JOIN USA nasty surprise may be waiting fifty percent of men around their 50th birthday — their hair will begin to leave their scalps! And instead of remembering how stunning Yule Brenner looked bald as an egg, they will run to the nearest and very expensive hair clinic which promises to bring back the lost locks.
But the bad news is that most of these clinics according to solid research done by Which? The independent consumer guide, UK, are unable to prove their claims. This means that balding men are not just losing their hair — they are also throwing away hard earned money. The study says that neither herbs, vitamins or even heaven itself can bring back hair that is gone with the wind!
Which? The Independent Consumer Guide Study examined potions of all kinds with the help of experts to prove to balding men how unreliable are the claims made by most sellers of these potions.
There is no known ‘cure’ for male-pattern baldness, meaning that you cannot coax your hair to grow back again naturally. Experts chosen for this study said that lotions proudly promising to restore or prevent hair loss are unlikely to work! You could however rely on surgery or wearing a hairpiece.
Today’s stylish hair clinics have bizarre concoctions: claiming to use apple cider vinegar, quinine, Vitamin B6, marine extracts, vegetable oils, herbs etc. One clinic selling hair care lotion for 9.95 pounds for 237 ml claimed that ‘clinical test results’ had proved the worth of this expensive remedy. But experts said that the results were based on subjective comments from users and gave no scientific proof of effectiveness.
The experts — one was a trichologist , another was a pharmacist and the third a dermatologist, examined the ingredients in the products and also assessed any evidence supplied by the manufacturers for their products’ effectiveness to see if they could live up to the claims made. The experts looked at one clinic using thickening serum and thickening shampoo and said it was unlikely to help. The experts pointed out that few men lose hair because of dietary deficiencies and if they ate well, this supplement would not help hair loss!
One company claimed that its research on people with male-pattern baldness showed an increase in the number of hairs from an average of 191 to 194 per cm2 over 100 days! The experts’ verdict: you wouldn’t notice an increase of 3 hairs per cm!
Then Which? Sent a 29-year-old researcher with male-pattern baldness for a consultation at eight clinics in London and Birmingham and the results were very interesting! He had extensive hair loss and the experts (chosen by Which?) had already told him that lotions and potions would not help him. A hairpiece would be a better choice. He went to the clinics and felt pressurized by the hard-selling methods of some of them. All clinics were very expensive! He also found out that the so called ‘consultants’ had no qualifications whatsoever to be called so. None of them had any relevant qualifications.
And if you thought that homoeopathy could help, you must read the experience that Bangalore based Uttam Kumar had with a popular all-India homoeopathy clinic chain which depleted his bank account with a sum of Rs 9 600 to help him get back his hair. He ended up with graying hair and dandruff! The Karnataka State Commission for Consumer Grievances Redressal ordered the clinic to repay his money with interest at 12 per cent!
Even more dismal was the case of 20-year-old Sahil Arora who chose the one year ‘gold’ plan which health clinic claimed would get his hair back.
After a year he was still balding so he went to the consumer court. The clinic landed in the soup for ‘misleading’ ads and the UT Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has directed the clinic to pay up Rs 40,000 to Sahil for deficient service in failing to bring back his hair.
It’s not as if the hair itself is recalcitrant! It’s just nature! The AMA book of skin and hair care has a chapter on Fraudulent Baldness Cures and says ‘’Don’t waste your money! Hair treatments and remedies claiming to prevent, postpone, or correct baldness have been promoted for centuries, and they all have one thing in common – they fail to grow hair!”
There are no antibaldness shampoos or any other concoctions to bring back hair, it says very sturdily. So the final verdict is that balding is rather cool these days, but handing over your wallet to quacks is not cool at all. It would be cool to imitate Shakespeare who would have certainly told these hair-raising sellers of expensive potions that ‘’you speak an infinite deal of nothing!”