How to use your hair topical

Video Transcript

Hello, everyone. It’s Dr. Vinay for Northwestern Hair. In today’s video, I’m going to teach you how to use your topical compound for hair loss. Now you have got your hair loss medication in the mail, you’re going to see that it comes in a little dropper, form we’re going to be using about a milliliter per day. So you’ll see the volume on your bottle either says 30, 60, 90, 120, depending if you have one, two, three, or four month supply.

So the biggest thing about using a topical is the idea that you need to work it into your routine. When you brush your teeth, or when you do your hair, or when you take a shower, if you can figure out when to use a topical in that setting, you’re going to be a lot more successful at doing it. So remember, it has to stay in for 20 minutes. So when you try your topical and you don’t mind the way it feels, because it does have a little bit of oily feeling to it. You can leave it in… Or sorry. Put it in right after your shower, leave it in all day or leave it all night. It’s going to be the most effective that way. However, if you don’t like the topical, the way it feels, you can put in, let it set in for 20 to 30 minutes, and then take your shower and get it all out before you make up your hair from the day.

So when we’re also doing the topical, we want to remember that we’re covering the area where we’re at risk for hair loss. It’s not just the area where we actually do have hair loss. In fact, it’s more effective in the areas where you’re at risk for hair loss, because those hairs are healthy and they respond well to the medication. So if you have a receding hairline, you’re not just going to place it up here. You’re actually going to place it around the entire line. And usually, if you consider a person who has significant balding, you’re going to want to cover that entire area. So moving around from the temple, right above the ear, and then coming down across the crown maybe three or four centimeters below your cowlick, around the top. You’re going to want to cover that entire space. You may want to focus a little bit more medication and the areas we do thinning, but that’s the area of coverage you want. And that’s why we provide you with a full milliliter of fluid to use a day.

So if you’re going to open up your bottle, you see the dropper will have a marker on it for a mil. In order to get a mil out, you pretty much have to squeeze this top completely and go ahead and suck out. So I squeezed the top completely and I got about 0.8 or 0.9. That’s totally fine, because you just do a little bit more in the next day, or you can just make sure you don’t run out for the month because we’re going to be using a mil a day.

When we put this in, we’re going to want to spread across the entire scalp. We’re actually going to take a couple passes. We’re not going to do it in one, that allows for better even distribution. So I’m going to go ahead and put the tip of this dropper directly onto my scalp, and it’s going to sit on my scalp as I’m moving around. I’m putting very little pressure on the top of this dropper, maybe such that just a bubble pops out the top but doesn’t actually drip. If you just put that amount of pressure, the skin will actually soak up the fluid pretty easily.

I’m working around my scalp all the way where I have risk for hair loss, even though my hair is pretty thick in that area. As I get to the area where I have more hair loss… I’ll tell you, I had a transplant along the front hairline and my hair lines is receding a little bit, I’m just going to add a little bit more. But I do not need to pull a fluid.

You can see, as I made one pass, I’ve only used half my fluid. So I’m going to go back and make a second pass with the same amount of pressure on the gauge. If I got less fluid laid down in the first round, I’ll put a little bit more pressure than I did last time. But this time around looks like I got it just right. So same pressure working all around the scalp. A little bit more in my hairline where I feel like I have thinning. Making my way all the way around. If it drips down your hair, no big deal. You just do a little bit more the next day. All right, have a little bit more left. And try circling.

So this, this solution is actually minimally oily. Amix is a great formulation that allows us to really not have too much oil in the compound itself. You can see I just finished off the entire bottle. So I don’t mind the way it feels. I usually put this in after I take a shower and just leave it in all day, or if I take a shower at nighttime.

Now the next thing is working in the solution into your hair. You’re going to take your fingertips and then you go straight down the scalp and just use a little circular motion. After you’re done with that, you’re going to pick it up. Find the next part of your scalp. What you don’t want to do is run your fingers through your hair, because all you’re doing is laying down the solution into your hair as you’re pushing down your hair. So in your scalp, you want to go straight down, rubbing it a little bit.

Now that the solution is in, I’m going to leave this in for at least 30 minutes, if I decided to take a shower right now, or I’ll leave it in all day or all night, if I don’t mind. So this is pretty easy to use. It’s really just working it in your routine. That’ll make it most effective for you. You want to use it every day. If you have any questions, feel free to give our office a call.

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