Can Wearing a Hat Cause Hair Loss?

Maybe you love your favorite baseball cap and are rarely seen without it. Maybe you cover your head for religious reasons, and you love a fashionable fedora atop your hijab. Or maybe you just like to add a little extra flare to your outfits with the occasional beanie or beret.

But could what you wear on your head impact whether hair can grow on it?

Whether you’re experiencing hair loss or concerned you might start to, dermatologist John Anthony, MD, is here to discuss the ways your headwear might contribute.

Can hats cause hair loss?

“This is a tough question to answer because the topic has not been well-studied,” Dr. Anthony acknowledges. “But most often quoted on this topic are two studies that looked at possible environmental factors for hair loss in pairs of male and female identical twins.”

In neither of these studies was the wearing of hats associated with worsening hair thinning. A study of 92 male identical twins found that men who wore a hat every day experienced less hair loss at the temples than their non-hat-wearing twins. On the other hand, a study of 98 identical female twins found that “absence of hat use” was associated with increased hair loss in women.

So, if hats don’t cause hair loss, what does? First, it’s important to know that there are different types of hair loss, and they have different underlying causes. Male pattern baldness and female pattern baldness, for example, are hereditary, while alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease.

But in general, hair loss is the result of a combination of factors, like:

• Age
• Sex
• Genetics
• Hormones
• Medical conditions and/or medications
• Nutritional deficiencies

Is wearing a hat every day bad for your hair?

While the science isn’t totally clear on whether hats contribute to hair loss, Dr. Anthony warns that there are some theoretical risks to wearing hats that are too tight or that cause your scalp to become itchy and inflamed afterward.

“We think it’s possible that wearing hats that are very tight or very hot could decrease blood flow to the hair follicles, stressing them or putting too much tension on them,” he says. “The hair loss would be temporary at first, but it could progress to permanent hair loss over time.”

You may also be at risk for hair loss if you’re in the habit of pulling your hair into a ponytail, braids or other tight styles to keep it neat and held back beneath a hat. But the risk doesn’t come from the hat itself.

This type of hair loss is called traction alopecia, and it’s the result of chronic (long-term or repeated) tension on your hair, which damages your hair follicles.

“If you’re already susceptible to hair loss, styles that pull tightly on your hair can stress the roots and lead to hair loss,” he adds.

Can other head coverings cause hair loss?

Traction alopecia is most often seen in Black women, but it can happen to anyone. And you may be at higher risk for this type of hair loss if you frequently cover your hair in some form, like if you:

• Wear a religious head covering, like a turban, hijab or sheitel
• Use pins to secure head coverings, like skullcaps or nurses’ caps, to your hair
• Wear other types of headgear for work, like helmets or hard hats

“If traction alopecia is caught early and you can remove the source of tension to your hair, your hair may start to grow back,” Dr. Anthony says.

This is still sometimes possible in the case of religious head coverings, like by changing the fabric of your hijab or changing the location of the hairpins you use to secure your kippah.

A final word on hats and hair loss

Wearing the occasional hat won’t contribute to hair loss, but it’s not clear whether frequent hat-wearing will.

“A loosely fitting option may be a safer bet than a tight-knit cap or tight baseball hat,” Dr. Anthony suggests. (Easy-breezy bucket hat, anybody?)

But if you have to wear a specific type of head covering every day, like for religious or work-related reasons, you may want to talk to a dermatologist about how to keep your hair as protected as possible in the long run.