Are Hair Loss Products and Hair Regrowth Products the Same Thing?

There’s a lot of confusion about hair loss and the products that claim to treat it. The key to finding a product that is really capable of treating baldness is understanding the difference betweeen “hair loss” products and “hair regrowth” products.

Products which claim to treat “hair loss” do not necessarily support “hair regrowth.” Similarly, “hair regrowth” products might be effective at producing hair in places where it has been lost, but they may not help prevent further loss.

If hair regrowth is your main goal, you’ll likely need to look for products which contain the drug Minoxidil or Finasteride. These are the only hair regrowth products that are FDA approved and proven to grow hair in spots that were formerly bald. This is not to say they will work for everyone. It is simply that they are the only products given official recognition as having the ability to produce regrowth in some users.

Minoxidil and Finasteride are marketed under numerous different brand names. Rogaine was the first hair regrowth product to use Minoxidil in its formula. Today there are a number of products which contain it. Finasteride is found in Propecia, another popular hair regrowth product.

Baldness can have a variety of causes. However, it appears that a significant majority of hair loss sufferers have an excess of DHT in their bodies. DHT is a hormone that is formed as a by-product of a normal enzyme, 5 alpha reductase, and testosterone. When these two substances combine, DHT is formed.

It then gets delivered throughout the body via the circulatory system. For the most part it is relatively harmless in other parts of the body. In the scalp, though, it causes active hair follicles to shrink. Eventually they may simply go into a permanent state of dormancy.

It’s normal for follicles to experience periods of dormancy. This gives them a chance to rest and replenish themselves. They will naturally return to active production after the dormancy period.

Those affected by DHT, on the other hand, will not return to normal production. Instead, they revert into what was once considered permanent inactivity.

Both Minoxidil and Finasteride are DHT blockers. In other words, they prevent DHT from forming. They may successfully “wake up” dormant follicles and stimulate them to produce hair again in some users.

There are a number of other products on the market which claim to treat baldness “naturally.” They contain mainly herbal ingredients. In the interest of marketing themselves as “natural,” they typically don’t contain Minoxidil or Finasteride because they are synthetic drugs.

However, though many of these natural ingredients are associated with healthy hair, they will not necessarily regrow hair where it has been lost. Some do seem to work for some users, but none have been proven to work for as many users as hair regrowth products containing Minoxidil and Finasteride.

Additionally, those whose hair loss is related to something other than DHT over-production will probably not be able to regrow hair with Minoxidil or Finasteride. In such cases, natural hair regrowth products may be a better choice, although it may take several months of use and some trial and error to achieve new growth.