My dad went gray and bald in his early 20s, and my grandfather also lost 80% of his hair, giving him the Grandpa donut look. So I know my own future might not look so pretty.
One of the surest signs a man is aging is his hair (or lack thereof.) As soon as a guy starts balding, it starts to feel like it’s all downhill from there.
My dad went gray and bald in his early 20s, and my grandfather also lost 80% of his hair, giving him the Grandpa donut look. So I know my own future might not look so pretty.
Hair loss is incredibly common: in fact, by the age of 50, nearly 85% of guys will have thinning hair. But now that I'm in my mid-20s, I'm eager to take every possible precaution against early male pattern baldness. So when an Instagram ad for Hims' men’s gummy vitamins popped up promising to preserve my luscious locks, my interest was piqued. I followed the company on Instagram and did some research.
Hims is a men's health and wellness startup that sells, among other things, skincare products and erectile dysfunction drugs. The supplements contain finasteride, which blocks production of DHT, the hormone that shrinks hair follicles and slows down hair growth (it's also sold under the brand name Propecia). The gummies contain Vitamin B7, a.k.a. biotin, which helps to promote hair, skin, and nail health.
I consulted with Dr. Arash Mostaghimi, M.D., a medical advisor for Hims who serves as director of Dermatology Inpatient Service at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. “These drugs have been studied for a long period of time," he told MensHealth.com. "If you take [them] as prescribed they work well.”
At first, I thought it was yet another Instagram gimmick. Will a bottle of gummy bear vitamins really give me healthier hair?, I thought. I'd seen the Kardashians promote their own version of SugarBearHair gummy vitamins, but I'd heard mixed things about them. Plus, I knew that not even the most effective anti-baldness treatments on the market, such as Propecia and Rogaine, actually promoted hair growth so much as they slowed hair loss down.
Still, Hims featured sleek, dude-friendly branding, and I'm a sucker for good marketing. So I decided to take the chance with this new brand and placed my first order for Hims multi-vitamin gummy bears. I tried Hims' full Non-Prescription Hair Kit ($44 a month, buy it here), which also included topical minoxidil (a drug that increases blood flow to the hair follicles) drops for my scalp.
At the start of my experiment with Hims, I decided to really test the efficacy of the supplements by bleaching my hair platinum blonde. (For this reason, the only Hims product I received that I did not try was the DHT-blocking shampoo, which is very blue and which I knew wouldn't mix well with my platinum hair dye.) I knew this would be the ultimate test, because hair dye can often cause hair thinning and breakage.
To my surprise, as well as the surprise of my colorist, my hair stood the test and continues to hold up strong. There’s been little to no breakage and it feels thick to the touch, even after a root touch-up. In fact, my root touch-up actually took longer than we expected because my hair was fighting the bleach more than when I originally had it done.
Even more surprising, I feel like my hair falls out even less after bleaching it than it did before. While last year, it felt like my hair was shedding constantly, that no longer appears to be the case. It still sheds, but not as often or as much. Plus, my hair has stayed consistently split end-free, a notable difference from before I started taking the gummies and another indicator that my hair is thicker and healthier.
When I first started taking the gummy vitamins, I was told by Dudum that to see true results, I should take the products for at least 30-90 days. But after just three weeks of taking the gummy vitamins, my hair felt stronger, fuller, and definitely had a nice shine to it. I can't say for sure whether this was just the result of placebo effect, or if the supplements actually restored my hair growth (and for what it's worth, there is fairly limited evidence that biotin can help promote hair growth in the first place). But I definitely felt the difference in my hair health overall.
Overall, my hair looks great, feels strong, and I get to eat candy to keep it that way! What could be better?