Everyone calls it hair fall. Most of the time, it isn't.
You brush, you rinse, and there it is — a small dark nest in your hand or in the drain. The instinct is to panic and buy something labelled "hair growth". But the strands in your hand are telling you which of two completely different problems you have, and they need completely different routines. Get the diagnosis right and you stop wasting money on the wrong shelf.
The 30-second test
Pick up one of the fallen strands and look at the end of it.
- A tiny pale bulb at one end — that strand came out from the root. That's shedding, and a certain amount of it is completely normal every single day. Hair works on a cycle; some of it is always on its way out.
- Two ragged ends, no bulb, and the strand is shorter than your hair — that's breakage. The hair snapped somewhere along its length. Your roots are fine; your mid-lengths are giving up.
Look at your hairline and parting too. Breakage often shows as a halo of short, wispy bits standing up around the parting and temples — the same strands, snapping again and again at the same weak point.
Why hair takes such a beating here
Mauritian hair lives a hard life and nobody warns you. Strong year-round sun, salt water at the weekend, chlorine, humidity that has you tying it back tight and blow-drying it straight, and the daily heat of a straightener or dryer. Each of those is a small withdrawal from the same account: the protein structure of the strand and the lipid layer that keeps it flexible. Breakage isn't one dramatic event — it's the fiftieth small one.
Shop the story: if it's strength you're after
Start where the hair starts: the scalp
Your scalp is skin. It gets oily, it gets dry, it flakes, it gets irritated — and we treat it like an afterthought because we can't see it. If your scalp is itchy or flaking, that's the thing to sort out first; no length treatment works well on an unhappy foundation.
An oil session before you wash is the oldest trick and still one of the best: work it into the scalp, leave it while you get on with your evening, then shampoo out. Rosemary and onion oils have become the two everyone asks for, and both are stocked.
One honest note: shampoos, oils and tonics are care, not medicine. Sudden patchy loss, a scalp that's sore or bleeding, or shedding that changes dramatically over a few weeks is a conversation for your doctor — not something to solve on a shelf.
If it's breakage: protein and moisture, in that order
Broken hair is usually one of two things — hair that's lost its internal protein, or hair that's lost its flexibility and snaps when you touch it. Most people need a bit of both, in rotation:
- Protein week — a strengthening mask on the mid-lengths and ends, the parts that have been alive the longest and taken the most damage.
- Moisture week — a rich conditioning mask so the strand bends instead of breaking.
- Every single time you use heat — a heat protectant first. Not optional. This is the cheapest thing on this page and it prevents more damage than anything else here.
Curly, coily and textured hair: read this bit twice
Most hair advice online is written for straight hair, and it quietly gives textured hair the wrong instructions. Curly and coily hair is structurally more fragile: every bend in the strand is a potential snap point, and the scalp's natural oils struggle to travel down a coiled strand, so the ends run dry long before the roots do.
What that changes in practice:
- Detangle wet, with conditioner in, from the ends upward. Dry-brushing textured hair from the roots down is how a single session costs you months of length.
- Lean moisture-heavy. Too many protein treatments in a row leave textured hair stiff and, ironically, more prone to snapping. Alternate, and if your curls feel crunchy and brittle, skip the protein week.
- Watch the tight styles. Slicked-back buns and tight ponytails pull hardest at the hairline — that thinning edge is tension, not genetics, and it usually recovers when the tension stops.
- Your "hair fall" may be length. Curly hair sheds the same as anyone's, but the shed strands get caught in the curls instead of falling, so wash day looks catastrophic when it's really four days' worth arriving at once.
Pair it like a pro
The short version
Strands with a pale bulb are shedding — look after the scalp and be patient, because hair cycles are measured in months. Short, ragged, bulb-less strands are breakage — feed the lengths protein and moisture in rotation, never use heat unprotected, and be gentler when the hair is wet. Most people find they have some of each, and the routine that fixes it is boringly consistent rather than clever.
Browse the full shelf: Hair Care & Hair Growth, Shampoos & Conditioners, Hair Masks and Hair Oils — or see what's trending in our VIRAL 🔥 collection.
Get it today: order online with island-wide delivery, or choose free Click & Collect and pick it up at one of our shops.
