Welcome to Ask a Derm, a collection from SELF during which board-certified dermatologists reply your urgent questions on pores and skin, hair, and nail well being. For this installment, we tapped Susan Massick, MD, FAAD, an affiliate professor of dermatology at The Ohio State College Faculty of Drugs centered on affected person care, resident training, and group engagement. Her specialties embody pimples, moles, pores and skin most cancers, and eczema.
I’ve a few battle scars that remind me I survived coming of age within the early 2000s. One is an almost closed-up stomach button piercing (a literal scar, courtesy of Britney-mania) and the opposite is my barely sparse outer eyebrows. My greatest good friend’s older sister plucked the hell out of them after I was in center faculty and I saved up the search for greater than a decade—up till a famend forehead skilled advised me to put off the tweezers after I was working at my first journal job.
Slowly however certainly, a few of these little hairs grew again, however my brows have been by no means fairly as full as they have been earlier than I began attacking them. So after I noticed a bunch of skincare influencers recommending Rogaine for eyebrows on TikTok, I needed to know: Might that truly work?! So I requested Susan Massick, MD, board-certified dermatologist and affiliate professor of dermatology at The Ohio State College Faculty of Drugs, that very query.
The reply: “Theoretically, sure, however simply because one thing is trending on TikTok, that doesn’t imply it’s a good suggestion,” Dr. Massick tells SELF. “Topical minoxidil, the lively ingredient in Rogaine, just isn’t FDA-approved nor has it been actively researched to be used on the eyebrows or straight on the face.”
Minoxidil (a blood stress remedy in its oral type, by the best way) has been FDA-approved as a hair loss therapy for the scalp, although, which is the idea for the eyebrow-growth claims on social media, Dr. Massick says. Researchers aren’t certain precisely the way it works, however “they imagine it improves blood circulate to the follicles and will lengthen the lively hair progress part and gradual the method of shedding,” she explains. That’s why Rogaine can assist protect present strands and probably regrow misplaced hair when used persistently in individuals with androgenic alopecia, an inherited situation often known as “male sample baldness” or “feminine sample hair loss,” she says.
So why not slather it in your overplucked millennial brows? Once more, there’s simply not sufficient proof to say that’s a wise (or protected) transfer: “The few medical research taking a look at off-label use of topical minoxidil on the face have been for a small variety of members, for short-term trials of lower than 16 weeks, and at decrease concentrations of 1 to three%, in comparison with the standard 2 to five% in Rogaine merchandise,” Dr. Massick explains. “And irritation was a typical aspect impact.”
That final half is one other main motive why she advises in opposition to making use of Rogaine to the fragile pores and skin round your eyes. “A standard draw back to utilizing topical minoxidil is that individuals generally expertise rashes, itching, and swelling resulting from a sensitivity or allergy—a results of both irritant or allergic contact dermatitis,” Dr. Massick says. “Rogaine incorporates alcohol and different chemical preservatives, too, which may additionally trigger irritation, itchiness, and scaling.”