Hair Loss Blog
Welcome to the myhair blog — your source for everything you want to know about hair. If you're trying to find out more about a new hair loss treatment, interested in learning more about certain hair care products, or just want some hairstyle advice, you've come to the right place. All of our content is created, fact-checked, and reviewed by our expert editorial team and qualified medical professionals.
Understanding hair types
Andre Walker first developed a system to categorize hair types in the 1990s. Since then, it’s been expanded to include 12 hair subtypes. These subtypes are broken down into four main categories: type 1 (straight), type 2 (wavy), type 3 (curly), and type 4 (coily).
Understanding different alopecia types
Androgenic alopecia is the main reason people go bald — but there are many other conditions that cause people to lose hair. These include autoimmune conditions like alopecia areata, stress-related hair loss (formally known as telogen effluvium), traction alopecia, and other forms of hair loss.
Hair cloning (A stem cell treatment for hair loss)
Hair cloning is an experimental treatment for androgenic alopecia. This technique involves the extraction and cloning of hair follicle cells. These follicles are meant to be taken from areas of the head not affected by hair loss, cloned in a lab, and then transplanted onto the person’s scalp.
Does minoxidil affect fertility?
Like any drug, minoxidil can cause side effects. Fortunately, none of them are related to your ability to have children. Unlike finasteride, minoxidil won’t affect your hormones and doesn’t have the ability to affect your fertility.
Finasteride side effects
Finasteride is an FDA-approved treatment for male pattern hair loss. This hormone-blocking drug is effective, but comes with a range of potential short-term and long-term side effects. However, not all versions of finasteride cause th same side effects.
What is minoxidil (and who should use it)?
Minoxidil was the very first treatment to be FDA-approved for androgenic alopecia. It was first approved as a liquid serum, then as a foam. This medication is now available in 2 percent and 5 percent concentrations. The 5 percent products are thought to be most effective for men.
Does a baldness gene cause hair loss?
There’s no individual gene responsible for androgenic alopecia. Instead, a number of different factors are responsible for the progression of this type of hair loss, including epigenetics, your diet, hormonal changes, and hundreds of genetic loci. The multifactorial aspect of this condition is part of what makes it so hard to treat!
Should I use minoxidil foam?
Although minoxidil was first FDA-approved as a hair loss treatment in the 1980s, minoxidil foam didn’t come into the market until 2006. Since then, the foam version of minoxidil has been shown to be just as effective as the liquid serum, preventing further hair loss and improving hair regrowth.
PRP and hair loss
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments extract PRP from your blood and inject it back into your scalp. When PRP is administered into areas where you’ve seen hair loss, hair follicles in that region are stimulated and prompted to start producing hair again.
All about hair loss
Hair loss has plagued people for millennia. From Ancient Egypt to modern times, it’s been a persistent thorn in our sides, affecting men, women, and sometimes even children. Yet, it’s only been in the last few decades that the reasons behind hair loss have been understood and effective treatments have been discovered.
Our aim is to provide you with accurate, up-to-date information that can help you manage your hair problems and answer all your hair-related questions. We aspire to help you separate fact from fiction so that you can skip the useless snake oil treatments and identify which products really work.
And actually, snake oil really was used as a hair loss remedy back in the day. Ancient Egyptians mixed it with ingredients like donkey hooves, porcupine spines, and hippopotamus fat and let it soak into their scalps for hours. Did this concoction work? Not a chance.
The good news is that there are many different — and most importantly, effective — treatments you can choose from today. So far, the FDA has approved options like minoxidil, finasteride, and low-level laser therapy. A few other treatments, like microneedling and ketoconazole, are also currently being explored by researchers. And as for natural remedies… well, let’s just say some of them work, while most of them don’t.
Hair is complicated. We’re here to simplify it.
