My daughter was the first to notice it. “Mom, your scalp is so white!” As I ran my Bonne Brosse from roots to ends, I noticed that it contained a concerning amount of hair. Against my sun-damaged face, my widening part looked like an orange pith. As if losing my hair wasn’t bad enough.
The molting started when my father died late last year. My dermatologist confirmed that stressful events can trigger the normal shedding cycle, or telogen effluvium, to work overtime. She assured me that it would grow back. (And knowing my penchant for early intervention, she also advised against the hair-growth supplement Nutrafol following reports of liver toxicity.)
Oral minoxidil was an option. It combats hair loss by lengthening the anagen phase, when cells are dividing to grow new strands, and shortening the telogen (or “resting”) phase. But it works slowly, and when you stop using it, the body reverts to telogen mode and you’re back to clogged drains. For the psychological effects of that alone, hard pass.
But still—I wasn’t going to just live like this. I massaged droppers’ full of Color Wow’s Youth Juice serum, a collagen treatment, into my scalp every day for a month. I added protein powder to my coffee and almost OD’ed on walnuts and avocado, as some studies show that shedding is exacerbated by nutrient deficiencies including iron, protein, vitamin D, and zinc.
After about two months, the serious hair loss abated, but I was still afraid to look too closely at my brush. And then a friend with Anne Hathaway hair sang the praises of HigherDose’s new Red Light Therapy Hat. You know where this is going.
Instagram users can’t avoid the alien-like red light masks promoted by skin obsessives. But it’s not all hype. Numerous studies have shown that red light can stimulate the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), an energy-carrying molecule that promotes cell regeneration and repair.
The HigherDose cap, which looks like a baseball cap, applies this technology to the scalp. It’s fitted with 120 eraser-sized red-light bulbs, nestled in neoprene, that emit 650 nanometers of LED.
HigherDose determined this to be the optimal amount for hair regrowth. A South Korean study that tracked 50 users of similar devices daily for 24 weeks showed that a broad range of wavelengths can be effective at improving thickness and increasing growth rate.
Designed to be worn for ten minutes each day, a timer beeps and the lights turn off when the cycle is complete. Afterward, my head felt slightly warm, but otherwise unchanged.
HigherDose recommends wearing the cap every day for the first 16 weeks, and then scaling back to three or four days a week to maintain the regeneration. As the instruction manual warned, my shedding temporarily ramped up during the first month as the weak make room for the strong. (And so it always goes.)
Here we are, three months later and I’ve actually noticed a difference. Some baby hairs are already peeking out near my forehead and my brushes are relatively clean. (A note to men with male pattern baldness: the cap is not for you. It works by stimulating the follicles, which that condition shrinks so thoroughly that they can no longer grow hair.)
I want so badly to believe in the cap that I may be prone to magical thinking. That’s why I asked my hairstylist, Christina Cessna at the Martinez Samuel salon in Los Angeles, to assess the situation. “Strong!” she remarked on a recent visit, Tangle Teez-ing me without fear or restraint. “Looks thick and healthy to me.” I’ll take it.
Ashley Baker is the Executive Editor at Air Mail Look
