All about Shampoo and hair loss

Recently a patient contacted us here at Parsa Mohebi Hair Restoration wanting to know about shampoo and the effects it can have on hair loss. Here are the questions and answers in the order they were presented:

1) What kind of shampoo helps me the most and where do I buy it?

Although choosing the right shampoo can keep hair clean and add shine, shampoo cannot replace hair loss for individuals suffering from patterned baldness in either men or women.

2) Which shampoos should I avoid all together?

As we discussed before, most shampoos only affect the hair shafts which are not the life component of hairs. Because of this fact, there is very little damage shampoos can cause.  Of course there are some chemicals which can damage hair shafts, which is a good reason to stay away from shampoos containing those bad chemicals.  However, most shampoos generally found in every day stores do not have those ingredients.  My regular saying to my patients is: “Do not stress too much about the shampoos”.

3) How often should I shampoo and use conditioners? Is conditioner a good thing? How about scalp cleanser? Or any other product you deem necessary for damaged hair. I have been using a product called “Biotin 24”, for last ten years, it is supposed to be all natural ingredients!

If your hair is oily you can wash your hair every day with shampoo.  Even more than once a day is okay if your hair is not dry.  Washing more than that may make your scalp dry and should be avoided, but if you do not have dry or sensitive skin, washing your hair once a day won’t affect you.  Scalp cleansers are mostly for removing the secretions of sebaceous glands and make the scalp dry.  Regular shampoos which have a certain amount of cleansers and the shampoos that are used for oily scalps might have more concentrations of those.

Cleansers don’t affect the health of your hair.  You may find in some advertisements which claim cleansers open the scalp pores and help oxygenation of hair follicles. This is not true.  Hair follicles don’t obtain their nutrition or oxygen from outside.  There are many shampoos like what you mentioned with different ingredients.  These generally do not affect the growth of hair. For example it is stated that this certain shampoo has 22 amino acids to help improve the tensile strength of the hair.  The reality is that the necessary amino acids for hair follicles should be absorbed from blood stream and not from the surface of the skin.

4) Should I wash my hair as little as possible (I usually go to gym and exercise which makes me sweat, consequently I sometimes wash my hair twice a day) or should I keep my hair very short, to avoid it from falling off.

There is not a perfect regimen for washing your hair.  Washing too little cannot damage your hair and washing every day cannot hurt the growth of the grafts either.  As stated before, excessive washing may remove the necessary scalp moisture and oils that may lead to scalp dryness.  That is more problematic, but only if you have an already dry scalp to start with.