Topical hair loss treatments are popular but can be overhyped. Dr. Ross Kopelman shares how to assess their effectiveness on HairPod

Miracle Hair Loss Cures Debunked
Episode 47
Miracle Hair Loss Cures Debunked

Hair loss “miracle cures” dominate social media, with before-and-after photos that often seem too good to be true. This week on HairPod, I discuss what works, what doesn’t, and the science behind hair loss treatments with expert Dr. Phipps.
Hair Loss Cures: Hope or Hype?
Hair loss can be an emotional challenge, and the market is flooded with “miracle” cures that promise unrealistic results. With so many options, it’s difficult to differentiate between scientifically proven solutions and mere fads. Working with a professional who understands your specific type of hair loss can save you time, money, and disappointment. Personalized guidance is crucial for navigating treatments effectively and avoiding products that overpromise and underdeliver. (See our resources section for a link to a complimentary consultation!)
Stem Cell Therapy for Hair Loss
Stem cell therapy has been touted as a revolutionary treatment for hair loss. However, Dr. Phipps emphasizes that this method is not FDA-approved for hair restoration. While stem cells have demonstrated regenerative properties in other medical fields, their efficacy and safety for hair loss remain unproven. Dr. Phipps urges individuals considering this treatment to consult medical professionals who adhere to regulatory practices. Without FDA clearance, stem cell therapy is still an experimental approach with no guaranteed results.
Are Essential Oils Effective for Treating Hair Loss?
Natural treatments, such as essential oils, have gained traction on social media as potential solutions for hair loss. According to Dr. Phipps, botanicals like pumpkin seed oil and rosemary oil may stimulate hair follicles, encouraging growth in areas of thinning. However, they are unlikely to regrow hair on completely bald areas. Additionally, cheaper essential oils often lack the potency needed for significant results due to the high cost of proper distillation. While these treatments may have some effect, they are not a standalone solution for severe hair loss.
Supplements for Hair Health and Growth
Supplements and vitamins play an important role in overall hair health but are not standalone solutions for regrowing hair or halting hair loss. Their effectiveness depends on the type of hair loss and the quality of the supplements themselves. Partnering with a qualified hair growth expert ensures that the supplements you use have been rigorously tested. When incorporated into a comprehensive regimen, supplements can strengthen hair shafts and support overall hair health, enhancing the effects of other treatments.
The Best Treatments for Hair Loss
The most effective hair loss treatment plans are tailored to the individual’s specific condition and adopt a holistic approach. Medications like finasteride remain among the safest and most proven options for hair regrowth and retention. When integrated into a broader regimen, they deliver significant results for many people. Dr. Phipps advises skepticism toward treatments that seem “too good to be true” and encourages those experiencing hair loss to consult professionals to explore proven solutions. While there’s no one-size-fits-all cure, many effective options are available to restore confidence and hair health.
By understanding the science behind these treatments, you can make informed decisions and achieve better outcomes.
Empowering Resources
Book a Complimentary HairClub Consultation Today!
Thanks for listening to HairPod. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to connect with us on social media to share your story, check us out on Instagram @HairClub. HairPod is a production of TSE Studios. Our theme music is from SoundStripe.
Episode.47 Transcript
Kevin Rolston [00:00:02]:
I think that I would rather spend my money on something that I know is going to give me hair. And so if you’ve got a bald spot, the essential oil is not going to cure that or fill that back in. Essential oil therapy is good for prevention, and it’s good for women, and it can be good for men, too. But women don’t typically have a bald spot. They have diffuse thinning. But. But if you’ve developed a spot that you just can’t even cover with the way you style your hair, don’t spend $400 on an essential oil. Put the $400 toward a hair transplant that’s going to give you hair, because nothing’s going to fill in a bald spot.
Kevin Rolston [00:00:53]:
Welcome to HairPod, the podcast where you get to hear real people talk about their hair. I’m your host, Kevin Rolston, and each week I get to interview people from different walks of life whose lives have been touched by hair loss in some form or fashion. Many of our guests experienced hair loss themselves, and they found a way to get their confidence and their hair back. When it comes to hair loss, the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. You search for one thing or you just think about hair loss and suddenly your feed is bombarded with ads for miracle cures, from lotions and shampoos to supplements and expensive treatments. The before and after pictures seem to speak for themselves. But how do you know what works and what’s just flashy marketing if you don’t have somebody you trust with the scientific knowledge to help you break this stuff down? It’s easy to feel like giving up entirely. Like, if some of the solutions seem fake, maybe they all are.
Kevin Rolston [00:01:51]:
It’s not just the frustration that can get you. It’s the cost, too. People can end up spending hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars on things that were never going to work. And that’s why we bring experts like Dr. Angie Phipps onto the show. She is here to help us cut through the noise, bust some myths, and give you the real, honest truth about what works, what doesn’t, and why. Whether you’re dealing with hair loss yourself or you’re just curious about all these claims you see online, you’re in the right place.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:02:24]:
Hello. It’s good to be back. I can’t wait to get onto this topic because I have patients coming in all the time asking me crazy things that they’ve heard on the Internet or their grandma’s told them that will help with hair loss, and they want to know if it’s true or not.
Kevin Rolston [00:02:36]:
It’s all over social media. And if you’ve ever probably said hair or loss or hair loss anywhere near your phone, it heard you. And now it’s just feeding you these ads like crazy with all kinds of.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:02:48]:
Lotions and potions and snake oils and all kinds of stuff.
Kevin Rolston [00:02:52]:
It’s unbelievable. So I really have just kind of saved some of the really intriguing ads that I’ve seen because it’s miraculous, all these videos, these are guys that have no hair, and all of a sudden it’s just, it’s long, it’s glorious, and all their problems are solved. And I want to find out if it’s tick tock or trick tok here today. So some of the ones that I have seen that are out there that I wanted to ask you about was one that really jumped out to me was one person was talking about stem cells for hair regrowth. And it’s a scientific topic. You are a doctor, and I was wondering if you’d ever heard anything of this. And is this the new revolutionary way to treat hair loss like what they said on the ad I saw on Instagram?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:03:42]:
Yes, stem cell therapy is the newest revolution in medical therapy for hair loss. But, you know, to prove efficacy, they need to go through double blind placebo clinical trials. And that hasn’t been completely completed yet for the FDA to approve it as a proven treatment for hair loss. Now, just because it hasn’t been FDA approved doesn’t mean that it can’t be effective or used off label. But you just want to be careful and make sure that your treatments are coming from a physician at a medical office and not the back garage or basement of somebody’s house who. You don’t know where these molecules or peptides or whatever they’re claiming to be stem cells. You know, maybe they, you know, didn’t. Hopefully they didn’t, you know, kill a deer or, you know, something out in their backyard and then, you know, siphon the deer placenta and take the stem cells or whatever, you know, you hear all kinds of crazy stories on the Internet.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:04:42]:
And so if you get it done at a medical facility under the supervision of a physician, making sure you’re asking them the safety profile, where are you getting your, you know, your products? It’s the newest thing.
Kevin Rolston [00:04:54]:
So what kind of improvement can I see? And who would be a candidate for this stem cell treatment?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:04:59]:
Anybody who has visible thinning. You know, the sooner you get to a physician and get started on therapy, regardless of what it is, the better off you’re gon be because the longer you wait, the more hair loss you have. And if the cells have died, you can’t recover those exact cells. So hopefully the stem cells are going to be able to somehow ignite in the body the ability to reawaken potentially those hair follicle cells. But I don’t know that it’s actually going to grow a new hair follicle.
Kevin Rolston [00:05:34]:
How do they apply the stem cells? How often do you have to apply it? And what kind of cost are we talking about over the long term?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:05:41]:
Yeah, we aren’t currently providing that therapy at our, at my office. And so I would be amiss to give that information because we’re not doing it because it’s not FDA approved. And so, you know, at my office we really only do things that have been proven through clinical trials and not allow patients to spend money on something that may or may not be proven to work.
Kevin Rolston [00:06:03]:
How important is it to have something FDA approved? Because I’ve heard it both ways where sometimes people say, oh, it’s just a political thing and it’s the fda, they’re only going to approve things that they’re going to get kickbacks for and stuff like that. So you hear all these conspiracy theories, but you know, you want to hope that there is a governing body that really is doing it for the right reason. So what is your feeling on FDA approval?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:06:25]:
I think I don’t necessarily need FDA approval, but I do need FDA clearance. So I need some governing body to have looked over and said, yes, this is cleared. We haven’t necessarily approved it because it didn’t go through the type of clinical trials that is necessary to show proven results to get approval, but it’s been cleared to be safe through the fda. So I do want all treatments, therapies, medications to have been FDA cleared or approved. Now sometimes we use things off label. So a medication has been FDA approved to treat one condition, but then they’re treating that condition and then they find out it helps to treat something else as well. Well, they don’t make that drug or device or treatment go back through the clinical trials. You can use that for a different reason and it’s considered off label.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:07:15]:
But you know that it, it happened because it was being seen, those results were being seen as the medication or device or treatment was being used for something else.
Kevin Rolston [00:07:25]:
Right.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:07:25]:
So I’m, I’m completely okay with off label uses as long as the treatment, drug or therapy has been cleared or approved for a different medical condition.
Kevin Rolston [00:07:34]:
Foreign.
Kevin Rolston [00:07:40]:
Stem cells seem like the latest and greatest thing. Testing still needs to be done to ensure that treating hair loss with stem cells is not just effective, it’s also safe. And while you’re waiting on the final word on this treatment, it can be tempting to turn to more natural remedies. You’ve probably seen people on social media talking about how essential oils can regrow your hair, and the results tend to look pretty good. So I had to know if these ingredients really were the liquid gold that so many people claim that they are.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:08:18]:
There are botanical ingredients that do have hair stimulating properties. Pumpkin seed oil is especially rosemary oil. So God is good and God has given us, you know, plants that treat, you know, everything before the big pharma was invented. But it’s the process of how you create these oils as to whether or not they’re going to be effective and what I have found that in order for it to be medicinally effective, the process that it has to go through is very expensive to get the quality of oil from the resin that’s going to make it not affordable for most people. So because the, the plants are number one, usually they’re not homegrown in the United States. They’re usually plants that are, you know, grown in different countries. So you have import, export, you know, fees and stuff for trying to get the plants into the United States. And then sometimes it’s just muddied down or watered down with alcohol and other fillers to create a bottle full of something that they can sell.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:09:24]:
And while the ingredient is in that product, it’s usually the concentration of the medicine, or I mean, concentration of the herb that is not enough to have a significant clinical aesthetic improvement. So I’m a believer in essential oil therapy and natural therapies as long as they’re being processed in a way that usually has what’s called one pass distillation, where you’re getting the majority of the oil instead of several passes and you’re getting watered down product.
Kevin Rolston [00:10:00]:
Do you like. You’ll pay more than what it’s worth because you talk about the cost. And to really get something that’s good, you’re saying it’s going to be expensive.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:10:08]:
I think that I would rather spend my money on something that I know is going to give me hair. And so if you’ve got a bald spot, the essential oil is not going to cure that or fill that back in. Essential oil therapy is good for prevention and is good for women, and it can be good for men too. But women don’t typically have a bald spot. They have diffuse thinning. So I tend to like those More natural remedies for patients who have just, you know, mild diffuse thinning to help stimulate the follicles, you know, that are currently there. But if you’ve developed a spot that you just can’t even cover with the way you style your hair or it’s a bald spot, don’t spend $400 on an essential oil. Put the $400 toward a hair transplant that’s going to give you hair because nothing’s going to fill in a bald spot.
Kevin Rolston [00:11:00]:
I’ve seen advertisements for different vitamins or supplements that are supposed to help with hair loss. Are these good and how effective would they be?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:11:09]:
Again, I consider vitamins or supplements an add on therapy to hormone therapy and cellular therapy. So they’re number three or four on my list of things that I recommend to my patients for hair loss because they’re just not medicinally as strong as the other therapies. But I do recommend them because you want to have a healthy scalp, you want to have a healthy hair shaft that’s being produced that you can give good nutrition to the scalp, skin and cells through these supplements. So a big one is Nutrafol and it’s a very good product. It’s a little pricey and you have to take four pills a day. And so sometimes that can be a deterrent for people. But Bosley is a company that’s made their own vitamins and supplements that are very effective as well as HairClub has supplements that are very effective. So if you’re getting your supplements from a reputable hair loss company doctor, then you know that those products have been tested on some level of consumer research to make sure that they’re going to be clinically effective or the strongest possible that you can buy over the, you know, without a, without a prescription.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:12:23]:
And vitamins that you’re buying at Walmart is not going to be that effective, in my opinion.
Kevin Rolston [00:12:31]:
I love the nuance Dr. Phipps provides. She’s not saying essential oils and botanical extracts don’t work. She’s just bringing in some extra clarity about how they work and in what amounts. Essential oils and natural remedies definitely have their place, especially for prevention or mild hair thinning. But while they can help stimulate follicles and support scalp health, they’re not a magical bullet. If you’re dealing with significant hair loss or bald spots, you’re probably looking for something with proven results. I want to know how these remedies compare to the prescription medications most people with hair loss turn to.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:13:14]:
Yeah, you’re in a completely different hair loss realm because the prescription medication has proven medical benefit to the strength it’s necessary that’s going to cause a cosmetic improvement. That cosmetic improvement may be just stabilizing your hair loss so that it doesn’t get worse. It may be visual improvement by thickening up the hair shafts that are being produced so that you see less scalp. The supplement realm of treatments or therapies, in my opinion are supportive but not a individual sole treatment option that I would recommend that be done without anything else.
Kevin Rolston [00:13:53]:
So what would you say are the most effective prescription or over the counter hair loss remedies that you can get and medications?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:14:02]:
Yeah, so the most effective is finasteride or propecia for men, women who are not of childbearing age and, or who have had, they’re in menopause or have had surgical sterilization or whatever so that they can’t get pregnant. We also put them on sometimes the finasteride or dutasteride medications to block the DHT hormone. The medical grade minoxidil, either in pill form or topical form. The topical form you can buy over the counter. Now the pill form is a prescription medication that you have to get from a physician, but those are actually working internally or topically with a strength that is able to cause a medicinal effect that translates to aesthetic improvement. Whereas the over the counter medications typically don’t do that other than the topical minoxidil. It does have significant medicinal benefit and it is over the counter. I think the oral is probably a little more effective, but you know, when, when you get more efficacy, it usually requires a prescription.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:15:10]:
And the minoxidil oral form does have to be a prescription.
Kevin Rolston [00:15:14]:
You mentioned finasteride and propecia. What is the difference between those two products?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:15:19]:
One’s the chemical name and one’s the brand name. It’s the same thing as Tylenol or acetaminophen. Tylenol is the brand. Acetaminophen, the chemical name. Propecia is the brand name. Finasteride is the chemical name.
Kevin Rolston [00:15:30]:
And so you could save a good bit of money if you went finasteride instead of propecia. Okay, and you also said finasteride and dutasteride. What’s the difference between those two?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:15:40]:
So they’re in the same family of drugs as being a medication that blocks the 5 alpha reductase enzyme. That is what converts testosterone to DHT. And that’s the DHT hormone is the one that has the deleterious effects on the hair follicle. Now there’s two different enzymes. There’s 5 alpha reductase type 1 and there’s 5 alpha reductase type 2. And what we see is that the majority of conversion from test into DHT comes from the type 2 enzyme. So finasteride blocks the type 2 enzyme, but some individuals still have consistent conversion of test to DHT from the type 1 enzyme. So dutasteride actually blocks both of those enzymes.
Kevin Rolston [00:16:20]:
So.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:16:20]:
So you can start out on dutasteride, but I usually reserve dutasteride for patients who are on finasteride and after a year still feel like they’re having some degree of thinning. Not as much as they were before. Then I’ll maybe switch them to dutasteride or I’ll put women on dutasteride. It’s because the half life of that medication is significantly longer. And if you experience a side effect, it’s going to take a lot longer for that side effect to go away than it would than with the finasteride.
Kevin Rolston [00:16:47]:
Is it a lot more expensive to do one over the other?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:16:50]:
The dutasteride is a little bit more expensive than the finasteride, yes. Just because it hasn’t been around as long.
Kevin Rolston [00:16:56]:
So as you see these ads on social media platforms and people miraculously regrowing hair and they now look fantastic, how do you wind up discerning between what is credible and what is going to be bunk? Are there certain things that you’ve seen in any of these ads that immediately say, because you have the trained eye, you’re a doctor, you know, for somebody that’s just getting into it, look all these things when you’re desperate for a cure, it just looks absolutely amazing. And you believe in the person for whatever reason is on this social media platform you’ve never seen before. So how do you not be a sucker and not get tricked?
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:17:30]:
If somebody has a bald spot and then their actor picture shows no bald spot, it’s trickery. Now, what they may have had done is they may have had a hair transplant and use those products that they’re trying to sell you, oils, vitamins, devices, anything, and then they got that result. But they’re attributing the result to what they’re trying to sell you, when really the result came from the hair transplant. Wow. So they’re not disclosing full information as to what they’ve had done or whether they’ve used some sort of scalp makeup or fibers to help conceal in combination with the product that they’re trying to sell. So if it looks too good to be true, it’s usually too good to be true. There’s no one therapy out there that takes somebody from being bald to giving you a full head of hair. It’s just not going to happen.
Dr. Angela Phipps [00:18:18]:
And people prey on women and men’s insecurities and hopes that this is going to be the one thing that’s going to do it. It’s not going to do it. Go see a hair loss specialist. It’s going to usually need multimodal treatment with different devices, different medications, and maybe even sometimes a surgical procedure to get the results that most people are looking for.
Kevin Rolston [00:18:44]:
Hair loss and navigating the world of hair loss solutions can leave you feeling a little bit helpless. But conversations like the ones we have with Dr. Phipps always leave me feeling hopeful because there are real solutions formulated by experts and regulations in place to help protect us from unsafe or ineffective products. I think the most important thing to remember is if you’re considering doing something about your hair loss, work with a trusted professional to determine what solutions will work for your type of hair loss and to get you the results that you want. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hairpot. Check us out at Hair Club on Instagram or search Hairpot on Facebook to continue the conversation. If you know someone who could benefit from hearing this episode, we would love it if you would share with them. If you’re enjoying the show, consider leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.
Kevin Rolston [00:19:37]:
We also have a website. Check it out by going to podcast.hairclub.com we’re here to build people up and share real stories so people experiencing hair loss feel a little bit less alone. And when you share, review and subscribe, it helps us do just that. So thank you until next time.
Featured Guests
New Episodes Weekly
Available Every Tuesday @ 9am
Want to Be a Guest?
Related Episodes
Ways to Cope: Trichotillomania and Anxiety
This week, Meg Weatherman shares her journey with trichotillomania, how she manages it, and the hope she’s found while living with her condition.