The hair restoration market is large and diverse. While some advanced and cutting-edge treatments are available, there are equally many products and therapies that simply don’t have any clinical efficacy or provide sustained improvements in hair growth.
Much may depend on why you are using a hair loss treatment since the strategies our sector-leading hair restoration surgeons recommend may differ considerably between clients.
However, the key advice is only to take medications, use topical hair treatments, schedule non-surgical therapies, or undergo a full hair transplant after consulting with an experienced, GMC-registered surgeon who will review all of the options with you after evaluating your scalp and hair to ensure these are suitable for you.
Hair Loss Treatments: Those That Work and Those That Don’t
- Whenever a client tells us about supplements, medications and treatments they have bought over the counter or online, we naturally approach this with caution because, while some options work well and deliver proven results, others have no known impacts on hair growth, thickness or scalp health.
- Treatment options should depend on the causes of hair loss or underlying factors behind thinning hair since some therapies or treatments may be unsuitable. Personalised advice is always necessary to avoid unnecessary treatments or expenses.
- Most treatment solutions take several months to deliver results, even those with established applications, so it is wise to consult with one of our specialists before making informed decisions about the best way forward for you.
- KSL hair loss treatments are tried and tested, with results to back this up!
Understanding Why Hair Loss Treatments Work for Some People and Not Others
As we’ve indicated, there are countless hair loss treatments, but these can’t provide a universal solution or cure every underlying cause of thinning or hair loss. Instead, it’s essential to evaluate your scalp and identify why your hair is changing, which could be due to:
- Various types of alopecia
- Pattern hair loss
- Stress and anxiety
- Reactions to medications
- Natural genetic predispositions
That is far from an exhaustive list, but it provides a glimpse at the numerous possible aspects of your health, medical history, and hair growth that will influence the strategies we suggest.
Hair loss treatments also vary depending on the results you’d like to achieve. They may involve managing the cause of hair loss to prevent further thinning, boosting natural regrowth or the thickness of your existing hair, or replacing lost hair and replenishing patchy areas.
Medications Used to Manage and Treat Hair Loss
Over-the-counter hair loss treatments usually contain a combination of ingredients and can be shampoos and conditioners or topical creams and lotions applied to the areas affected by hair loss.
Many contain compounds and vitamins like collagen, tea tree oil, zinc, and biotin, but they are primarily there to soothe the skin. They aren’t very likely to produce any tangible differences in your hair and won’t do anything to manage hair loss linked to most causes.
Medically proven alternatives are available and include:
- Minoxidil, sold under the Regaine brand in the UK, which is used to treat pattern baldness by slowing the pace of thinning or preventing existing follicles from shedding. This treatment can be used as a shampoo or taken as a pill and is a clinically established treatment with some impact on male or female pattern baldness.
- Finasteride, a male-only medication available on prescription that works by addressing hormonal imbalances connected to male pattern baldness or androgenetic alopecia.
- Corticosteroids are also prescription-only and are sometimes applicable when sudden and extensive hair loss occurs, often because an underlying medical condition has prompted severe hair loss without any indication that the follicles are completely dormant.
As always, we suggest booking a consultation if you are considering buying, ordering, or requesting any of these treatments or medications since some may not be advisable or unsuitable for you—such as using finasteride for female hair loss.
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Non-Surgical Hair Loss Treatments
The next step, if you’ve tried every lotion, shampoo, and treatment or found that medications have a minimal impact on improving your hair, is to consider a non-surgical treatment.
Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy
Platelet-rich plasma therapy (PRP) is our most popular treatment. It activates dormant follicles, improves cellular activity in the scalp, and promotes healthy growth. PRP can be used as part of a hair transplant recovery plan, an alternative to a hair transplant, or to improve hair growth and health before a transplant is possible.
It works by extracting a small blood sample and placing it into a centrifuge, which separates the blood into its parts. This enables us to access only the concentrated platelet-rich compounds essential to healing, tissue regeneration, and follicular activity.
The treatment is administered by injection, with proven and efficient improvements in hair growth, as a therapy also used in recovery programmes for surgical and sports injury patients.
Most clients undergo a series of treatments initially, followed by maintenance treatments, to ensure that hair loss remains under control and that scalp and follicle health are optimal.
Laser Hair Restoration Therapy
Laser therapy is another option. It uses medical-grade laser lighting that is focused on the areas affected by hair loss for short treatment cycles.
This is equally a known clinically effective treatment that can stimulate dormant follicles, although you may need several sessions before you see a visible difference.
Micro-pigmentation to Conceal Hair Loss
Our final suggestion is micro-pigmentation, a cosmetic and non-surgical solution for clients who have irreversible hair loss, potentially due to scarring or injuries, and want to conceal the area rather than promote new growth—or where this is not possible.
This works similarly to tattooing, using a thin blade and ink to create small lines that mimic the appearance of hair. It is usually used to fill in thinning gaps that are otherwise difficult to see.
Hair Transplants to Permanently Correct Hair Loss
Last but not least, hair transplants are a solution for clients who want to address hair loss once and for all or who have reached a point where pattern baldness has progressed to the perfect stage for a hair transplant, with little likelihood of needing follow-up procedures in the future.
We use the exacting, advanced and safe FUE transplant process, with the highest success rate of any hair transplant technique. We extract individual donor follicles and reimplant them in a pre-mapped transplant pattern to match your specifications.
Hair transplants performed by qualified, experienced and properly regulated surgeons work very well indeed, although following the aftercare guidance, taking proper care of the newly implanted follicles, and scheduling any recommended supplementary therapies, including PRP, may be essential to achieving the outcomes you are looking for.
