Throughout the 2000s, the music charts were rife with references to Rogaine. Jay-Z invoked the hair-restoration drug as a synonym for staying power. Weezer described it, begrudgingly, as a means of rejuvenation. Ingrid Michaelson, in a song about accepting one’s flaws, pledged to buy the drug for her partner when he inevitably lost his hair.
Now, as the Millennials who grew up on this music are fast approaching their Rogaine era, the hair-loss industry is eager to receive them—particularly the many women coming around to the idea that they might want to buy Rogaine for themselves too. Over roughly the past decade, hair-loss treatments aimed at women have broken into mainstream consumer culture, alerting women simultaneously to the possibility of balding and the potential to fix it.
Women have always been the target audience for shampoos, hair masks, hot-oil treatments, and so on. But those products aim to improve the appearance of existing hair, not grow more of it. Products specifically for hair loss have historically targeted male users. When Rogaine launched in 1988, it was available only for men. (The women’s version came three years later.)
Advertising for hair loss has, accordingly, mostly focused on men. Throughout the big-hair craze of the 1980s and ’90s, infomercials for men’s spray-on hair were all over TV. In a Rogaine ad from 2001, a narrator asks: “Will she feel the same way if you lose your hair?” (The answer: “Sure, she’ll just feel it about somebody else.”) Hair-growth treatments are an easy sell for men because many will go bald in midlife. Yet 40 percent of women experience some amount of hair loss by the time they turn 50. They just haven’t been as comfortable talking about it as men, Rachael Gibson, a hair-culture expert known online as the Hair Historian, told me.
Now brands and their ambassadors have taken the microphone. Nutrafol, a women-focused hair-supplement company that launched in 2016, has started selling its products at Sephora and Ulta. My Instagram feed is full of female influencers holding up fistfuls of loose hair and presenting sparsely populated scalps—then hawking serums, supplements, and shampoos that supposedly restored their voluminous mane. (Before watching these videos, I had no suspicions that my hair was falling out; afterward, I was convinced that with the right products, I could look absolutely equine.) When Hers launched in 2018, it offered topical minoxidil, the generic form of Rogaine. Over the past three years or so, many providers (including Hers) have started prescribing oral minoxidil, a hypertension drug, off-label to treat hair loss, which can be a welcome alternative to sticky topical versions. Hers and its men’s counterpart, Hims, also sell some of their hair-loss products at Walmart.
The proliferation of women’s hair-restoration products is impossible to separate from the booming menopause market. As pop-culture depictions of menopause have become more prominent over the past few years, numerous drugs, supplements, and telehealth platforms have sprung up to address it. Shoshana Marmon, a dermatology professor at New York Medical College, told me that she has observed a growing number of influencers targeting women in midlife, when hair usually starts to thin. Midi Health, a menopause-focused telehealth platform, started offering oral and topical minoxidil in 2023, and it screens patients for common issues, such as iron deficiency and thyroid problems, that can drive hair loss, Kathleen Jordan, Midi Health’s chief medical officer, told me. And because fluctuating hormones during menopause are a major driver of hair loss in women, hormone-replacement therapy can sometimes help.
Of course, hair-loss companies are ready to sell these products to anyone, not just aging women. In beauty chains and drugstores, numerous oral hair-loss supplements containing ingredients such as biotin and vitamin A are displayed alongside shampoos and conditioners. Last year, products for thinning hair and scalp health were among the fastest-growing categories in the roughly $450 billion prestige-hair-product market, according to the market-research firm Circana. Widespread hair loss during the coronavirus pandemic may have juiced demand for hair-loss products, and the rise of direct-to-consumer telehealth companies likely accelerated the trend: Hair-loss treatment is popular at Hims and Hers, a company spokesperson told me, because many people find hair loss embarrassing and telehealth allows them to seek help discreetly.
[Read: The year America’s hair fell out]
The most commonly prescribed hair-loss drugs are well established and generally trustworthy. Minoxidil is the “gold standard” of active ingredients for hair loss, Paradi Mirmirani, a dermatologist with Kaiser Permanente, told me. In both topical and oral forms, it works by slowing or reversing hair-follicle shrinkage, which tends to happen as hormones fluctuate. A drug called finasteride is sometimes used to reduce shedding; Midi Health combines it with minoxidil and two less-used hair-loss drugs in a “Regrowth Serum.” But finasteride is most commonly prescribed to men; it isn’t FDA-approved for women for hair loss, because it can be dangerous to pregnant women and their fetuses. (It has also been linked to panic attacks and suicidal thoughts in some men.)
Meanwhile, hair-loss supplements, like all supplements, are somewhat of a tangle. The highest-quality evidence available offers some support for swallowing ingredients such as zinc, pumpkin-seed oil, and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, Elizabeth Houshmand, a fellow with the American Academy of Dermatology, told me. But purity, dosing, and consistency vary widely among products, and their safety and effectiveness aren’t regulated by the FDA. Herbal supplements that lower DHT, a hormone that shrinks the hair follicle, can sometimes be beneficial, but medications are “the only thing that really does work,” Spencer Kobren, the founder of the American Hair Loss Association, a consumer-advocacy group, told me.
The predominantly male focus of the hair-loss industry, combined with women’s reticence about thinning hair, has left many women clueless about the possibility that they, too, may lose their hair. “We hear all the time from our consumers that ‘I didn’t know,’” Cindy Gustafson, the CEO of Nutrafol, told me. Some are too embarrassed to bring it up with their provider, fearing that their concern will be criticized as vain or, worse, dismissed as just a part of life, Jordan said. Unlike men, who are generally more aware of hair-loss drugs and use them as a first line of treatment, women tend to rely on trusted friends and hairstylists for advice, Kobren said, noting that they usually try four to six non-pharmaceutical hair-loss products before consulting a doctor. Unfortunately, he added, women also tend to spend the most on hair-regrowth snake oil.
[Read: Soon there will be unlimited hair]
Women today are in an unprecedented position: They’re receiving more messages than ever about the possibility of balding, even as they’re bombarded with products to fix it. Perhaps this shift will make women more comfortable taking their hair concerns to their doctor, rather than to friends and influencers. But it seems equally likely to change nothing. Like smooth skin and mental clarity, perfect hair suddenly seems within reach at any age—as long as you’re willing to pay.