Review (4/5): excellent ingredients, could use more packaging info, works well w/ shamp & conditioner
I like the shampoo and conditioner a lot- leaves my hair soft, manageable, and healthy looking. I added in this serum as I hoped to gain hair density or at least reduce loss (or reduce cycle frequency and/or duration). I dont have trouble growing my hair, I have trouble keeping it. So my hair is long, but much less dense than previous years. I transitioned from minoxidil to this. I wont do that again, as any gains I got from minoxidil were lost-- and I do contribute some of that to not using this as consistently as I did that. I'll explain what went into that below. This serum helped the condition of my hair and scalp, so I think it works well with minoxidil instead of in lieu of it. I likely wont continue with the serum for a few reasons.
1. there was no instruction as to how to use this product. It is a dropper bottle, and I pretty much just used it like I did with minoxidil-- massaged whatever I pulled with dropper and distributed all over scalp, primarily at crown. Was this the correct way to do it? no idea. *
2. It does say to apply to clean hair. Well, many of us do not wash our hair every single day. I have long curly hair that leans dry and there is no need to wash it daily. So I am either applying this to unwashed scalp daily or it only gets applied a few times a week. Hence the lack of consistency. So right here it eliminates some would-be users if it has to be on a fresh washed scalp.
3. the dropper is uncomfortable. I do not want to drop it from the dropper. I want to run it across the scalp so as to keep it from getting on my hair. The dropper is a little sharp feeling (at least my bottle that I received). I like the dropper style, and my thought is that if I were to buy this again, I would use a dropper from an old minoxidil bottle instead.
4. How long should this bottle last? Since I had no idea how much I should use, I often wondered if I used too much or too little. Any new hair treatment needs to be given 4-6 months of consistent use to see results, if any. I know the shampoo and conditioner helped, and this serum has great ingredients that will help existing hair and scalp health.. but the inconsistency on my part from lack of instructions as well as expectation of using on fresh washed hair made it impossible to see if I could get benefit from it.
* "It is best applied to damp hair after showering. We recommend visually splitting your scalp into 4 sections/quadrants. Depending on the amount of hair, use around 3-5 drops per quadrant. I like to drop into fingers and work into scalp. The remaining amount on your fingers you can work through your hair. It is perfectly fine to use the serum many times a day. That being said, it is important that the scalp/hair is clean" (--I saw this written in the community question section of this page. Including this on box or in a leaflet would have been greatly helpful)
The ingredients are of quality, the products work well together. I have since gone back to minoxidil, and once I have stopped the current shedding phase, I may buy another bottle to use as a support product. For that, I give it 4 stars.