Common symptoms of alopecia areata include: Patches of hair loss, including your scalp, facial hair, eyebrows, eyelashes and body hair. Nail pitting. Your patches won’t typically have any other symptoms, but in rare cases, they may: Itch (pruritus). Change color (red, purple, brown or gray). Develop visible, mouth-like openings in your hair follicles (follicular ostia). Have black dots, which are hair shafts that are visible in the follicular ostia (cadaver hairs). Grow short hairs that are thicker on the top and narrow toward your scalp (exclamation point hairs). Grow white hairs.