Caffeine shampoo is marketed as a hair loss treatment designed to stimulate hair growth using caffeine extract. These products can be found in high street pharmacies and supermarkets. But exactly how effective is caffeine shampoo as a hair stimulant?
The best-known caffeine shampoo is Alpecin, a German product which emerged from a study in 2007. The study showed that caffeine stimulates hair follicles to regrow in a laboratory dish. Researchers developed a shampoo that aimed to repeat this effect on the human scalp.
LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor has analysed reviews from four of the top bestselling caffeine shampoo products on Amazon to find out if their relative effectiveness. Of all negative reviews analysed, 41 percent highlighted that users found the shampoos to be ineffective in stimulating hair growth.
Dr Bhavini Shah from LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor has explained how caffeine shampoo works.
Does caffeine shampoo work?
It is unclear. Whilst the study above showed that caffeine does stimulate hair growth in a laboratory dish; there is not enough evidence to prove it works with hair on the scalp.
There is a lot of debate surrounding whether caffeine shampoos can actually match the success of this initial study to prevent hair loss.
Generally speaking, caffeine shampoos are not endorsed by the medical community to treat hair loss. Instead, most UK doctors recommend medical treatments such as finasteride or minoxidil, which have been proven in clinical trials.
Further research is being done every year on caffeine shampoos. You can find many reviews across the internet which claim caffeine shampoos have a positive effect on hair loss. Despite this, it is important to take these reviews with a pinch of salt.
Some people may be experiencing a placebo effect, whereby simply using the shampoo gives them greater self-confidence when looking in the mirror. Also some types of hair loss come and go, so in some cases, experiencing regrowth after using a caffeine shampoo may simply be a coincidence.
Across all the brands analysed, the most common complaint was that the product made no difference to hair growth (41 percent of reviews), followed by the sentiment that the products were too expensive, which made up for 15 percent. Despite caffeine shampoo being designed to promote hair growth, 11 percent complained that hair loss was still an issue.
Clinical evidence for caffeine shampoos
Currently, there is no clinically viable evidence that caffeine shampoos have a long-lasting effect on male pattern baldness. This type of hair loss occurs in men who have a sensitivity to the hormone DHT (a form of testosterone), which causes the hair follicles in the scalp to weaken and shrink. Caffeine shampoo has not been proven to negate the effects of DHT in the long term.
