In 2015 I noticed my hair getting really thinner, after a series of sheddings probably due to hormonal changes - medical test revealed nothing. So I decided to try the newly approved Rogaine for women 5% mousse. https://www.amazon.com/Womens-.....I5SNI?th=1 (I later discovered it is not sold in Quebec, somehow, but in other Canadian provinces, it is. In a Quebec pharmacy I was told to my face that such a product doesn't exist, and if it did they would know about it. This was after I had been using the product for over a year). Anywho. Firstly, I discovered after re-purchasing the mousse a couple of times that it was sold at a price literally 40% more expensive for women http://time.com/4811985/rogain.....-loss-men/ so I switched to buying the men's version, since it is exactly the same product, despite what it says on the box. By the way this product is not cheap. Here in a pharmacy, it's $(Canadian doallars)129.00 for three bottles per box, whereas for women it's $129.00 for two bottles).
Okay now after this long introduction, finally, what it did: I was very excited to see results after 2 months, and real results after 9: all over my head, significant strands of hair of various lengths. I thought it was pretty promising. But now after three years, I found that what happens is that the strands keep sprouting, but fall before reaching maturity if you will, and therefore I think I am condemned to a head of various lengths. Worse: longer hair that previously had not fallen keep dropping off, so I wonder if it won't reach a point when I find myself only with the uneven , shorter locks and will be forced back into a pixie.
But for the moment, the good thing is that at least I have a head of hair, compared to a head of 50% sparse hair and 50% cranium. When I run my fingers through my hair it feels thick (as long as my fingers remain not too far from my scalp). It also can produce some volume, albeit sometimes not in the desired spots, but still, volume is volume and thickness is thickness and I won't spit on that.
The present state of affairs poses a problem, however, because some cuts just won't... cut it with this condition. Take my all-time favorite prototypical and paradigmatic bob. I have it cut regularily by the best master stylist, who understands I want it blunt and jawlength, and who does a magnificent job. But because of the growing number of shorter, wild locks shooting in various directions, the bob doesn't look like a bob at all until I painstakingly round brush it AND hot iron it into more or less what was previously an effortless, unflustered, smooth mane that moved like in shampoo adds and fell back into it's place obediently. If I don't do that, what I have looks more like a 1980's bad rendition of the infamous Whale Spout. I fear that I am marching straight towards mullet land but here is the horrible truth: when I try to stop using the Rogaine product, after a few days I get the worse scalp itchy pain, a sensation I didn't even know existed before (and start shedding like mad). So I run back to the product and am trapped in a perverse cycle. I try to remain zen and envision chanelling Charlene de Monaco, Sharon Stone and Robin Wright (Claire Underwood) for the next decade of my life...). These are not bad options, although they are not my first choice.
Pics 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 are me now. #6 is what it looks like after I style it for a long time, and 7 what it looks like when I walk out of the hair dresser.
And # 8 is a tamed Whale Spout wanting to happen.
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