June 24, 2024 • 21 mins
Welcome to the Truth About Hair podcast, hosted by Krystal. In this debut episode, we delve into the fundamentals of hair loss and hair growth with Adam Hungerford, founder and CEO of Regrow Hair Clinics. With over 20 years of experience in the hair loss industry, Adam provides valuable insights into the science behind hair loss, including the role of DHT (dihydrotestosterone) and how it affects hair follicles.
Adam discusses the normal and abnormal patterns of hair loss, the genetic factors involved, and the importance of early intervention. He also explains the stages of hair follicle miniaturisation and the potential treatments available, from natural products to medical and surgical options.
This episode aims to educate listeners on identifying early signs of hair loss, understanding genetic predispositions, and the effectiveness of various treatments. Adam also busts common myths about hair loss and shares practical advice for maintaining healthy hair and scalp.
Tune in to learn more about the holistic approach to combating hair loss and get answers to frequently asked questions from customers. Don't miss the quickfire Q&A session at the end of the episode!
If you would like to stock up on Regrow Hair Care products - use the code PODCAST to save 15% on all orders.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Truth About Hair podcast. I'm Crystal and I'll be asking all
your burning hair loss and hair growth questions to Adam Hungerford,
founder and CEO of Regrow Hair Clinics.
There isn't much Adam doesn't know about hair after more than 20 years in the
medical and natural hair loss industry before launching Australia's first natural,
DHT-blocking hair care brand.
We'll tell you all about DHT in future episodes.
(00:21):
Just to be clear, these podcasts are not selling our products.
Each week we will be breaking down the science behind hair loss and hair growth
and practical advice so you can have your healthiest hair and scalp.
We'll also be myth-busting the claims you see online about every new hair growth product.
Adam, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Taking me a very long time to get you
to agree to sit down and share your knowledge with everybody.
(00:43):
And I know it's something that you do really freely. You're traveling around
the world training pharmacists, doctors.
I also get people's phone numbers when they come to us on social.
Because sometimes hair loss cases can be really complex and it does require
a bit of your expert advice.
Yeah. So thanks for joining. Yeah, that's fine. Great. Glad to be here.
I think for the first episode, it's probably a really good idea for us to just
(01:04):
break down like what is normal hair loss? What's abnormal hair loss?
And also the actual cause of hair loss. So I mentioned in the intro DHT.
Can you break that down for everybody?
I think my wife does this better because I get all scientific,
but dihydrotestosterone.
So it's male or female patterned baldness. So we have byproduct testosterone
in our body and it converts to dihydrotestosterone, which in simple terms,
(01:28):
so I've got to keep it simple so I don't bore the audience.
It miniaturises the follicle. So over a period of time, the hair will grow and
grow thinner, thinner, thinner, thinner, and eventually it dies away.
So the follicle's dead then.
So that's just a quick 101 general about DHT.
And how long does it take for the follicle to kind of go through that process
of shrinking down to actually dying?
(01:50):
It's like, again, general. Everyone's hair loss is so different.
Like I've seen 35,000 people in consultations, like our consultations and they'd
sit in front of me and say, I've only been losing hair for a couple of years and you're like.
Longer than that. Some people have fast hair loss. Some people have short hair loss, quick hair loss.
So in some way, they get better results when they start treatment because the
(02:10):
follicle stays alive for about one to three years.
Once an area goes shiny on your scalp, follicles are dead. There's nothing you
can do there. You've got surgery, you've got other options, which we can talk about later.
But if you're looking to keep your hair naturally with natural products or medication
products, you need to have follicles still alive to be able to work.
And what are some of the early stages of hair loss?
(02:31):
Like how can people identify that they're actually going through that process
where the follicle is kind of getting smaller and the hair isn't growing as well?
Generally when you're back and sides hair is generally how your hair should be all over.
And then if your hair is starting to look a little bit thinner to your back
and sides, that's actually first stage of the hair loss.
And a lot of people associate hair loss to baldness, which is like too far gone.
(02:53):
So what's the best thing we can do is educate the consumer that early stages
or, or prevention is a cure, right?
So if you're noticing your hair's not as thick as it used to be,
that's showing signs of hair loss.
Different types of hair loss, but genetically, 70-80% of men and women get hair loss genetically.
It's definitely early stages of the better for treatment.
(03:14):
If you do, actually, that brings us into one of the fallacies of hair loss,
is where do you inherit the hair loss gene from?
Is it from the mum or is it from the dad? Because I've heard arguments for both.
I blame my pop, right? But both sides of the family, I had no No hope.
So no, it comes from either side of the family tree and can skip generations.
So it's a fallacy that it comes from the mother's father. It can come from either side of the family tree.
(03:38):
If you have that genetic disposition to hair loss, is it definitely going to
express itself or is it something that you can actually stop from expressing?
Oh, a hundred percent. This is what regrowth is even about. Get a hold of hair
loss earlier or preventing hair loss before it even occurs.
And my three sons are on our products and they've got,
way better hair than me. They got beautiful hair. I mean, because we're a lot more educated today.
(04:01):
There's a lot more, there's a lot of great products out there that are treating conditions very early.
Yeah, you can prevent it. But once you do get hair loss, you need to be treating it.
You can't sit there with, you know, procrastination and then eventually have
the epiphany, hey, I want hair back.
It may be too late. So the best thing I say to everyone is the minute you're
noticing hair loss and it bothers you, do something about it.
(04:21):
Jumping back to DHT a little bit, we're talking about like blocking DHT, obviously.
Does DHT get produced on everybody's scalp? Is it just a normal thing or does
that only start being produced when you're having active hair loss?
That's when you've genetically affected by hair loss, so is DHT.
And once it's on the scalp, like basically DHT can lie in your sebaceous glands, your oil glands.
(04:43):
So it's really important that you actually clean your hands and wash your hair.
So a lot of fallacies out there, it's like you shouldn't wash your hair or if
you wash your hair, you see hair fall out.
Well, I'll tell everyone now, normally the whole world, 50 to 100 hairs is normal to lose a day.
But you should always, when you've got especially hair loss from genetic hair
loss and DHT is building up on the scalp, you'd need to have a good clean scalp.
(05:03):
So whatever products you're using can penetrate.
Yeah. That's something we hear a lot from customers who come through on email
and over social is they found that when they were washing their hair,
they were experiencing excess shedding.
And so they just stopped washing their hair regularly and they were doing it
once a week or like once a fortnight.
And then And they'd freak out because it was so much hair coming out and they
thought it was actually the hair loss getting worse.
(05:25):
But what is actually happening there? Well, I feel it's more about you're actually
starting to focus on your condition.
So you'll start noticing the hair more, but really you're probably not losing any more.
You can go through it. And then this is why like the general comment like, can I grow back my hair?
It's so loaded because there's so many things that can contribute to that.
Like if you've had a stressful or traumatic incident in the family,
(05:47):
a death in the family, you know, or you've had, you know, been really sick with
influenza A or B, you can have telogen loss.
And all of a sudden your hair sits in about a 10% stage that's in telogen loss.
You can lose a lot of hair really quickly, but it can grow back.
And some people will notice that when they go through that massive shredding
stage, they get quite concerned.
But again, that's all about just getting onto product straight away and doing
(06:07):
something about it. And it will rejuvenate. It takes about three to six months.
You know, I know I see a lot of things out there that show amazing results in
seven days. Impossible.
It takes three months to six months onwards to start noticing improvement.
You generally will feel like things feel healthier. You'll see less fallout
when you're on treatment, whether natural medical surgery, whatever.
But it takes time for hair to grow. It takes time to lose hair,
(06:31):
right? So it makes sense.
So when people are sort of saying, look, I started using this new product and
like it's been seven days and my hair is completely transformed.
Form, what are they actually seeing usually? I don't know.
Well, power of the mind is a great thing, eh? So I don't know.
Maybe they're just noticing less fallout and their hair looks,
because they're, you know, with our products, you don't have sulfates,
(06:51):
parabens, MEAs, DAs or silicons, so when you start using our range.
They might notice that the hair feels cleaner, less fallout.
All those things can happen pretty quickly.
But for results, I generally find most people, whether I've been treating people
medically, surgically, or naturally, you're looking at about three months for new regrowth.
(07:12):
Okay. And is that just for that kind of fresh hair? Is that in the follicles
that maybe haven't been producing hair for a little while?
It takes about three months to reactivate it or three months to see hair growth?
If it's dormant, yeah, but it's still alive. like you've got ballast hairs even there.
A hair has to fall out for new hair to grow through, and it's got to get stronger
and healthier each time because we want to get those blood amino acids back
(07:35):
there and have that blockage around that's causing the DHT, and then the follicle
gets to feed and be nutrients and happy again.
Right, okay. Can you explain that a little bit more? Because I think that's
something that it's like a real gap in understanding is the hair follicle to
grow, it's not just like this automatic kind of mechanical processes.
So for optimal hair follicle health, like the
(07:55):
for the hair stuff to be long and thick and strong
and to go through the full growth stages and
not have a shortened growth stage what does it need it
needs blood amino acids it needs protein right so and
need to feed so when we've got dht not only is our follicle shrinking but our
blood flow stops feeding that follicle like so we need to get circulation back
(08:16):
there so you know laser lights help you know derma rollers we have derma rolls
they they micro prick the scalp and help the collagen, help the blood flow.
So there's a lot of devices out there that help circulation.
That's doing one part, which is important.
The next part is also blocking what's causing it as well. So you can grow back
naturally and healthy again with the nutrients feeding that follicle again.
(08:38):
Scalp massage, which you see a lot on social at the moment as being one of the
kind of like, if you're not scalp massaging, you'll never have great hair kind
of, you know, clickbait.
Video trick. I hate those. I reckon the whole consumer world must be getting sick of time.
Click here, 30 minutes later, I'll give you the cure to hair loss.
Please. I think though with those ones is what it does is hair loss is so personal
(09:01):
and it really does leave people feeling very vulnerable.
And like you would know that having done so many hair consultations and I've
really experienced that dealing with a lot of the consumer questions that come
through is it takes a lot for people to actually take the first step and sort
of say like, it's really bothering me. I feel very self-conscious.
I'm trying all these different hairstyles and hats and, you know,
(09:22):
I feel uncomfortable going out.
It really does affect people's self-esteem. And that's something that you see.
And I think when people are feeling like their self-esteem is really low,
it's hard to take action as well.
And then you're seeing all of these claims online and then you're trying these
solutions, whether it be boiling rosemary water or doing the scalp massage or
(09:43):
trying the rice water, because these are some things.
And And there is some validity to those techniques, but just those things alone
obviously don't have a huge impact if you have sort of progressed or excessive
hair loss. Is that right?
Yeah. So there's all different stages, but I can totally relate what you just said.
I mean, I've treated young kids even at 13, we're getting picked on at school
and it's quite sad and they'll get upset in the consultation.
(10:06):
And eight months later, confidence all over, totally different.
It's because it affects us because it's our appearance, right?
And we're losing our parents and we're losing what we associate to being young
and healthy and happy, right?
The quickest you do something about these conditions, if it's affecting you,
the better the results is going to be.
(10:26):
I do have people that get great results, but they were happy.
They didn't care they were losing hair, but something happens in their life
and then all of a sudden they go, you know what? I actually do want hair back
now, but they've got to be realistic what they can expect.
For that as well. Back to your question. Yeah, it's all different types,
but I think the reason why people get so affected, it's an appearance thing, right? So.
I think also as well, one of the like sort of hair loss move,
(10:47):
it only affects people who are a little bit older.
So like sort of 40 to like 60. No. So for the older demographic dealing with
active hair loss, but you mentioned like, you know, teenage boy losing hair. Oh yeah.
Does it have, is there a demographic where it does affect people more or is it really spread out?
Oh, it's spread out. Like I've, like I said, I've seen 35,000 people and every
single one would have a different type of hair loss, like whether it's more
(11:10):
aggressive in the crown,
more frontal hair loss, total all over hair loss, alopecia, hair loss,
traction alopecia. There's so many different types, right?
But I had a friend, I'll just call him Eli because I don't think he was one,
but he was totally bald and we're quite good friends.
But he showed me photos of even at school and you could see his regression of
(11:31):
his hairline was so high back then. and he was only 15 and you could see that
he was halfway being bald already.
But his dad and his mother's side, I think, had very, very strong hair loss.
So, you know, they were quite bald as well. And that's probably more of an aggressive state.
A lot of, generally, I'll tell you general again, a lot of people,
especially men in the age of 20 to 40, will start noticing hair loss, right?
(11:56):
Women over the age of 30 to 40, generally after children or postpartum hair loss,
they'll start noticing hair loss if they've got the hair loss gene
too and anything traumatic stressful obviously can
bring it on earlier would probably be a little bit earlier
there whether you can grow your hair longer i do have
the question sometimes like can i grow i've never been able to grow long hair
you might have fine hair you may not be able to have long long hair like some
(12:20):
people have a longer anagen stage which allows them to grow long hair so every
hair type's quite different there's not i couldn't probably put everyone in
this because i've seen so
many different types of hair loss and different age groups.
I think that's true. I think like I definitely know that I want to go through
like the stages of growth in a future episode, because I think it's really important
that for people to understand that you may genetically only be able to grow
(12:43):
hair to a certain length.
Growing waist length or, you know, down to, you know, hips, this may not be
genetically possible for you.
Cause I do see a lot of videos on social saying like, I couldn't grow my hair
past my shoulders until I started doing this.
And now I can grow my hair to my hips. But as you know, that's.
You've got your follicle you're born with, right?
So, you know, I'd love to have dark, you know, quite dark hair,
(13:06):
black hair, but I'm genetically not prone to have, I've got gray hair,
but that's, I blame my three teenage boys for that.
Early onset of gray hair. I can grow back hair, but I can't change the colour.
You know, we all want some things that we may not be able to aspire to.
Just to sort of finish off this one, and then we're going to go through and
answer some quickfire Q&A questions. So these are questions that have come through
from customers. You didn't tell me this one.
(13:27):
We're going to do that for the end of each episode, because I think some of
them are actually, like some of them are questions they probably would never
ask in person because they're, makes them feel a bit kind of shy.
I'll do my best. Yeah, yeah. Some funny ones. But before we close into that,
I would really like you to sort of go a little bit because we're not,
this podcast is not about something where you grow, but I would like you just
to expand a little bit on your background,
why you started Regrow and why you specifically created a product that does
(13:51):
block DHT, because I think that that will just give everyone a bit of a better
understanding of your experience and why you have created this product and what
the goal is with the hair loss education.
I started my hair loss journey when I was 20, so only
a year ago so um no i had a i i
was losing hair had i know what i know now today and
(14:11):
trained as a hair expert i probably would have attacked that
a lot earlier my condition and then i went to a medical hair clinic company
and then after the treatment i ended up working for him had an amazing career
i worked 12 years i was the international consultant for him and that's when
i saw you know 30 000 plus men and women in for treatment that was the medical
side of things and so we were treating people medically,
(14:33):
some naturally, but surgery as well.
We didn't do a lot of hair units at that stage.
But I always had that burning desire that...
Medication is fantastic, but it had side effects, right? Some people get side
effects with medication.
I wanted to produce something out there that the purity in natural actives was really coming strong.
And a lot of my customers were saying, Adam, I got results, but I don't want
(14:56):
to be on medication for the rest of my life.
And probably that was that burning little desire to go, right,
let's develop some of the best natural products out there with some of the best
protein rebuilders that I know of. They're showing great results.
And the consumer is telling me they don't want to be on medication if they can't
for the rest of their life. Some people can be on medication all their life and no issue.
And I always say to them, if they're getting great results in medication,
(15:17):
great, but you can also instill natural as well. Get that holistic approach,
get a best of both worlds.
If you don't want to be on medication, try natural first. And if it's not strong
enough, go on to medication.
A lot of people out there hate that. They turn around and they go,
don't be on finasteride, don't be on minoxidil.
What expertise do you have? Like, well, tell me why are you telling this?
Like, don't tell me your product's going to do anything better because it might
(15:39):
be some people's hair loss, which we've been discussing, is more advanced.
So they need more help and more treatment.
That's one thing that we do, I think, at Rego really well. We're brutally honest.
I've been there, done that. We've got a lot of the clout in the industry,
but I'm there to help people on multiple levels and different on where their
journey is with their hair loss as well.
Talk me through some of the ingredients because we sort of touched a little
(16:01):
bit of some of the natural remedies that you see on social and through some
creators where they're talking about rosemary oil, rosemary water,
rice water, things like that.
It's helping through some of the ingredients we actually have in Regrow because
there is some validity to those ingredients, but it's more of like the part
that they play in the bigger picture.
So I know in Regrow, for instance, we have natural DHT blockers,
(16:21):
but there's also proteins and stimulants and things like that.
Can you run us just a little bit through what's needed and the kinds of botanical
ingredients that action those needs, I suppose? The two main ones is caffeine
and sorpamato are DHT blockers, but we use that at high purity.
So we have one of the highest purity with our scientists.
We don't white label, we develop all our products. They're really proven to
(16:44):
help DHT blocking naturally.
We've also got 98% pure biotin and niacinamide that we use as protein rebuilders.
Rosemary, we've got rosemary in our shampoo, as you know, Crystal,
but rosemary is a good calming agent, especially if you've got inflamed scalp.
A lot of people with hair, we can talk so many different topics,
but a lot of people, when they got hair loss or hair thinning,
they get a scalp or skin issue as well. It sort of goes hand in hand.
(17:06):
So it's good having those properties in there that actually calm the scalp as
well. We've got menthol in our tonic, you know, chili extract for the blood flow.
You know, there's so many actives that we're using that are just absolutely amazing for the scalp.
Will it be strong enough? Depending on the person and their journey and where
they are. But this is where I really want to try and get that education out there.
Early stages, naturally is going to work really well for you.
(17:27):
Late stages, you might have to introduce medication and natural.
And then late stages, surgery is your only option if it's follicly dead.
Yeah, so our ingredients, we also use oxygenated brain water.
So we don't have demineralized tap water like most other brands.
So why we do that is so we hydrate the hair and hydrate the scalp as well.
Generally, a lot of our customers, you'll know, Chris, when they write to you,
that they say how that even within the first couple of weeks,
(17:50):
they feel like their hair loss is slowing up, but they notice that their scalp's
feeling healthier and cleaner.
And that's important so the products can work and penetrate better.
Does wearing hats or using hair products contribute to hair loss?
If you have a hat and it's really tight on the scalp, it could be reducing blood
circulation to that area.
So generally, again, it's genetic or it's other issues like alopecia,
(18:11):
autoimmune deficiencies and so forth.
But if you wear a hat and it's really tight and they're wearing a hat every
day and they're not letting it breathe and all that, you can notice a bit of
thinness or pulling a traction alopecia on that area.
What was the next one? That was hat. Hair products. So things like styling products.
Look, if you're washing them out, I don't see how styling products,
I mean, again, it would have to go down to what chemicals are in that styling product.
(18:35):
If it's causing any inflammation on the scalp, it's again, suffocating the follicle.
As long as you're washing out your styling products and, you know,
you shouldn't be losing hair from it, no. Okay. Not in my experience anyway.
Are there any lifestyle factors that can contribute to hair loss?
Yeah, poor diet, drug abuse, stress, all that can definitely accelerate hair loss.
(18:57):
It doesn't, sometimes it's not the natural cause of it, but it won't help if
you've got a hair loss. It will accelerate that hair loss.
And so that's where we go to that one, like not only do you notice your hair
loss, but then you start stressing about it and it gets worse.
So you've just got to calm yourself and go, okay i'm actually doing something about
it i'm gonna like you know be calm with it because
stress is not a good thing for the hair loss so you can
(19:19):
you know you can definitely increase the dht or poor blood flow to the scalp
yeah so you know drug abuse like if like i'd say like a bodybuilder like they
say let's say they were injecting themselves with steroids one of the byproducts
we know is testosterone touches an enzyme becomes dehydrotestosterone so if
they're accelerating their testosterone,
(19:40):
then they potentially could be making their hair loss even worse and lose a lot of hair quick.
But if they didn't have the gene and they were taking the increase of testosterone,
it wouldn't cause their hair loss. They would have to have the gene.
But there's attributes that if we're not healthy with ourself, like poor gut health.
Definitely can contribute to losing hair. This is probably one of the most common
(20:02):
questions we get asked on social, which I do.
So obviously our products are about clearing DHT and helping stimulate hair growth.
We often get asked if our products will make hair grow in other places where
people are trying to actively have no hair growing. No, straight away no.
Because you're not actively putting the product to that.
When I was treating with the GPs, people on minoxidil, women did have to be
(20:24):
careful because they were topically applying the minoxidil to their scalp.
But they might have valus hairs around their side, near their ears and long hair.
They could thicken that up because it was getting into the bloodstream there, right?
But you generally didn't get all over body hair because you'd have to put it
to that area frequently.
So with our products, no, it doesn't do that. Okay, great.
(20:46):
I think that's enough hair education for one episode.
Episode so thanks i hope i didn't bore everyone no no
it was good but yeah we're definitely going to talk tackle some more
topics in future episodes and i think we'll go really deep
into maybe a female and male genetic hair loss temporary hair loss such as like
postpartum hair loss stress related virus related and then maybe an episode
(21:08):
on alopecia as well because i know that that's something that people feel really
hopeless when they're experiencing but i know from talking to you there is some
things that can help and also surgery you know i can give some good advice there.
I've recommended a lot of surgery for people that have been advanced, but what to look out for.
There's a lot of people talking about different countries they're flying to
(21:28):
for surgery, so we can touch on that as well. Okay, that'd be great.
Thanks, Adam. Thank you.
Thanks for listening and be sure to follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
and email any hair questions you want Adam to tackle to hello at regrowhairclinics.com.au.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.
Welcome to the Truth About Hair podcast. I'm Crystal and I'll be asking all
your burning hair loss and hair growth questions to Adam Hungerford,
founder and CEO of Regrow Hair Clinics.
There isn't much Adam doesn't know about hair after more than 20 years in the
medical and natural hair loss industry before launching Australia's first natural,
DHT-blocking hair care brand.
We'll tell you all about DHT in future episodes.
(00:21):
Just to be clear, these podcasts are not selling our products.
Each week we will be breaking down the science behind hair loss and hair growth
and practical advice so you can have your healthiest hair and scalp.
We'll also be myth-busting the claims you see online about every new hair growth product.
Adam, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Taking me a very long time to get you
to agree to sit down and share your knowledge with everybody.
(00:43):
And I know it's something that you do really freely. You're traveling around
the world training pharmacists, doctors.
I also get people's phone numbers when they come to us on social.
Because sometimes hair loss cases can be really complex and it does require
a bit of your expert advice.
Yeah. So thanks for joining. Yeah, that's fine. Great. Glad to be here.
I think for the first episode, it's probably a really good idea for us to just
(01:04):
break down like what is normal hair loss? What's abnormal hair loss?
And also the actual cause of hair loss. So I mentioned in the intro DHT.
Can you break that down for everybody?
I think my wife does this better because I get all scientific,
but dihydrotestosterone.
So it's male or female patterned baldness. So we have byproduct testosterone
in our body and it converts to dihydrotestosterone, which in simple terms,
(01:28):
so I've got to keep it simple so I don't bore the audience.
It miniaturises the follicle. So over a period of time, the hair will grow and
grow thinner, thinner, thinner, thinner, and eventually it dies away.
So the follicle's dead then.
So that's just a quick 101 general about DHT.
And how long does it take for the follicle to kind of go through that process
of shrinking down to actually dying?
(01:50):
It's like, again, general. Everyone's hair loss is so different.
Like I've seen 35,000 people in consultations, like our consultations and they'd
sit in front of me and say, I've only been losing hair for a couple of years and you're like.
Longer than that. Some people have fast hair loss. Some people have short hair loss, quick hair loss.
So in some way, they get better results when they start treatment because the
(02:10):
follicle stays alive for about one to three years.
Once an area goes shiny on your scalp, follicles are dead. There's nothing you
can do there. You've got surgery, you've got other options, which we can talk about later.
But if you're looking to keep your hair naturally with natural products or medication
products, you need to have follicles still alive to be able to work.
And what are some of the early stages of hair loss?
(02:31):
Like how can people identify that they're actually going through that process
where the follicle is kind of getting smaller and the hair isn't growing as well?
Generally when you're back and sides hair is generally how your hair should be all over.
And then if your hair is starting to look a little bit thinner to your back
and sides, that's actually first stage of the hair loss.
And a lot of people associate hair loss to baldness, which is like too far gone.
(02:53):
So what's the best thing we can do is educate the consumer that early stages
or, or prevention is a cure, right?
So if you're noticing your hair's not as thick as it used to be,
that's showing signs of hair loss.
Different types of hair loss, but genetically, 70-80% of men and women get hair loss genetically.
It's definitely early stages of the better for treatment.
(03:14):
If you do, actually, that brings us into one of the fallacies of hair loss,
is where do you inherit the hair loss gene from?
Is it from the mum or is it from the dad? Because I've heard arguments for both.
I blame my pop, right? But both sides of the family, I had no No hope.
So no, it comes from either side of the family tree and can skip generations.
So it's a fallacy that it comes from the mother's father. It can come from either side of the family tree.
(03:38):
If you have that genetic disposition to hair loss, is it definitely going to
express itself or is it something that you can actually stop from expressing?
Oh, a hundred percent. This is what regrowth is even about. Get a hold of hair
loss earlier or preventing hair loss before it even occurs.
And my three sons are on our products and they've got,
way better hair than me. They got beautiful hair. I mean, because we're a lot more educated today.
(04:01):
There's a lot more, there's a lot of great products out there that are treating conditions very early.
Yeah, you can prevent it. But once you do get hair loss, you need to be treating it.
You can't sit there with, you know, procrastination and then eventually have
the epiphany, hey, I want hair back.
It may be too late. So the best thing I say to everyone is the minute you're
noticing hair loss and it bothers you, do something about it.
(04:21):
Jumping back to DHT a little bit, we're talking about like blocking DHT, obviously.
Does DHT get produced on everybody's scalp? Is it just a normal thing or does
that only start being produced when you're having active hair loss?
That's when you've genetically affected by hair loss, so is DHT.
And once it's on the scalp, like basically DHT can lie in your sebaceous glands, your oil glands.
(04:43):
So it's really important that you actually clean your hands and wash your hair.
So a lot of fallacies out there, it's like you shouldn't wash your hair or if
you wash your hair, you see hair fall out.
Well, I'll tell everyone now, normally the whole world, 50 to 100 hairs is normal to lose a day.
But you should always, when you've got especially hair loss from genetic hair
loss and DHT is building up on the scalp, you'd need to have a good clean scalp.
(05:03):
So whatever products you're using can penetrate.
Yeah. That's something we hear a lot from customers who come through on email
and over social is they found that when they were washing their hair,
they were experiencing excess shedding.
And so they just stopped washing their hair regularly and they were doing it
once a week or like once a fortnight.
And then And they'd freak out because it was so much hair coming out and they
thought it was actually the hair loss getting worse.
(05:25):
But what is actually happening there? Well, I feel it's more about you're actually
starting to focus on your condition.
So you'll start noticing the hair more, but really you're probably not losing any more.
You can go through it. And then this is why like the general comment like, can I grow back my hair?
It's so loaded because there's so many things that can contribute to that.
Like if you've had a stressful or traumatic incident in the family,
(05:47):
a death in the family, you know, or you've had, you know, been really sick with
influenza A or B, you can have telogen loss.
And all of a sudden your hair sits in about a 10% stage that's in telogen loss.
You can lose a lot of hair really quickly, but it can grow back.
And some people will notice that when they go through that massive shredding
stage, they get quite concerned.
But again, that's all about just getting onto product straight away and doing
(06:07):
something about it. And it will rejuvenate. It takes about three to six months.
You know, I know I see a lot of things out there that show amazing results in
seven days. Impossible.
It takes three months to six months onwards to start noticing improvement.
You generally will feel like things feel healthier. You'll see less fallout
when you're on treatment, whether natural medical surgery, whatever.
But it takes time for hair to grow. It takes time to lose hair,
(06:31):
right? So it makes sense.
So when people are sort of saying, look, I started using this new product and
like it's been seven days and my hair is completely transformed.
Form, what are they actually seeing usually? I don't know.
Well, power of the mind is a great thing, eh? So I don't know.
Maybe they're just noticing less fallout and their hair looks,
because they're, you know, with our products, you don't have sulfates,
(06:51):
parabens, MEAs, DAs or silicons, so when you start using our range.
They might notice that the hair feels cleaner, less fallout.
All those things can happen pretty quickly.
But for results, I generally find most people, whether I've been treating people
medically, surgically, or naturally, you're looking at about three months for new regrowth.
(07:12):
Okay. And is that just for that kind of fresh hair? Is that in the follicles
that maybe haven't been producing hair for a little while?
It takes about three months to reactivate it or three months to see hair growth?
If it's dormant, yeah, but it's still alive. like you've got ballast hairs even there.
A hair has to fall out for new hair to grow through, and it's got to get stronger
and healthier each time because we want to get those blood amino acids back
(07:35):
there and have that blockage around that's causing the DHT, and then the follicle
gets to feed and be nutrients and happy again.
Right, okay. Can you explain that a little bit more? Because I think that's
something that it's like a real gap in understanding is the hair follicle to
grow, it's not just like this automatic kind of mechanical processes.
So for optimal hair follicle health, like the
(07:55):
for the hair stuff to be long and thick and strong
and to go through the full growth stages and
not have a shortened growth stage what does it need it
needs blood amino acids it needs protein right so and
need to feed so when we've got dht not only is our follicle shrinking but our
blood flow stops feeding that follicle like so we need to get circulation back
(08:16):
there so you know laser lights help you know derma rollers we have derma rolls
they they micro prick the scalp and help the collagen, help the blood flow.
So there's a lot of devices out there that help circulation.
That's doing one part, which is important.
The next part is also blocking what's causing it as well. So you can grow back
naturally and healthy again with the nutrients feeding that follicle again.
(08:38):
Scalp massage, which you see a lot on social at the moment as being one of the
kind of like, if you're not scalp massaging, you'll never have great hair kind
of, you know, clickbait.
Video trick. I hate those. I reckon the whole consumer world must be getting sick of time.
Click here, 30 minutes later, I'll give you the cure to hair loss.
Please. I think though with those ones is what it does is hair loss is so personal
(09:01):
and it really does leave people feeling very vulnerable.
And like you would know that having done so many hair consultations and I've
really experienced that dealing with a lot of the consumer questions that come
through is it takes a lot for people to actually take the first step and sort
of say like, it's really bothering me. I feel very self-conscious.
I'm trying all these different hairstyles and hats and, you know,
(09:22):
I feel uncomfortable going out.
It really does affect people's self-esteem. And that's something that you see.
And I think when people are feeling like their self-esteem is really low,
it's hard to take action as well.
And then you're seeing all of these claims online and then you're trying these
solutions, whether it be boiling rosemary water or doing the scalp massage or
(09:43):
trying the rice water, because these are some things.
And And there is some validity to those techniques, but just those things alone
obviously don't have a huge impact if you have sort of progressed or excessive
hair loss. Is that right?
Yeah. So there's all different stages, but I can totally relate what you just said.
I mean, I've treated young kids even at 13, we're getting picked on at school
and it's quite sad and they'll get upset in the consultation.
(10:06):
And eight months later, confidence all over, totally different.
It's because it affects us because it's our appearance, right?
And we're losing our parents and we're losing what we associate to being young
and healthy and happy, right?
The quickest you do something about these conditions, if it's affecting you,
the better the results is going to be.
(10:26):
I do have people that get great results, but they were happy.
They didn't care they were losing hair, but something happens in their life
and then all of a sudden they go, you know what? I actually do want hair back
now, but they've got to be realistic what they can expect.
For that as well. Back to your question. Yeah, it's all different types,
but I think the reason why people get so affected, it's an appearance thing, right? So.
I think also as well, one of the like sort of hair loss move,
(10:47):
it only affects people who are a little bit older.
So like sort of 40 to like 60. No. So for the older demographic dealing with
active hair loss, but you mentioned like, you know, teenage boy losing hair. Oh yeah.
Does it have, is there a demographic where it does affect people more or is it really spread out?
Oh, it's spread out. Like I've, like I said, I've seen 35,000 people and every
single one would have a different type of hair loss, like whether it's more
(11:10):
aggressive in the crown,
more frontal hair loss, total all over hair loss, alopecia, hair loss,
traction alopecia. There's so many different types, right?
But I had a friend, I'll just call him Eli because I don't think he was one,
but he was totally bald and we're quite good friends.
But he showed me photos of even at school and you could see his regression of
(11:31):
his hairline was so high back then. and he was only 15 and you could see that
he was halfway being bald already.
But his dad and his mother's side, I think, had very, very strong hair loss.
So, you know, they were quite bald as well. And that's probably more of an aggressive state.
A lot of, generally, I'll tell you general again, a lot of people,
especially men in the age of 20 to 40, will start noticing hair loss, right?
(11:56):
Women over the age of 30 to 40, generally after children or postpartum hair loss,
they'll start noticing hair loss if they've got the hair loss gene
too and anything traumatic stressful obviously can
bring it on earlier would probably be a little bit earlier
there whether you can grow your hair longer i do have
the question sometimes like can i grow i've never been able to grow long hair
you might have fine hair you may not be able to have long long hair like some
(12:20):
people have a longer anagen stage which allows them to grow long hair so every
hair type's quite different there's not i couldn't probably put everyone in
this because i've seen so
many different types of hair loss and different age groups.
I think that's true. I think like I definitely know that I want to go through
like the stages of growth in a future episode, because I think it's really important
that for people to understand that you may genetically only be able to grow
(12:43):
hair to a certain length.
Growing waist length or, you know, down to, you know, hips, this may not be
genetically possible for you.
Cause I do see a lot of videos on social saying like, I couldn't grow my hair
past my shoulders until I started doing this.
And now I can grow my hair to my hips. But as you know, that's.
You've got your follicle you're born with, right?
So, you know, I'd love to have dark, you know, quite dark hair,
(13:06):
black hair, but I'm genetically not prone to have, I've got gray hair,
but that's, I blame my three teenage boys for that.
Early onset of gray hair. I can grow back hair, but I can't change the colour.
You know, we all want some things that we may not be able to aspire to.
Just to sort of finish off this one, and then we're going to go through and
answer some quickfire Q&A questions. So these are questions that have come through
from customers. You didn't tell me this one.
(13:27):
We're going to do that for the end of each episode, because I think some of
them are actually, like some of them are questions they probably would never
ask in person because they're, makes them feel a bit kind of shy.
I'll do my best. Yeah, yeah. Some funny ones. But before we close into that,
I would really like you to sort of go a little bit because we're not,
this podcast is not about something where you grow, but I would like you just
to expand a little bit on your background,
why you started Regrow and why you specifically created a product that does
(13:51):
block DHT, because I think that that will just give everyone a bit of a better
understanding of your experience and why you have created this product and what
the goal is with the hair loss education.
I started my hair loss journey when I was 20, so only
a year ago so um no i had a i i
was losing hair had i know what i know now today and
(14:11):
trained as a hair expert i probably would have attacked that
a lot earlier my condition and then i went to a medical hair clinic company
and then after the treatment i ended up working for him had an amazing career
i worked 12 years i was the international consultant for him and that's when
i saw you know 30 000 plus men and women in for treatment that was the medical
side of things and so we were treating people medically,
(14:33):
some naturally, but surgery as well.
We didn't do a lot of hair units at that stage.
But I always had that burning desire that...
Medication is fantastic, but it had side effects, right? Some people get side
effects with medication.
I wanted to produce something out there that the purity in natural actives was really coming strong.
And a lot of my customers were saying, Adam, I got results, but I don't want
(14:56):
to be on medication for the rest of my life.
And probably that was that burning little desire to go, right,
let's develop some of the best natural products out there with some of the best
protein rebuilders that I know of. They're showing great results.
And the consumer is telling me they don't want to be on medication if they can't
for the rest of their life. Some people can be on medication all their life and no issue.
And I always say to them, if they're getting great results in medication,
(15:17):
great, but you can also instill natural as well. Get that holistic approach,
get a best of both worlds.
If you don't want to be on medication, try natural first. And if it's not strong
enough, go on to medication.
A lot of people out there hate that. They turn around and they go,
don't be on finasteride, don't be on minoxidil.
What expertise do you have? Like, well, tell me why are you telling this?
Like, don't tell me your product's going to do anything better because it might
(15:39):
be some people's hair loss, which we've been discussing, is more advanced.
So they need more help and more treatment.
That's one thing that we do, I think, at Rego really well. We're brutally honest.
I've been there, done that. We've got a lot of the clout in the industry,
but I'm there to help people on multiple levels and different on where their
journey is with their hair loss as well.
Talk me through some of the ingredients because we sort of touched a little
(16:01):
bit of some of the natural remedies that you see on social and through some
creators where they're talking about rosemary oil, rosemary water,
rice water, things like that.
It's helping through some of the ingredients we actually have in Regrow because
there is some validity to those ingredients, but it's more of like the part
that they play in the bigger picture.
So I know in Regrow, for instance, we have natural DHT blockers,
(16:21):
but there's also proteins and stimulants and things like that.
Can you run us just a little bit through what's needed and the kinds of botanical
ingredients that action those needs, I suppose? The two main ones is caffeine
and sorpamato are DHT blockers, but we use that at high purity.
So we have one of the highest purity with our scientists.
We don't white label, we develop all our products. They're really proven to
(16:44):
help DHT blocking naturally.
We've also got 98% pure biotin and niacinamide that we use as protein rebuilders.
Rosemary, we've got rosemary in our shampoo, as you know, Crystal,
but rosemary is a good calming agent, especially if you've got inflamed scalp.
A lot of people with hair, we can talk so many different topics,
but a lot of people, when they got hair loss or hair thinning,
they get a scalp or skin issue as well. It sort of goes hand in hand.
(17:06):
So it's good having those properties in there that actually calm the scalp as
well. We've got menthol in our tonic, you know, chili extract for the blood flow.
You know, there's so many actives that we're using that are just absolutely amazing for the scalp.
Will it be strong enough? Depending on the person and their journey and where
they are. But this is where I really want to try and get that education out there.
Early stages, naturally is going to work really well for you.
(17:27):
Late stages, you might have to introduce medication and natural.
And then late stages, surgery is your only option if it's follicly dead.
Yeah, so our ingredients, we also use oxygenated brain water.
So we don't have demineralized tap water like most other brands.
So why we do that is so we hydrate the hair and hydrate the scalp as well.
Generally, a lot of our customers, you'll know, Chris, when they write to you,
that they say how that even within the first couple of weeks,
(17:50):
they feel like their hair loss is slowing up, but they notice that their scalp's
feeling healthier and cleaner.
And that's important so the products can work and penetrate better.
Does wearing hats or using hair products contribute to hair loss?
If you have a hat and it's really tight on the scalp, it could be reducing blood
circulation to that area.
So generally, again, it's genetic or it's other issues like alopecia,
(18:11):
autoimmune deficiencies and so forth.
But if you wear a hat and it's really tight and they're wearing a hat every
day and they're not letting it breathe and all that, you can notice a bit of
thinness or pulling a traction alopecia on that area.
What was the next one? That was hat. Hair products. So things like styling products.
Look, if you're washing them out, I don't see how styling products,
I mean, again, it would have to go down to what chemicals are in that styling product.
(18:35):
If it's causing any inflammation on the scalp, it's again, suffocating the follicle.
As long as you're washing out your styling products and, you know,
you shouldn't be losing hair from it, no. Okay. Not in my experience anyway.
Are there any lifestyle factors that can contribute to hair loss?
Yeah, poor diet, drug abuse, stress, all that can definitely accelerate hair loss.
(18:57):
It doesn't, sometimes it's not the natural cause of it, but it won't help if
you've got a hair loss. It will accelerate that hair loss.
And so that's where we go to that one, like not only do you notice your hair
loss, but then you start stressing about it and it gets worse.
So you've just got to calm yourself and go, okay i'm actually doing something about
it i'm gonna like you know be calm with it because
stress is not a good thing for the hair loss so you can
(19:19):
you know you can definitely increase the dht or poor blood flow to the scalp
yeah so you know drug abuse like if like i'd say like a bodybuilder like they
say let's say they were injecting themselves with steroids one of the byproducts
we know is testosterone touches an enzyme becomes dehydrotestosterone so if
they're accelerating their testosterone,
(19:40):
then they potentially could be making their hair loss even worse and lose a lot of hair quick.
But if they didn't have the gene and they were taking the increase of testosterone,
it wouldn't cause their hair loss. They would have to have the gene.
But there's attributes that if we're not healthy with ourself, like poor gut health.
Definitely can contribute to losing hair. This is probably one of the most common
(20:02):
questions we get asked on social, which I do.
So obviously our products are about clearing DHT and helping stimulate hair growth.
We often get asked if our products will make hair grow in other places where
people are trying to actively have no hair growing. No, straight away no.
Because you're not actively putting the product to that.
When I was treating with the GPs, people on minoxidil, women did have to be
(20:24):
careful because they were topically applying the minoxidil to their scalp.
But they might have valus hairs around their side, near their ears and long hair.
They could thicken that up because it was getting into the bloodstream there, right?
But you generally didn't get all over body hair because you'd have to put it
to that area frequently.
So with our products, no, it doesn't do that. Okay, great.
(20:46):
I think that's enough hair education for one episode.
Episode so thanks i hope i didn't bore everyone no no
it was good but yeah we're definitely going to talk tackle some more
topics in future episodes and i think we'll go really deep
into maybe a female and male genetic hair loss temporary hair loss such as like
postpartum hair loss stress related virus related and then maybe an episode
(21:08):
on alopecia as well because i know that that's something that people feel really
hopeless when they're experiencing but i know from talking to you there is some
things that can help and also surgery you know i can give some good advice there.
I've recommended a lot of surgery for people that have been advanced, but what to look out for.
There's a lot of people talking about different countries they're flying to
(21:28):
for surgery, so we can touch on that as well. Okay, that'd be great.
Thanks, Adam. Thank you.
Thanks for listening and be sure to follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
and email any hair questions you want Adam to tackle to hello at regrowhairclinics.com.au.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.
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