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A Blunt Bob For Mature Hair Looks Phenomenal
We love a bob at any age, but a blunt bob for mature hair is one of the most stylish ways to take the hard work out of styling hair, thanks to a cut that has structure, thickness and pretty movement literally built into it.
The reality is, as we (and our hair) start to get older, our hair texture can change alongside our lifestyle and tolerance for styling. A blunt bob a classic that always looks phenomenally tailored, it has cool-girl energy written all over it and it can work beautifully with our hair, wherever it’s at.
We asked Hair By Sam McKnight pro stylist, Valerie Benavides, to talk us through how hair changes as we get older and how that plays into the styles we choose.
Styling heroes for a blunt bob
Hair By Sam McKnight Cool Girl Volume Foam
Hair By Sam McKnight Cool Girl Superlift Root Boost Volumising Spray
Does hair change as you get older?
Most of us already know that our hair changes as we get older, and our proximity to menopause and peri-menopause can accelerate when we start to see those shifts. “The average age for menopause is around 51. For most people you start going into peri-menopause around 10 years before, but it’s different for everyone,” says Valerie. This is when our levels of oestrogen and testosterone start to decline. “Oestrogen in particular is what you would call a hair-friendly hormone. It keeps your hair in the anagen stage, which is a growth phase. As oestrogen reduces, your hair growth cycle (the time that it’s growing) shortens, and it can also mean that it grows slower, so you find a lot of people get to a point where they go, ‘I used to be able to grow my hair down to here, but now it only grows to my collarbone,’” says Valerie. “That’s really normal,” she assures us.
It’s not just the length, our texture changes too. Around this time, “the follicles at your roots can change shape and size,” says Valerie. “If your follicle starts to get smaller, the hair that’s growing out of it can become finer,” she explains. Your follicles can change shape, too, and that’s when people may notice their hair changes texture. For instance, “it might have previously grown straight, but it starts to become curlier, or frizzier, or more coarse. It’s all to do with that follicle shape changing,” says Valerie.
Another factor impacting hair? Its natural moisture levels. As you get older, you may notice the skin on your face getting drier, and the same is true for the skin on your scalp, as the levels of sebum decrease. “If you haven’t got as much sebum at your scalp, you won’t have as much moisture on your hair as it’s growing out of the follicle and that is more likely to give you a more wiry or coarse texture,” Valerie explains. “You may find you get a frizzy or fluffy top section, or you may start to see more scalp through the hair at the roots. Some people will get it more than others, that’s normal,” says Valerie, but she says, “we’re getting better at identifying things we can do to help our hair – like scalp treatments,” she says. “If your scalp is healthy, it’s always going to support healthy hair,” she notes.