Hair from within: the growth cycle, the scalp, and what the research shows
Hair is grown, not applied. Everything visible above the scalp was made weeks or months ago, inside a follicle you cannot see. That explains why hair responds slowly to anything you change, and why patience is part of the method. This page collects what we know about the hair cycle, the scalp, and which hair vitamins actually have an authorised wording behind them.
The formula for hair
Hair Beautification provides 300 mg of Keranat® millet extract per capsule, the dose from the randomised trial, with zinc 10 mg, biotin 50 µg and vitamin B6. Biotin and zinc contribute to the maintenance of normal hair. One capsule a day, twelve weeks.
Why does hair loss come in waves?
Each follicle runs its own cycle: a long growth phase, a short transition, then a resting phase before the hair is shed and a new one begins. At any moment most of your follicles are growing and a minority are resting. When more of them shift into resting at the same time, after illness, a period of stress, childbirth or a change in hormones, you see it in the brush roughly three months later. The trigger sits well before what you see.
The scalp matters too. It is skin, with the same barrier and the same needs, and it is the environment the follicle sits in.
Which vitamins are good for hair?
Fewer than the shelf suggests. In the EU, biotin and zinc carry the authorised wordings about maintaining normal hair, and both are satisfied at 100 per cent of the reference intake: 50 micrograms of biotin and 10 mg of zinc. Vitamin B6 contributes to normal cysteine synthesis, and cysteine is one of the amino acids hair is built from. Hair vitamins with 5,000 or 10,000 micrograms of biotin sit one to two hundred times above the level the claim is built around, and high intakes also interfere with troponin and thyroid tests.
That is why Hair Beautification carries biotin, zinc and B6 at exactly the reference intake, and puts its weight on a raw material with a trial of its own.
Keranat® millet extract: the raw material with the trial
Keranat® is a standardised millet seed extract from Robertet in Grasse, a house founded in 1850 and today one of the ten largest fragrance and flavour companies in the world. The active constituent is miliacin, encapsulated in polar lipids so that it survives the gut. In a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial in women over twelve weeks, telogen density fell significantly and scalp dryness improved. Robertet reports an average 50 per cent reduction in hair loss measured by phototrichogram, and that 91 per cent of the women themselves noticed less hair loss.
The 300 mg in Hair Beautification is exactly the dose that was tested. That is the entire reason that figure is on the label.
Hair, skin and nails belong together
Zinc contributes to the maintenance of normal hair, normal skin and normal nails. Three authorised wordings for one mineral, and they apply at the 10 mg the daily dose provides. Hair, skin and nails are built from the same kind of protein and respond to the same shortfalls, which is why they are usually named together.
Read further
- How hair grows: inside the follicle, the cycle and the scalp, the mechanism, explained properly.
- Hair supplements: what can actually be influenced
- Scalp, skin and follicles: what happens below the surface
- Thinning hair in women: what changes, and what the research shows
- Menopause and midlife: what changes in the body, hair is often the first thing women notice.
- Keranat® millet extract: miliacin, Robertet in Grasse and the trial
- Zinc: a small mineral with a remarkably broad role
- Biotin for hair and skin
What we made for this
Hair Beautification, hair vitamins with millet extract is a twelve-week routine for the hair: Keranat® millet extract 300 mg, zinc 10 mg, vitamin B6 1.4 mg and biotin 50 µg. One capsule a day, ninety capsules to the jar, roughly three months. It is a routine rather than a course. Hair works on cycles, so twelve weeks is when you have something to judge, not when you stop.
Hair loss that is sudden, patchy, or keeps going for more than six months is a medical question and belongs with a doctor. Two minutes with our quiz will tell you whether this is the right one to start with, and our questions and answers covers the rest.
