Sandal weather brings the feet out of hiding, and with them a small question many people never ask aloud: what is the hair on my toes doing there, or not doing there? HuffPost put that to two doctors in a piece published June 18, 2026. Their answers are more reassuring than the internet usually is.
Start with the baseline. Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, vice president of in-office care and national medical director at Amazon One Medical, told HuffPost that toe hair is neither good nor bad. “It really just indicates your genetics, your hormones, factors that you often can’t influence,” she said. Ethnic background can also change how much you have, so what is normal for one person can look quite different on another.
Dr. Michael Richardson, a family medicine doctor in Boston, put it simply: “Everyone’s normal is different, but hair on toes is normal.” Having it, he said, does not mean something is wrong.
When loss is worth noticing
Loss is where the doctors got more careful. Richardson said toe hair will not be the first sign of trouble, “but if you’re noticing that it’s less than normal for you, that could be signs of something damaging that area.”
One cause is plain friction. Hair can wear away where shoes rub hard against the skin. “I’ll see that in runners, for example,” Richardson said. Note the wording: he named runners as an example of contact damage, not as a group who typically lose toe hair.
Medication is another. Bhuyan said the hair on your toes can change because of a drug that influences hair growth, and she gave steroids, which can sometimes cause hair growth, as one case.
The more serious explanation involves blood flow. Richardson described peripheral artery disease, where damage to the blood vessels means the blood does not circulate as well, so the tissue is less healthy and cannot grow hair. In place of hair, he said, the toes take on a smooth, shiny look. Bhuyan added that poor circulation can show up in other ways, such as cold feet or pain when walking, and that it tends to be more common in older adults and smokers.
The practical read
Neither doctor suggested alarm. “More often than not, toe hair is going to be normal,” Richardson said. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor.”
That is the sensible takeaway. Know what your own feet usually look like, and if the hair thins out and you also have cold feet, shiny skin or pain on walking, book an appointment rather than guessing. This article is general information and no substitute for medical advice from your own doctor.
