow, that scalp shine through your hair. 

So the first hairstyle I would try, would be a flat laying hairstyle which will lie as close to your scalp as possible. You can do this with very short haircuts. 

Although in my opinion, shorter haircuts work best because when hair is too long, the strands will lie across the top of your scalp too much, weighing it down so that it looks even thinner than it actually is. 

So the first cut I would recommend would be more of like a “Caesar” cut, where the hair is basically brushed down upon the scalp and forward. This will help shield it from most angles of light.

The next cut I would try, would be a buzz cut. Now I know what you’re thinking, “a buzz cut won’t stop my scalp shining through my hair.” But it actually will in the sense that you won’t have that glowing scalp that the hair is causing. 

Once you cut it off, especially with a crew cut or some other kind of buzz cut, your whole head and scalp will be shown to the world. This may have the opposite effect of what you intend, but I can guarantee you this, your scalp won’t be shining through your hair anymore.

Hair fibers.

I was a little reluctant to recommend this method, but what the hell. To each his own, right? The use of hair fibers. 

What hair fibers are basically keratin filaments that are made in a variety of natural hair colors. They come in a salt or pepper shaker like canister that you simply “shake” over the thinning areas of your scalp, like peppering your steak. You should be careful not to over do it though. 

These keratin hair fibers will stick to your thinning strands of hair, thickening them. If you combine hair fibers along with a very short haircut, preferably a brushed down Caesar cut, it should ensure that you won’t have your scalp shining through your hair. 

Lighting and controlling your environment.

Of course, you could always control where you stand in a room. Avoid lights etc. I know this sounds ridiculous and for all intents and purposes, it is. 

But as conference and video calling via Zoom or Skype are becoming more and more popular, we’re all finding out that we look very different on camera, than we do face to face. 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider myself super photogenic. However, in this environment you have a lot of control to present yourself in the best light possible, “pun intended”. 

I would learn about lighting and get some lights as well as some filters. Learn which angles to position them in so that they will not only help deflect light from shining through your hair onto your scalp, but they will also make you look great. 

Lighting is a very underrated art form. But Hollywood has been using lighting experts for over a hundred years and paying them handsomely for it and for good reason.

So learn how to use some lighting techniques for yourself and you will see a world of difference in not only stopping your scalp from shining through your hair, but will help you look exceptional in your face to face conference calls as well.

Scalp shining through hair, conclusions.

As you can see from the suggestions I’ve gone through above, you don’t really need to put up with your scalp shining through your hair. 

Whether you use hair loss treatments including hair transplantation, hair fibers or even getting yourself a hair system, you do have options.

In fact, if I were to choose my top two solutions to the scalp shining through hair issue, I would choose actually three.

The first I would choose of course is getting your hair cut as short as possible and having a brush down into a Caesar like haircut. This of course all depends on how much hair you still have left to work with and where you are balding.

My next strong recommendation would be to examine the environments in which your scalp shining through your hair really bothers you. 

In an age where video conference calls especially for work are becoming more and more prevalent, how you look in those video conference calls also becomes important. 

Therefore, I would invest in not only a good camera, although even your laptop probably has a decent enough camera, but I would look into learning about lighting, angles as well as ways of deflecting light so that it flatters your appearance. 

Most importantly learn about the different angles and techniques on how to deflect the lighting that is causing your scalp to shine through your hair.

However, my number one recommendation in the end is to just shave your head. It’s simple. 

You will no longer need to worry about your scalp shining through your hair. If you’re worried about your scalp shining through your hair, it’s usually because you are losing your hair. 

You’re frustrated because all the attempts and products that you have used to prolong the hair coverage over your scalp is becoming less and less effective. 

This has many psychological effects as well. So as Charles Barkley says, “Just come on home man! Shave your head!“