While a bald man may be socially acceptable, women often face a more traumatic experience from unexpected hair loss. While early adolescence and the 20s are potential problem times for women susceptible to generic hair loss, menopause is an equally critical time.
Female hair loss usually involves:

• Significant increase in hair shedding
• Shrinking hair fiber diameter
• A decrease in hair density (hairs per sq. centimeter)

The most common type of hair loss seen in women is androgenetic alopecia, also known as female pattern alopecia (or baldness), usually brought on by a change in the hormonal balance within the scalp and hair follicle. A natural reduction in circulating female hormones (estrogens) can change the overall hormonal balance from estrogen to androgen (male hormone), causing hair loss.

Other causes of hair loss in women can be through:

• Physical stress: surgery, illness, anaemia, childbirth, rapid weight change
• Emotional stress: mental illness, death of a family member, etc.
• Medication: cancer treatments, blood thinners, anti-depressants high blood pressure medications, birth control pills, high doses of vitamins, etc.
• Diet: insufficient protein and iron in the diet
• Thyroid disease, either overactive or under active
• Alopecia aerate: patchy hair loss areas the size of a coin or larger
• Ringworm: this fungal infection on the scalp can cause small patches of scaling skin and some hair loss