The Great Hair Lie— Do Hair Thickening Products Work?
You must have seen a dozen products that apparently have the ability to thicken your hair. A simple google search will feel like walking down a busy market with sellers trying to drag you in with their new ‘wondrous’ product. The truth is, it’s a big conspiracy. Well maybe not, but it is a half truth when products claim to be able thicken your hair. This is why most of us our left scratching our heads wondering “Do hair thickening products even work?”.
Types of Hair Thickening
What companies don’t tell you when they make the claim is how they intend to thicken your hair. It’s important to be aware that there different methods to do this before you buy so you know what to expect.
- Thickening Nano Fibres
Perhaps the first in the market of ‘hair thickening products’, back in the 2000s a company called Nanogen produced the first nano fibre technology hair thickener. By simply rubbing the treatment on your hair, it attaches fibres on to your hair to give the appearance of thicker hair immediately.
This is literally an extension to your hair and whilst it does technically thicken hair, it is not very different to me just wearing extensions and claim that it increase the length of hair. Except perhaps not as convenient.
2. Fat Based Treatments
There are hundreds of shampoos out there that claim they thicken hair. Again, whilst technically true it doesn’t truly thicken the hair strand. The hair isn’t growing thicker, it just appears thicker since they add a fatty acid (such as glycerin) in the shampoo that plumps up the hair shaft.
This effect would last as long as the product is applied. Naturally, when you stop using it, the fatty acid is eventually washed off your hair and thickness returns to normal.
3. Intrinsic Hair Thickening
For a lack of better word, I will call this the intrinsic method of thickening hair since the process occurs from inside out. Perhaps most true to the definition of hair thickening, this would happen when hair follicles actually produce thicker hair strands.
This would be the opposite of the hair miniaturisation process and is usually only possible when inflammation in the scalp is dealt with and circulation to the hair follicles and collagen production is increased.
The inflammation damages DNA and is constantly depleting collagen sources that produce hair so stopping that is step one. Then once circulation is increased to the follicles (through capillaries shown in diagram below) with more resources available for producing proteins (e.g collagen) in the blood, hair can grow thicker.
Surprisingly there are a few shampoos/treatments that can help with this form of hair thickening and I’ve talked about one of them in my review of the best shampoos of 2018.
I just want to mention that I am not against a type of hair thickening method that an individual decides on. That is 100% your choice. But, companies tend to advertise in a way which takes advantage of the public’s incomplete knowledge and that is why I thought I should help people differentiate. Whether you want to a quick, convenient way to thicken hair, or want to be holistic about it, make an informed choice before buying!
