Welcome to Ask a Derm, a collection from SELF through 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 School of Drugs targeted on affected person care, resident schooling, and group engagement. Her specialties embrace zits, 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 buddy’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 absolutely, a few of these little hairs grew again, however my brows had been by no means fairly as full as they had 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 School 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 energetic ingredient in Rogaine, shouldn’t be 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 kind, 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 consider it improves blood stream to the follicles and should extend the energetic hair progress section and sluggish the method of shedding,” she explains. That’s why Rogaine may also help protect present strands and presumably regrow misplaced hair when used persistently in folks with androgenic alopecia, an inherited situation also referred to 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 secure) transfer: “The few medical research off-label use of topical minoxidil on the face had been for a small variety of contributors, for short-term trials of lower than 16 weeks, and at decrease concentrations of 1 to three%, in comparison with the everyday 2 to five% in Rogaine merchandise,” Dr. Massick explains. “And irritation was a typical aspect impact.”
That final half is one other main cause why she advises towards making use of Rogaine to the fragile pores and skin round your eyes. “A standard draw back to utilizing topical minoxidil is that folks generally expertise rashes, itching, and swelling attributable to 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.”