If you think you might have dandruff, here are a few pictures of the key symptoms to help you diagnose it

Dandruff flakes
The most visible symptom of dandruff, you experience flakes as your skin cells renew faster than usual. The dead cells are what are visible on the hair and on the shoulders as ‘dandruff flakes’

Here, you can see flakes on the shoulder:

And if you look closely at your hair and scalp, you may notice flakes there too:

Irritated scalp
Another key symptom of dandruff is an irritated scalp as your body reacts to the dandruff-causing microbe, Malassezia globosa.

An irritated scalp tends to appear red and can also feel tight and itchy. Here you can see an inflamed scalp:

Symptoms of dandruff you might not see
As well as the visual symptoms, there are some that you can’t see – though you can definitely feel them.

These include:

• Itching – this is a sign of an irritated scalp and is often an early sign of dandruff. Itching can further damage the scalp too as scratching disrupts the skin cells on the surface of the scalp
• Dryness – similar to the feeling when you have dry skin elsewhere on the body, a dry scalp can feel very tight. It happens as damage caused by dandruff disrupts the scalp’s natural moisture defenses, allowing essential moisture to escape.

More about itchy scalp

More about dry scalp

How to tackle the symptoms of dandruff
Here’s the easy part. Just switch to an anti-dandruff shampoo like Head & Shoulders.

It’s clinically proven to work on all the symptoms of dandruff including flakes, itching and dryness¹.

More about dandruff

¹ caused by dandruff