The Cost of Growing Hair (Dec 2024 Update)
Today, I’m going to give a 5-month update on my attempt to grow hair. However, before I do, I want to call your attention to my previous post about the Amazon Scribe. For those who didn’t read my review, it has changed my entire organizational habits for the better. Amazon finally put it on sale for Cyber Monday. The $270 price can be paired with a trade-in (even an old Echo Dot) to save 20% and an Amazon Visa credit card to get 10% cashback. That brings the price almost down to $200. Click here to jump to Amazon – the link above takes you to my review.
How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? I hope it went well. I also hope you scooped up any Black Friday deals you wanted. I’m picking up some Cyber Monday deals from Amazon today. For the most part, they are things that we already use. I get the discounts now and on Prime Days, and I don’t have to pay the full Amazon price for a while. I also picked up streaming deals from Hulu, Disney+, Max, Starz (add-on to Hulu), and Peacock. In total, they’ll cost less than $10/mo. All of them last for a year, except for Max, which is only 6 months. I’m not linking to these deals because they’ve been all over any mention of Cyber Monday streaming deals, and I’m confident you can find them with a quick search.
Before we get to the hair growth update that I know you all care so much about (LOL), I want to remind you that there’s less than one month left to finish up those 2024 goals. This month will go by fast with the holidays, so make the most out of this week. That’s one reason why this is a quick update.
Back in early July, I noticed that I was balding way more than I had thought. I don’t regularly get to see the top of my head, so I only notice it when someone else takes pictures that include the back of my head and shares them with me. That’s very rare.
I knew I was balding about ten years ago, but the kids were under two years old at the time. There are warnings not to use Minoxidil around pregnant women, so I figured it was best not to have them in my hair while I’m rumbling around the floor with babies and toddlers.
With renewed interest, I did some research and found a topical spray combination of Minoxidil (6%) and Finasteride (3%) from Hims. The pill version of finasteride has some negative effects on men’s sexual health, but the topical version should avoid that. The research on whether the topical version seems to be very promising, not conclusive, like Minoxidil. Finally, there’s significant research that shows that Ketoconazole (Nizoral) shampoo can help. A prescription is necessary for the strongest version of Ketoconazole, so I went with an over-the-counter strength. My theory is that these three different medicines will work well together. If anyone knows anything else I can add to the mix, please leave a comment.
That’s the short version. For the longer version, I’m posting my original article below. It gives a cost analysis and links to buy. For the most part, the cost has not changed. The shampoo currently has a Cyber Monday deal, but its cost is a fraction of the medicine from Hims. It won’t save you too much. Overall, expect to pay a little less than $450 for a year ($38/mo.) for this plan.
Okay, here are the before and after pictures (respectively):
June 30, 2024
December 2, 2024
You can click on either image to open a full version in a new tab.
That’s a pretty extreme change, in my opinion! I do want to caution that it’s very difficult to take an after picture that’s at the exact orientation of the before picture. I must have tried about 30 pictures and this was the best one.
July 11 Original Article
When I started this blog a billion years ago, I expected to write about money 90% of the time, technology 5% of the time, and health 5% of the time. I’m way behind on those last two. It might be a stretch to call this article about health, but I’m going to roll with it anyway.
When we went on vacation this year, we went swimming with the dolphins. Part of the package was that they take pictures of you with the dolphins. In one of the pictures, they somehow caught the back of my head. I was shocked to see that I was so bald back there. I guess I never look at the back of my head. The vacation continued, and I kind of forgot about it. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I came across another picture that showed that balding area again.
This isn’t either of those pictures, but it’s my obligatory “before” picture.
I decided it was worth looking into the standard treatments. Rogaine/Minoxidil has been around for nearly 30 years. Propecia has been around for about as long. Back then, I remember one of my friends in college saying that he’d never go on Propecia after talking with his father (who is a medical doctor). The extent of my knowledge of hair regrowth was from the golden days of Austin Powers and Blink 182.
Web algorithms are going to algorithm. That means that once you start searching for something, the algorithms have a way of pushing more information about that topic. I came across this Washington Post (paywall) article about ketoconazole shampoo helping with hair loss. It pointed to this systematic review on it. I remember from my days of researching this MLM that systematic reviews are often considered very good evidence of whether the science is valid or not. I like to think of it as a summary of most of the scientific studies on a product.
Ketoconazole is usually for dandruff or other scalp issues. There are two versions of Ketoconazole – 1% and 2%. The 2% version is available only with a prescription. I presume you have to have a real scalp issue (not hair loss) to get a prescription. However, you can get the 1% at any drugstore. Since I was doing my computer research anyway, I just hopped over to Amazon to see what I could get. The top result was for Nizoral. I looked around for a generic brand to save a few dollars, but I couldn’t find anything. Amazon offered all sorts of dandruff shampoo options, but only Nizoral seemed to have Ketoconazole. I bought the 14 ounce value size. (That’s an affiliate link. I may earn a small commission if you click through and buy it. There will be some more throughout the article.)
Several years ago, I would have had a little sticker shock at spending $26 for shampoo. However, I no longer use a bottle of $0.99 shampoo for a year. A hotel that we stayed at had Malin + Goetz shampoo, and it was a tremendous upgrade. At $40 a bottle, it would really need to be. Since shampoo lasts me a very long time, it doesn’t impact my budget very much. The good thing about the Nizoral/ketoconazole shampoo is that you only use it twice a week. That $26 bottle will last for many months – probably most of the year. I will even save a dollar or two because it’s cheaper than my Malin + Goetz shampoo.
That was the easy part. Of course, you can’t get any easier than clicking the buy button on Amazon. So what about the old-school solutions?
Generic Minoxidil is pretty cheap and easy. A 6-month supply of 5% solution is only $28. That’s almost as cheap as the shampoo.
For once, I didn’t live up to my Lazy Man name. I didn’t take the easy path. I looked more into Propecia, which is the generic name of finasteride. Unlike Minoxidil, which you apply to your hair, finasteride is a pill. Remember what I wrote about my friend’s warning? It seems there are potential side effects that could affect men’s sexual health. That’s not great. However, researchers have been testing a topical solution, and it seems as effective as the pill without the side effects.
This is where I pause and ask why I didn’t scientists test a topical version in the first place. It seems like something a 7-year-old could figure out. Nonetheless, I was encouraged by this finding. I also found that Hims has a combination spray of Minoxidil (6%) and finasteride (3%). With hair regrowth, I’m not sure that anything is guaranteed to work, but it seems like that would be the best bet while avoiding any side effects.
As best I can tell, finasteride is always a prescription. I couldn’t find an over-the-counter strength – a pill or topical. So I went to Him and filled out all the questions, which took a few minutes. After that, they paired me with a telehealth nurse who can write prescriptions. I scheduled a 10-minute window, but the video call was done in under 2 minutes. My spray was being shipped for a cost of $35/month. When you combine it with ketoconazole shampoo, the total cost of this experiment is $400/year. They say I should see results in about six months. I’ll be sure to write a follow-up with some updated pictures. If you want to try Hims with me, they’ll give you $20 off if you sign up and buy through that link.
If your budget doesn’t allow for $400/year, you can get it down to around $200/year. Simply buy the Nizoral shampoo for $26, the 6-month supply of 5% solution for $28 (or $56 for a year), and generic pill version of finasteride. It looks like the finasteride could cost around $10 a month ($120/year) if you don’t have insurance. It would likely be even cheaper if you do.
Final Thoughts
So what do you think? Am I being too vain? Probably! At the same time, $400 doesn’t cause much of a dent in our finances. I also view it as a fun experiment where the downside is limited to losing $400.
Do you have any hair-growing tips that I missed? I could have easily missed the Ketoconazole, so there might be more legitimate research out there. Let me know if I should look into anything else.
Article originally Published on: Jul 11, 2024 at 11:24
