We’ve discussed in the past how confusing some of the big words that hair regrowth brands throw around can be, both to understand AND to say. Dihydrotestosterone? Yeah, not gonna happen. ‘Androgen-mediated follicular miniaturisation’? I’m going to need an actual map just to find my way to the end of that phrase, my god. ‘Minoxidil’ may seem like one of those words right now, often used as a solution to male-pattern baldness, but today we’re going to break down just what it is, why everyone’s talking about it and how you and it should be spending some quality time together.
What even is Minoxidil?
Minoxidil is what they call a ‘Vasodilator’ (meaning it widens your blood vessels, for those of us that didn’t drop $100K on a medical degree). The benefit on hair growth is that all that vasodilation means that your scalp gets increased blood flow. More blood means more nutrients and more oxygen, more of them means more hair. It’s like switching the garden hose from that piss-weak ‘shower’ mode to the hard-out ‘jet’ mode that breaks windows and takes paint off cars, except… you know, with blood. This is actually what Minoxidil was originally designed to do, it was meant to be a treatment for high blood pressure. It was totally by accident that the doc’s realised that it was also helping those pressure-filled test subjects grow some amazing hair and stave off their male-pattern baldness.
But I heard Minoxidil makes you lose hair??
Not even a little, that’s the exact opposite of Minoxidil’s whole game. What it can do is make you ‘shed’ which is your old hair bailing out to make way for your fresh, new hair. This is just part of the process. Actually, scratch that, it’s a necessary part of the process – just chill out and let the professional get to work.
How long is this gonna take?
If you’re using Minoxidil alone, as opposed to using it with other hair growing ingredients, then the road to that full head of hair can be a long one. It will normally be a few months before you start seeing signs that things are kickin’ off. At this point, you’ll start to see ‘Vellus Hair’ appear; small, straggly white hairs that are normally found all over the body. Over the next few months, that hair’s gonna give way to ‘Terminal hair’ which is the fancy way of saying ‘regular hair’. The amount of time it takes for this to happen is different for everyone, it’s going take as long as it’s going to take. If you're under the pump and need that head of hair for a special event, know that it'll be 6 months before you start seeing results, and a year before it really starts taking hold.
I heard Minoxidil will also help me grow a mad lumberjack beard?
It…. Might? Officially, Minoxidil hasn’t been tested or approved for use on the face by the American medical authorities. That being said, the desire for beards is a strong one, and there are thousands of people out there that have thrown caution to the wind, lathered up their faces and hoped for the best. They’ve seen results too, though given the lack of trial or testing, results are pretty scattered. While there’s no reason this tech wouldn’t work regardless of where on your body it is applied, it’s important to remember that the skin on your face and the skin on your head isn’t the exact same, so there’s no guarantee it’ll react the same way. Maybe just hold off until they grow a beard on a mouse in a lab or something, dudes.
Is my Minoxidil hair staying for the long haul?
Mionoxidil encourages growth by increasing blood flow, we’ve established this. Unfortunately, once you stop using Minoxidil, your blood flow’s going to return to normal and the hairy benefits you were experiencing will fade. This is true of all treatments for male-pattern baldness right now – no one has yet found that golden bullet that turns things around, but mark my words we are looking!
Hopefully you can see there just what a powerhouse Minoxidil is, and why it’s been a go-to solution for folks looking to lay a new lawn on their top paddock for years now. It’s why Minoxidil is a major part of what makes our Gone Toppo product such a banger; we wanted to hit you with all that Minoxidil goodness, plus some extras, to really rev that hair-making engine.
If you want to give Minoxidil a crack on your own dome, then we’re currently offering the first month for free to all new signups, including YOU. Get started by hitting the link below!
Stay legendhairy, my dudes!
