EP: 107 Your Shampoo Isn’t A Therapist, But Your Scalp Might Need One

We dig into the routines that actually move the needle: cleansing often enough for your scalp type, ditching harsh surfactants, parabens, silicones, and acrylates, and protecting the scalp’s pH and microflora. Then we zoom out to the internal terrain—hydration, ferritin, thyroid conversion, and blood sugar control that reins in DHT’s miniaturizing effect. You’ll hear how cycle-informed training, better sleep, breath-led downregulation, and simple self-massage can help restore the nervous system tone that hair growth depends on. We also tackle the big disruptors others gloss over: birth control’s hormonal trade-offs, rapid weight loss and GLP-1 drugs depleting nutrients, and tight styles driving traction alopecia at the hairline.

Thinking about a hair transplant? We outline when it’s warranted, why six months of pretreatment is non-negotiable, and how post-care protects your investment. Plus, practical wins you can use today: blow dry safely to avoid a damp scalp, oil before washing to reduce dryness, choose internal-conditioning masks for real elasticity, and stop letting stress dictate your hair’s future. This is an honest, science-meets-tradition guide to keeping your hair stronger, denser, and shinier for longer.

If this conversation helped clarify your next steps, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s struggling with shedding, and leave a review to tell us the one change you’re starting this week.

Transcript

Two Experts, One Hair Mission

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome back to another episode of the Detached Podcast. We're having a slightly different episode today because I have not just one guest, but I have two lovely guests on today to talk about hair health from all different perspectives. Because I feel like there's not enough organized information out there. And I wanted to take this one as a different approach because on one side of the table I have Mark Birch, and on the other side of the table, I have Dr. Manisha. And they have both quite different perspectives when it comes to hair and healthcare. So I want to introduce Mark himself, actually, and understand the grassroots story of who Mark is and how do we get a greater understanding to the foundational elements of your life of where it all began.

Mark’s Journey In Trichology

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Well, basically, I'm a triecologist, which is a hair and scalp expert, somebody who deals in the science of hair and scalp. So it took me six years to get an MIT, focusing totally on hair and scalp. So I come from a long line of family hairdressers. My mother was a hairdresser, so I've been brought up in the hairdressing world and I've got every qualification in hair and scalping you could possibly think of. I'm also a City and Guild hairdresser. I'm a fellow of an institute. I'm basically I've been an MIT from the Institute of Trichologists, from the Trichological Association, from the Asian Society of Trichologists. So when I first left school, I'd been working in hair and scalp since 1979.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

So I first went to work with the biggest hair guru in the world, a man called Kenneth Price, who was the chairman of the Institute of Trichologists, Chairman of the Ethics Committee, president of whole of the Asia, and I was his understudy for 14 years. So I took all my qualifications with him. Obviously working in practice in the clinic, doing consultations, uh uh prognosis, diagnosis, and treatments. So I've worked in all the fields of hair and scalp, even in cosmetology. Um, you know, I've worked with transplants, um, you know, hair systems, so even in the hairdressing. So I do many workshops around the world today. I'm an international tricologist. I've not just worked in the UK, I worked for 25 years in Dubai. I had three clinics in Dubai in the early 1990s, and I was given a special license by His Highness Sheikh Hamdam to treat men and women.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So I'm a pioneer in this region. So I've seen thousands of case histories from this region, and I've travelled all over the Gulf. I've worked in Africa. I have my own show in the United States, which has a reach of over 90 million. So hair is a big subject. Hair has a massive impact on all of us, makes us look good, feel good, hair is sexy. If you have a good hair day, you have a good day.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

So absolutely, absolutely. So just a quick question here. When you talk about your parents and you grew up surrounded by a lot of hair care, right? Where did that start, even in the family? Where did that begin? Because it seems like it's been ingrained from the very moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

I mean, basically, my mother owned hairdressing salons. When I was first born, I'm a twin. So we lived in the flat above the hairdressing salon. So even when I was a child coming home from school, sitting behind reception desk, seeing in the early 60s, seeing the ladies with their blue rinses sitting underneath the hairdryers, the smell of the ammonia, wanted to know what chemicals they're using on their hair, you know, basically watching all the different hairstyle stylists and things like that. My aunt was a famous hairdresser in the film industry. My other aunt was a top hairdresser. So um, yeah, it's been ingrained. So obviously that was the that was the field that I was going to go into. So um, you know, it's been worked it out actually today because it's been 46 years.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Incredible, congratulations.

Why Hair Loss Is Surging

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So it's a long time. So yeah, I mean, I've been involved in all the different uh hair shows and doing workshops around the world and TV and radio, and uh this is what I do today is mainly educate people because there's so many misconceptions out there, you know, and there's so many people suffering with hair loss. In the last five years, hair loss has increased tenfold. You know, and as I say, you know, anything can disturb the growth cycle of hair, genetics, general health, lifestyle, hormones, you know, basically stress, nutrition, accidents, illness operations, many factors can disturb the hair growth cycle. So a majority of people don't know how to follow a good hair care regime.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Absolutely. So um So, Dr.

Manisha’s Pivot To Hormone Health

Ayurveda’s Lens On Hair And Body

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Manisha, how did your journey start? Wow. First of all, thank you uh for having me on the podcast. And uh what a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Pleasure is mine. Uh right opposite you, someone who's had such an incredible and you know, a wealth of experience. Uh I'm an ex-dentist uh to begin with. Uh I grew up in India. I was uh I moved to UAE primarily to become a dentist, to work as a dentist. But two years into the practice, I had like a nepiphany, like, you know, this is not for me. And uh I left dentistry at a very, very tender age of uh going out and exploring what is it that I really am here to do because I feel like every human has been put on this earth to really share what they are here to, I guess, first explore themselves and then share it with the world. Uh I believe uh being of service to humanity, if you can kind of embody that as your work, as your purpose, it kind of makes life a little bit more better, more fulfilling. So I went on this quest of really understanding what am I here for, and one thing led to the other. As a dentist, I was never really very well acquainted with the aspect of nutrition, so to speak. I educated myself uh uh with integrative health nutrition, not just the nutrition we get on plate, but also the nutrition which we kind of consume on a daily basis off the plate. So that's where I had a little bit of a light bulb moment of how exactly was I living my life. I was hormonally dysregulated, I had PCOS, I had acne all over my face growing up. So obviously I did not grow up as a very confident young girl. So I think that really had an impact on my confidence and how I showed up in the world. And I was like, oh wow, if I could just learn this, embody this, uh, I probably would show up as a much more confident person. So that led me into getting myself educated in nutrition. And honestly, that was, you know, when when a tree is standing right in front of you and it has this beautiful blossoming flowers, the flowers don't have to tell, like, listen, I'm here. It just is blooming and it has this beautiful smell. So you don't have to say, like, listen, you know what, I have done the work. I had people at my workplace, because obviously after leaving dentistry, I had to get myself a job so I could pay my bills because I was still in the UAE. Uh, people over the next two, three years started asking me, what is it that you're really doing? Because there's a transformation that we are seeing in your physical appearance. And I was like, uh, well, I am taking care of myself. And that did not just mean from the outside. I really went deep within. There are few pillars of our life which really tells us how you are living your life and nutrition, your career, your relationships, your spiritual hygiene, all of this kind of, I think I'm so like, like for me, these are my strongest pillars of life. So I was like, I'm just doing this. And if you're interested, I'm happy to coach you because as a health coach, at the end of our semester, we were taught how to actually show up as a health coach and give consultations to clients. I ended up getting um one or two clients every weekend, and I did that while I still had my corporate job. But I knew for a fact that if I really want to sustain and live in Dubai, I cannot just do this. This was back in 2018, almost um, is it like eight years ago? That's when I graduated as a health coach. But in 2020, when we were held redundant in our homes, I was working from home and I was still taking my consultations once in a while. But because we were kind of like, you know, locked down, I obviously have it have OCD, so I like to live in a clean space. And uh all whatever I saw on the floor of my home was only hair. There was this chronic hair fall that I was experiencing, which I only took notice of in 2020. And I had started noticing my hair, my temple was it it had like a hairline recession, uh, which got me to not just look what I was eating and what I was, you know, doing with my spiritual work, with my healing work, but also I wasn't doing a very, very uh significant practice, which I grew up doing because I'm from India and Ayurveda is uh it propagates the practice of oiling uh quite uh strongly. So I was like, oh yeah, you know what? That's what that's one missing link. Why not just brew some oil, which my mom used to do, just put up, you know, she would pull out some interesting herbs from the kitchen cabinet and start brewing it and would give my sister and me a chumpy every Sunday. So it was just that one aspect which was missing for 10 years of being in Dubai that I started incorporating this every single week, twice a week, and I significantly saw there was a reduction in my hairfall. And I will not deny the fact that I have definitely born with good genes, but even my mom, uh, who had who had great hair when she was in her 20s, she had lost half her hair density by the time she was 30. Uh, I was in my early 30s when I started experiencing that massive hairfall. So I was perimenopausal as well in my early 30s because of the most erratic lifestyle that I was leading. And I think because there was such a collective stress in the in the world during COVID, uh we were kind of absorbing a lot within our energetic bodies. I truly believe we are not just what we see, we are also what we feel. So because I think there was such a chaos and uh tension, and I was held redundant from my work, there was a lot of factors which contributed to my hairfall. And that led me to deep dive into the world of hormones and hair, apart from just the nutrition aspect, which I studied. And that led me to have my first ever online workshop where I was like, girls, you know what? Uh, I have kind of figured out this uh complex pathway of hair growth to be slightly simpler than what is out there for our consumption. As Mark very rightly said, there is a lot of misinformation. And uh for me, it was not because I wanted to build a business out of it or I was looking for a monetary kind of uh return out of this, but it was just because when I saw what it did to my confidence level, because it was already not the best when I was growing up, you know, it's like I also had my periods when I was very young. So I I was maturing at a much faster pace. So it is quite evident that I got perimenopausal earlier. So I was like, if I could just help a few women with this, why not? I had about 10 people sign up for that online workshop, and that just became like a thing. I I did like six workshops in the next six months, and that made me realize most girls are going through a similar problem, and no one is educating us on the most fundamental aspect of what happens in a girl's body, in a woman's body, because she does not just, you know, she she does not just come on the she does not just come to the life and she just lives a very normal 24-hour cycle just like a man. We have various transitions that we undergo from puberty to adolescence to perimenopause to post-menopause and in between also postpartum, if we decide to have babies. So a woman is undergoing a very wild, a very chaotic ride with her hormones. So for me, that was what allowed me to go into understanding hormones in a little bit better way than what I was taught in my school or even in my dental school. I was like, okay, if no one taught us this, let me become the channel. And uh, it's been five years. I am a full-time working with women as an online coach. I have also started uh selling my products uh under House of Fam, House of Mantra. Uh, it's an Ayurvedic blend of oil, which has an infusion of sesame oil, coconut oil, and and multitude of uh Ayurvedic herbs. And also an infusion of melatonin, soap palmetto, ashwagandha, all of which is essential to downregulate the nervous system. Because the messaging with oiling or understanding hormones is not like, you know, this is your only fix. The messaging with what I'm doing is to tell people, downregulate your nervous system. When you downregulate that, everything else falls in place. And hair is no different. Hair will just follow that path.

Scalp Hygiene vs Internal Balance

SPEAKER_02 13:50

So, on the touch point of females, right? I want to see now what is the differentiation in between both male and female when it comes to hair treatment and hair thinning. Can you have the same approach to a male as a female?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

No, every every individual is different. Let's say hair being one of the fastest cell producers in the human body, anything can disturb that growth cycle. I mean, it's not just one thing, it's a combination of different factors.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

And what would those factors actually be?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

You know, it's the factors basically are finding out what type of scalp you've got. Majority of people are using all the wrong products. If I said to you what type of skin you've got, if you've got a dryer skin, oily skin combination skin, you'd know what type of cleanser you use, what type of moisturizer, what type of tone. If I said what type of scalp you've got, you had no idea. The majority of people we look under a fibre optics, a proscope, a trichoscope have a toxic scalp.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

How do we know from an outsider like looking in? If I'm to go and look in the mirror now, how do I know like what kind of scalp I think misconceptions?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I mean, basically, how many times a day do you wash your hair?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

You don't want to know. You know what? I listened to podcasts before I even interviewed you, and I asked you.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

You know, number one is scalp care. You start from the foundation. Unless you get the foundation, the structure, and the strength right, it doesn't matter what you do. Everything else is superficial. So you clean your teeth every way, every day you maintain your teeth, you maintain your skin, you look after your eyes. You don't know how to maintain your scalp. Everybody wants good hair growth, they want a healthy scalp, they want good hair condition. So it's education, it's following number one is a good hair care regime. Yes, you've got all other different combinations as well, hormonal problems, immune problems, you know, genetic problems, but you've got to take care of the scalp.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

But when we say like the most common thing that I hear people say is that you should never wash your hair every day. You're gonna lose the natural oils. No, that's nonsense. You know, and and I look I look at people like I look at people, especially with dreadlocks, right? For example, they love to not wash their hair.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

So if you if you've seen the fungal and the bacteria flora under sunbee with dreadlocks, you'd see that was absolute nonsense. I mean, how many times a day do you wash your face? Once, twice a day? So what's the difference between this and this? Yeah, right. The oil glands and sweat glands in the scalp are twice the size of the oil glands and sweat glands in your face. So it stands to reason. If you can wash your face twice a day, why do you wash your hair once a week? Every day you're producing oil, there's sweat, there's bacteria, there's dead skin cells that feel your cells, there's scalp residue, there's pollution. So you know, all this creates toxicity in the scalp. So many people today are losing their hair where they shouldn't be losing it. It's self-inflicted. Yes, you you have got the genetic factors, hereditary factors. 30% of all women will lose their hair genetically, 50% of all men will go bald genetically, angi genetic alopecia. There are also 44 other types of hair losses as well. Medical clarification is alopecias. You've got scarring, non-scarring, you've got metabolic hormone, you've got physical, you've got chemical, all various different categories. So unless you get a proper consultation on your scalp by an expert and know what type of scalp you've got, what type of hair you've got, then you follow the right hair care regime. So it doesn't matter which stage of life, you're going to have these stages, as doctors actually quite rightly said, all women will go into menopause, all women will start to become thinner because the estrogen, which is the masking effect for years on the condition of the hair and everything else. But once the estrogen starts decreasing in perimenopause and goes into postmenopause, then it's got no more use in the body. The mouth hormone, the antrogen takes over, and that creates all the hair loss. So every day you're producing from testosterone, every adult is producing 10% of DHT on their scalp every single day. The DHT is the most powerful mouth hormone. It's sticking to the side the follicle, the receptacytes, it's making the follicle shorter and shorter, the hair become thinner and thinner. So again, we come back to maintenance. Nutrition is very important, obviously. You know, so it's a combination internally as well as externally. You know, lifestyle, stress plays a big part, more cortisol you've got, it affects your hair, your hair cycles. So you've got to keep those genetic hair growth cycles moving if you want hair from cradle to the grave. And that's all about maintenance.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

What's your thoughts on that? Should I wash my hair more than once every day? Well, like I suppose I suppose every every day or something.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Well every day, every other day, but as I say, it's in general.

DHT, Menopause, And Miniaturization

Pills, Progesterone, And Stress Load

SPEAKER_01 18:13

What's your thoughts on that? So I have a very different take uh on the concept of scalp is everything. I look at scalp as a secondary tissue in Ayurveda. Hair is called asia, it's it's an upadhatu, it's a secondary tissue. That in itself speaks volume. My scalp is a messenger, it is a signal, it is not the cause. It is not what is causing the hair fall, the hair thinning, the premature hair grain, the hair loss, the hair fall. In Ayurveda, very specifically, the if the three primary tissues are taken care of, your secondary tissue is taken care of by default. The three primary tissues uh which govern this secondary tissue is rasadhatu, raktadhatu, and astidhatu. Rasadhatu is all about hydration, your fluidity. You know, when you look at a child when they're growing up, uh they're so agile, they're so active, they're moving around. That's because they have a lot of fluidity in them, right? Uh rasa means that. And if you do not have enough hydration in your body, it is going to reflect in your scalp eventually. That is gonna make your hair deplete in terms of its luster, its shine from within, of course. The topical aspects come much later. But if someone comes to me with a hair fall, I am gonna look what's happening deeper inside the body rather than just looking at the scalp. And of course, looking at the scalp is I'm not dismissing that completely. But for me, the first line of protocol and action is to look what's happening within these primary tissues. So we discussed the Rasadhatu. Raktadhatu is your blood. What is the blood flow in your body looking like? How are your other organs functioning? Where is your thyroid? Is it downregulated? Because if it's if it is downregulated, you are not converting T4 to T3, which is the active form of thyroid. Thyroid is not just responsible for your the metabolism of your body, what you're eating, what you're thinking, because you know we also got to process our emotions. It is also responsible to kind of maintain your follicular health. Your hair is a dead tissue. It's the follicle which is the living entity, so it's obviously growing from the system, right? So that's the Rakhtadhatu. So if your blood flow is compromised to any organ of your body, and I'm talking to the absolute non-negotiables, your your gut, because you eat, you need to digest that food. So blood has to come here. This is the center command of your body, your your thyroid, your gut, your heart, your lungs. This is all here. Your scalp is literally at the other end of the body. It is not your body's priority. It's it's it's a I would say it's a luxury tissue. It's not a survival tissue. Your survival is you being able to process your food and your emotions every day, and that is what is gonna allow you to survive. The third uh primary tissue is astidhatu, which is your structure of your body, which is your bone strength, yeah, your teeth, the roots of your hair follicles. So if this is not nourished very well, it will show on your scalp in the form of premature hair grain, it will show in the form of excessive hair shedding and hair loss. So for me, how I look at scalp is just my signaling mechanism. It is not what is at where the problem is happening. The problem is happening deep inside the body. And this is my take on this. Healthy hair does not grow on scalp. It is built in the blood, it is built in your digestion, and it is built in your nervous system.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

So tell me this. Could hair products?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

It's a combination. I'll just answer that. Yeah. It's a combination of different factors. Some of that is quite right, some of that isn't. I'll tell you why. The skin being the largest organ in the human body, the scalp is the fastest aging skin in the human body. It ages 12 times faster than the skin on the rest of the body, six times faster than the skin on the face. So it deteriorates very quickly. Everybody's hair gets thinner as you get older. That's because of lack of hydration, lack of blood circulation, lazy hair follicles. So you have to maintain it. Yes, you have to maintain it internally. Yes, hormones are very, very important. But externally you have to take care of it. Follicles only produce 22 weeks in the fetus, this fetus hair. You can't replace any more new hair follicles. All you can do is have a hair transplant from donor site to acceptant site, hair follicle relocation. So the first thing you do when you're doing diagnosis, yes, you go through the general health, any medications, you have to look at the scalp. Otherwise, you will not determine what type of hair loss, what type of scalp, and what is causing that hair loss. You can go more in depth taking blood markers from blood tests, but you have to look at the scalp. And you have to follow a good hair care regime because otherwise there's more toxicity from the epidermis going into the hair follicle. Miami research team just recently, over the last six months, took various products off the market and found out of under a compound microscope after six months, the amount of of deposits on the follicle creating so much hair loss. The paraboms, the silicons, the acrylates, the petrochemicals being used in products, the styling products, all these build up residue on the scalp. So it doesn't matter what you're doing internally, your nutrition can be right, sleep is very important, hormones are very important, but you have to take care of the scalp. Don't wash your face for a week. See what happens. You've played acne, your skin, you have to hydrate it, you have to clean it. The scalp is no different. It's not an extension of the body, it's a part of the body. It's a living organism.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

I mean, I'm not dismissing. I will look at the scalp, but I will look at the primary tissues first. I will definitely look at the scalp. But for me, what's happening within the body is of utmost importance than just giving topical solutions. For me, it's a more systemic approach. Uh because uh, you know, my sp my niche's women, and that's also because men are still very socially accepted bald. We still haven't come to a point where a woman walking into a boardroom can lead a team, you know. Look at the number of transplant cases that happen worldwide.

Weight Loss Drugs And Shedding

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Why do people have transplants? Transplants is the biggest cosmetic surgery today for men and women. It's not face yes, but mostly it's not facelifts, it's not anti-aging creams, it's not fillers. If you're losing your hair, you're looking 10 years older. So nobody likes to lose their hair. It's our crowning glory. It's the holy grail. It gives us our identity. So, you know, this is it. So why not? We've got one life, we want to look as good as we can for as long as we can. Hair is a major factor. Premature hair loss. A man would do anything, pay anything to reverse premature hair loss. A woman would do anything to start regrowing thinning hair. So I've had lectures around the world and I've seen thousands and thousands of cases. Biggest thing after people with cancer treatment might be imminent. Grade four cancer. Number one fear factor, I'm gonna lose my hair. Only got three months to live. So, you know, it's got massive psychological aspects to it and physiological aspects to it.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

When we see when we see people lose their hair, right, when they're in their twenties, for example.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, 20% of all 20-year-old men are losing their hair. Why? 50% of all 50-year-olds, 50% 50% of all 50-year-olds are losing their hair. 50% of all men go bald genetically, male patterned baldness, angelic alopecia. 85% of all men will suffer hair loss at some stage in their life. Let's park that one up. Let's go for the women. Female patterned hair loss. 30% of all females today in their 50s are losing their hair. 60% of all women will suffer hair loss at some stage in their life, not just menopausal hair, diffuse hair loss, temporary hair loss. So it's a massive subject. So the more education and the right education on this subject, and you have to follow a good hair care regime. As I said, pay particular attention to the health and hygiene and the well-being of the scalp. Because that's a major factor. Sometimes you don't have to work on hormones. Sometimes nutrition is very good. It can be stress, you know, it could be depression, it could be medications people are taking. Anything can disturb that growth cycle. Contraceptives, blood thinners, beta blockers, antidepressants, just to name a few. So again, we start with a scalp, we do a proper case history, prognosis diagnosis. If you want to do more in depth, take blood tests for blood markers, for anemia, for ferritin store, for hormonal imbalances, then we can do that.

When To Consider A Hair Transplant

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Well when we talk about the the contraceptive pill here for a second, I don't know if any of you guys have any research on this to show to show how that's affected any sort of hair loss or has it had any effect on females in particular.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

OCPs are widely uh prescribed to young girls today, right? And uh if you look at uh a young person's brain scan, their prefrontal cortex is not even developed. The limbic system is still developing and you're giving them OCPs, it's directly going and hindering the myelination of the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible to make logical, rational decisions in your adult life. And you're putting them, you're literally blocking that system of a person. Why? OCP is just one part of the thing. Birth control fails when you're given to a perimenopausal woman uh when she's in her mid to late 30s, she's already having a wild and a chaotic ride with her hormones. You are interfering with her ovulation further, which means if she does not have an ovulation, she's not secreting progesterone. Progesterone is our calming hormone. The ratio of progesterone to estrogen is so critical in terms of her health. So I don't know uh how will a good scalp health override this. This is the foundation. What is happening in your cellular health is the most important thing. Women today are losing progesterone 500 times faster than estrogen, and that's why most women are estrogen dominant by default. They're not estrogen dominant because you know your ovaries are making more estrogen. That's because we're losing more progesterone because our coping mechanisms to the to the amount of stress like the urban woman, like I think we all can successfully agree like urban people are chronically stressed, and that physiological load on a woman is much stronger. Not because women are weaker, that's because the female biology is cyclical. It is not, as I discussed earlier, it is not so stable like that of a man who's on a 24-hour testosterone cycle. And having said that, that does not mean that women are weak by any way. It's just that the modern-day woman who is on a constant state of output, she's in leadership positions, she's managing home with kids. So that means there's a lot of emotional labor, mental load, physical labor. Women are not just working hard, they are also working out harder, which is then putting them on a physiological load of not allowing to be in sync with their cycles. How many women, I get so many women on a discovery call every day, no woman knows what phase of her cycle she's on.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

No, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Uh and if you do not know what phase of cycle you are on, how are you gonna plan your nutrition, your workouts, how you wanna show up at work, how you wanna plan your business? Because for a woman, her cycle is her most vital power because when she kind of aligns with this infradian rhythm of her biology, because we don't just work on a circadian rhythm like a man, we have an infradian rhythm. We also have peri postmenopausal, as I discussed. Woman is constantly changing. We are not the same person every day, and you will agree with that. We are a different person every week. So if we are not able to have this basic foundation in place, you really think my body's gonna prioritize hair growth?

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Well, a woman's body is different, isn't it? A woman's body's got a different role in society today than it did years and years ago.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

But even men go through andropause. There is no denying the fact I'm not dismissing that a man does not undergo enough.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

A woman is balancing the work life with home life, you know, the stresses, the diet's different, the food chain plays a big part, she's missing meals, a lot of women today are anemic, a lot of women are insomniacs today, a lot of women are drinking more today. So it's a combination of many different factors.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I agree.

Product Labels That Harm Your Scalp

SPEAKER_00 31:10

And all this creates different hormone fluctuations and things like that. The body needs balance and the balance has gone out. We are working harder, you know. We're we're moving on the go. We're just grabbing a sandwich. In the morning, we're just having a cup of coffee when running out of the house. So all these things disturb the sugar levels, the hormone levels in the body as well. This creates more cortisone, more stress. Number one factor, it will affect the hair growth anyway. Diffuse hair loss is huge today, temporary hair loss. Even people women taking Njaro, you know, the slimming jabs, and after the COVID, the vaccines, hair loss is increasing all the time because of the balance in society today. There is no real balance. You have to find that yourself.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

I feel like you've just opened a bit of a can of worms here because uh like I know so many people using weight loss injections right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

One of the major symptoms is hair loss.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah, absolutely. So what is the upside after this? When someone does lose a lot of weight, right? They're using weight loss injections. How can we try and measure out the balance of hair loss alongside this? Is it peptide treatment? Is it products? Is it better nutrition? What is it?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Again, it's a combination of different things. When you're starting to losing weight, you're losing minerals. So you're depleting the body of its natural, you know, vitamins and minerals. So it's going to pay, normally it pays with the scalp. It's not a major organ in the body. When you take food, meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, recommended daily amounts of minerals, vitamins, you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner, most of the food, nutrition goes to the major organs, heart, liver, lungs, very little gets the hair growth cycles anyway. So again, it's all about that balance. So it's maintaining that balance to have a a good general well-being in the body and good hair growth. So this is it.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

What's your thoughts on that? Of course, I agree with Doctor on that point. We do agree on something. I feel like metabolic health regulation is the key because uh no person and this applies to universally everyone, not just women, you cannot control your hormones if you can't control your blood sugar, period.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah.

Daily Habits That Damage Hair

SPEAKER_01 33:12

If I do not have a well-controlled HPA1C, there is no way my sex hormone-binding globulin is gonna be maintained at an optimum level. And by the way, SHBG is uh is a very potent factor why DHT increases in our bloodstream. DHT directly goes and competes with our hair follicles. And now more and more women have excess of DHT, not because they are uh more androgenetic. Androgens have been driven because of the HBA1C excess. No one is telling people when they are 5.3, 5.4, listen, you gotta look at what you are consuming through the day. How are you responding to stress? What what time are you going to bed? Do you have any sort of a self-care, self-love ritual? Because let's face it, most of us are choosing to stay single and most of us are unmarried, so we don't get touched enough. How many times do you actually sit in peace? Exhale, right? Exhalation is the key because when we exhale, we step into our parasympathetic. When you kind of activate your marma points on your scalp, you're literally touching your marma points, which is where your nerves, muscles, joints, ligaments, they all come and intersect. Maneuvering these marma points is gonna allow the energy, the prana, to flow. And as doctors, uh as Mark also mentioned, it's at the other end of your body. Your scalp needs extra epigenetic stimulation to tell your hair follicles to wake the F up because most of the times we are dormant. We are so in our bodies. We we are either running from one meeting to the other, we are trying to get our deadlines set. We are in a constant state of go, go, go. You really think your body's gonna prioritize your hair growth. No. And that's why so many women so many men walk bald because they have given up. They tried. I have so many hair transplant relapse cases. Why? Because eventually, even transplant cases, your hair starts thinning out because what you're doing is you're just doing a structural fix on a metabolic faulty line. Hair transplant is not the ultimate fix. Regulating your nervous system is having a hormone harmony in your body is the ultimate solution.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

When should hair transplants be the go-to for men?

Blow Drying, Oiling, And Split Ends

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Or should they ever Yeah, well, nothing's better than your own hair. Do everything you can to grow your own hair, even if it's dormant, you know, grow the hair. Anywhere there's activity in the follicle, grow the hair. Because the more density, more volume, obviously that's the best way. If somebody's genetically predisposed, they've lost a lot of hair over 10, 15 years, there's a lot of scar tissue, then the only thing obviously is hair transplant. As long as a donor site can take that, it's pretty full. So taking hair, hair follicle relocation from the donor site to recipitant site, then that's it. But again, it's not just about the hair transplants. Which transplant will you have for your for your hair, which will which give you the best coverage, you know, for your for your face, for the shape, for your diamond shape, round shape, oval shape, whatever. Not only that, the most important thing is the pre-treatment. Don't just have a hair transplant because if you've been using very harsh chemicals for years, you're just taking hair, putting it in a very toxic environment. So pre-treatment is very, very important. And after the hair transplant, don't think you can go back and just use any old shampoo and wash it once every two weeks because you'll be back having hair transplant number two within a year. Because normally after a hair transplant, you can have to 30 to 40 pop-outs where the follicles don't take, the grafts don't take. So post pre- and post-treatment are essential for anybody having a hair transplant.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

So if you have a hair transplant, would you be expected to have another one very soon after?

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Or there are hair transplants when you do it properly. I mean, we do a lot of pre-treatment. I won't let any anybody have a hair transplant up to six months. I'll get the scalp into optimum condition, get good pH of the scalp, good microcirculation in the scalp. And then once we're we're completely satisfied, then we'll have the hair transplant with a suitable transplant for that type of hair, whether it'd be straight, wavy, curly, tightly curled, the right type of textured hair, fine, medium coarse hair, the right porosity, permeability, moisture content of hair, so we cess anything. And then I tend to go with certain people around the world for transplants, and I will do the mapping. One, one, two, two, one, one, two, two. I know all the streams in the scalp, I know all the different hair types in the scalp. So once you have the hair transplant, it looks completely natural. And number one, it's undetectable. So many transplants today are a disaster.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

I can see you. I can see you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

We do so much damage control on transplants because certain doctors can only do one procedure. They will do an FUE, follicle use extraction, or they would be more suitable to folligate unit transplant or a direct hair implant or robotic. It may not be the most suitable for that person and that person's scalp and that person's hair type. So these are essential elements. But that's the last possible cause once you've tried everything else. Optimum with the scalp, optimum with the health, and to try and grow as mux of the hair. Sometimes you can't see the hair. It'll be only dormant, but there's still new hair you can push through using the right topical solutions, having the right nutrition. The good people after cancer treatment, you know, radiation, chemo. There's no hair on the scalp. You can't see anything. But it's dormant underneath the scalp. If you can grow that hair, the activity of the follicle very quickly, you can still have a very good full head of hair.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

How do we stimulate that?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Stimulate that with different types of therapies. You can use ray therapy, you know, we've short of ultraviolet, infrared, laser treatments. So many different trials. We've used everything galvanic, ferradic, medso, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

And where where could you get those types of treatments?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

We go to various clinics. You go into the clinics, you see the trichologists, they got all various different types of treatments for different types of conditions.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

And what would be kind of the duration of a treatment like that? How quickly can we see that?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

We use a guide a guideline of around about six months. Everybody's general health and hair loss is different, but we we use that as a guideline anyway. So we would not know the exact, obviously, from a cases to prognosis and diagnosis. Some people can get very good results within six to eight weeks. Other people it can take up to six months, some people slightly longer. So general health obviously plays a major part in that.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

So what's your thoughts on hair transplants?

Detaching From Hair Myths And Stress

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Um I would say that if the internal terrain is not fixed, the hair transplant is not going to is going to barely last on your scalp. So as doctors said, as Mark said, I don't know why I'm calling- Are you a doctor? I'm a call. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a GP. Yeah. Mark, as Mark rightly said, like six months of pretreatment is pivotal. And I think that's what that's when I would say a transplant therapy or a surgery is more ethically done. If you have really looked at the internal terrain of the client, where are the inflammatory markers? Where is the insulin at? What is the ferritin level? What is the hype where where are they? In terms of their androgen levels, because all these factors are gonna eventually determine how the body, because if it has been even relocated from the backside of your scalp to the frontal aspect, you are still implanting and relocating that hair follicle to a hostile biology, right? If that hair follicle where it has been relocated to does not have enough blood supply, eventually that hair is gonna fall off. If you have done the pre-treatment of making sure that this hair follicle is gonna get received in the most, I would say in the most wholesome way, we go ahead with the hair transplant. I am obviously I I keep myself away from interventions whenever there is any sort of an invasive procedure involved. I don't really get involved, but yes, I feel like everyone uh has the right to look beautiful, to look their best, to feel confident. And if hair transplant is the only resort, please go for it, but do it very, very intentionally. Be very mindful of how you're gonna live your life after that. I have seen a woman have three hair transplant relapse cases. It smashed her confidence, it it played with her emotional health deeply. So if you're going back to uh sleeping late, uh not having a hair care routine, uh not oiling your scalp, not oiling your hair before hair wash, you are going to eventually damage it subsequently and it is gonna come off. You might require another hair transplant, or it is gonna just dim your light because hair is a very sensitive topic, especially for women. It probably is for men as well. Uh, but I see a lot of bald men walking around in Dubai, especially.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

It's a taboo subject, it's very confidential, very secretive. I mean, well, over the years we've done lots of member members of the royal family, major celebrities, and you know, you can if you see someone and said, Oh, you've got beautiful teeth, go and see my cosmetic dentist. You've got beautiful skin, go and see my aesthetic clinic, go and see my you know, beautician here. Nobody speaks about it. If I was treating your hair and grew your hair back and I saw you in a what in the bar and the wine bar, and oh, how's your hair? You would never speak to me again. So it's very confidential. So this is the subject. Um, as I say, I do I have a television show in America. Um has a reach of over 90 million people. So huge amount of misconceptions with hair growth and scalp care and obviously general health for hair growth and hair conditioning. And this is it. So it's um there's lots of different combination factors to do with hair.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Tell me this. What are some of the ingredients that I should be looking out for in products that are on the shelves right now that I just shouldn't go near?

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Well, when you say I mean less is more. Well when we talk about shampoo shampoos, well, it's very mild surfactants. I mean, our products are basically, you know, they're they're raw active materials.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

But if I was to go into now, if I was to go into any drugstore right now, what are some of the things that I need to look at and what is.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Well, the main the main thing what you could do with the shampoo is a cleansing agent. It needs to be a mild, gentle cleansing agent. So if the if the cleansing agent is a tricolorosulfate, sodanolosulfate, a less laurelosulfate, it's a byproduct, it's a petrol chemical.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

So if it's a if it's a vegetable base, obviously that's better. So you don't need a lot of colours, perfumes, you know, fragrances in there, you know, acrylatate, silicons, parabens, these basically are superficial. They give a superficial effect for a temporary, you know, amount of time, and then you're going to pay for it because that's going to build up in the scalp. So a very mild, gentle cleansing agent is very, very important. We've used products in the clinics for over 40 years on the most sensitive scalps with all the scalp disorders, psoriasis, erexema, laminovic theosis, the worst types of scalp and skin disorders. So these people are allergic to everything, but they're raw, active materials, they're very mild, they're very, very gentle. And unfortunately, the products today are led by the multinationals.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

The nicest shaped bottle, the nicest smell. Woman would go there, she'd buy the shampoo, you know, with the nicest smell, nice shaped bottles, you take it home, you'll have a dry scalp, you'll have an oily scalp, child will have a flaky scalp, you'll all use the same product.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

You know, and uh cost plays a variable factor in this matter. So the better shampoos are more expensive because the ingredients are harder to source and it is harder to make. I've been making cosmetics for years. So, you know, this is it. The same thing with the conditioners and the various other, you know, styling products and things.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

What are some things that people are doing right now that is contributing to their poor hair to date right now? What are some of the things that people are doing on a daily basis that you would say you need to pay attention to that?

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I mean, definitely how they are responding to stress. I think that's number one. That's the gold standard. Like women are in a go-go today. If they don't really know how to downregulate that nervous system, cortisol is going to take over, right? Cortisol and the antigen phase of hair growth, which is the active growth phase of hair growth, they are not the best friends. So if I'm constantly stressed, no product, no amount of topicals is going to override that nervous system, which is in survival. So the number one thing is effectively know how to respond to the stresses in your life. Have better tools. As I said, like women don't need to do less things. We need to do things differently. And this applies to men as well. They also have burnouts, they also have hormonal shifts, uh, they undergo andropause. But again, with them in their 24-hour testosterone cycle, their coping mechanisms are better. For women, they need uh to know how to really understand their body, what is it trying to tell them, and based on that, need to regulate their lifestyles. They need to obviously work out when they are not in their active menstruation phase or in their luteal phase, because that is gonna get perceived as stress, which is gonna eventually affect your hair for. The second thing which I see a lot of women doing is like these tight hairstyles, pulling their hair, causing traction alopecia is one of the most common alopecias I've seen in the last one year. Uh, where women love these tight hairstyles, tight ponytails. And look at this. We are living in a very tight system already. We have tight schedules, we wear tight clothes, and then we have tight hairstyles. What is this causing? It's causing tension on our scalp. This pulling effect is making the hair follicle get a signal that I'm actually not needed here, eventually causing hair follicle miniaturization. And that's why hairline thinning, temple recession is so common in women. So I would say like know how to kind of regulate your response to stress and have better, like just leave your hair open. It looks beautiful, right? Just leaving your hair down, like have a better hair care routine and also effectively know how you are managing internally to the outside responses.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

You made a point there that I'll disagree with you on about how men respond to stress in a sense, because I think men are not they're just in balance with females, yeah, because they suppress. They suppress. I think females have a great way of expressing themselves. Yeah. They talk.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

I mean men then go insular, they're very hard to internalize everything. But yeah, I mean a doctor's right. I mean, stress plays a major factor, you know, and hormones and everything else, and traction alopecia obviously creates a lot of hair loss. And again, it's time, it's knowing how to manage your hair. Basically, have the right hairstyle, know your type of hair, make it more manageability for you. You've got to get up, you're a shampoo, you've got to get out of the house. So this is it, don't just tie it back tightly with a band or anything like that, because that will create scar tissue. A lot of the Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, with you know, coily hair, kinky hair, which is much more 4A, 4B, 4C, which is much harder to manage. And you see a lot of traction alopecia with these African hair, especially trying to get the hair more straight enough, sodium hydroxide, very powerful chemical like ammoniafy glycolate, the reverse perms. So again, and then the chemicals people are using on this on their hair today, always go to a good stylist, a good tinter, a good colourist. Don't try and do it yourself because so many people do a a budged job of their self. You see a lot of tint, you know, permanent tint on their scalp, which is paraphenylin to lundi, cause a lot of scalp problems and hair loss, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Can you get away with colouring your hair and still maintaining the health of your hair?

SPEAKER_00 48:31

If you know how to manage it and you've got the right type of style, then you can. But most people tend to get a lot of the, you know, the peroxide and the colour on the on the scalp. So that remains on there for quite some time. And obviously, you've got the buildup of the other toxins on the scalp as well. You've got to have good bacteria flora on the scalp, you've got to have a good pH of the scalp, good blood circulation, good oxidation, good nutrient. This is essential.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

What's your thoughts on hair uh using a hairdryer on your hair?

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Oh, I love it. I think when you blow dry your hair at a distance and at a regulated temperature, it actually allows your hair to get drier faster. Because, see, a wet scalp is a breeding ground for fungus. Right? And your hair is the weak That's really interesting. And your hair is the weakest when it is wet. Just yesterday I had a discovery call with a client and she was wearing an abaya. She was based out of Qatar, and I'm like, okay, can you just take off your whale so I can see your hair? Her hair was in a bun and it was wet. I told her, this is the number one thing you're doing. If you are wearing an abaya, you really need to make sure your hair is 100% dry. If you're allowing it to not even dry out and you're wearing something on top of it, you are creating an impeccable environment for your fungus to breed, grow, and then eventually cause fungal infection, which is eventually gonna lead to hair fall and hair thinning. So yeah, I am a big advocate for blow-drying your hair as soon as you're out of shower. Like I do believe in the concept of preparing your hair before you go for shower by oiling it, because water inherently dries out. It dries out our skin, it dries out our hair, dries out our scalp. So for me, protecting your hair before every hair wash, not just the hair, but by the way, even Abhyanga in Ayurveda is very famous for the same reason because oiling has this powerful ability. Uh, you know, as we age, our microbiome changes, right? Uh our gut microbiome changes. And that's why uh when women are in their mid-30s to 40s, we advise them not to eat too much fat because the mucosal lining is also drying out. Everything is drying out. That's why we also see joint pain in people. Drying out of hair is a very common thing that I see if you don't protect it before washing it very well. So Abhyanga is a process where we kind of uh oil our body and it's also a very, you know, it's very good for your nervous system. It really calms your nervous system because you get those five minutes with yourself where you're touching oxytocin. We know we need those neurotransmitters and hormones to really feel safe in the body. Because if we feel safe, if our nervous system feels safe, it automatically goes into the parasympathetic, right? When we exhale longer, you're literally telling your body to go in that state of rest, digest, relax. Because when I am rested, I am well relaxed, my hair follicles also get a signal that, oh, I'm actually, you know, safe enough to get the nutrition now and I can actually thrive in that environment. So preparing before you wash and go into the shower is critical. When you come out of a shower, a little uh hair serum or oil at the ends of the hair because the end of your hair is the oldest part of our hair, right? When you see women with long hair, you see like they have good head of hair on the roots, and as you look down, the root the tips are frailing away, they are very dry, they're very brittle. It's because split ends, they kind of make your hair go in two directions, and the ends don't grow in a healthy way. So we want to make sure our ends are protected after that hair wash and blow drying, I would say go for it because we want to make sure that the scalp and hair is dry. How do we support split ends?

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Hair is made up of a soluble mixture of sulfur protein, alpha keratin. Hair is 80% protein, which is keratin, 20% water, lipids, pigment cells, and minerals. Hair is made up of peptides and polypeptide chains, which are salt bonds, hydrogen bonds, and cysteine bonds. So basically that's the structure of the hair. So hair is basically hydroscopic. It needs moisture content, it needs rehydrating. Hair is a dead cell, if you cut it, it doesn't bleed. The main thing of the hair is to put back is the elasticity, to add the sheen, to add the gloss to the hair, to make it more easy to manage. And the best thing to use for the hair is internal conditioners. One that means proteins, which is cysteine, and also fatty acids, what the hair actually is made up of. So this is the most important thing to protect the outside layer, which is the cuticle. Split ends, it's obviously it's old hairs.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

I've been looking at the old, you know, before I came here, I was like, they're gonna be Georgia Vice Mads. I'm due a haircut.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

No, the old the old hair, obviously the look, the length of the hair is the oldest part of the hair. So yes, if it splits, there's nothing you can do for a split end, you have to take it off. Otherwise, it's not. I know, I know.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

I'm due a haircut.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

So this is very important. Conditioning is very, very important to do this. So most women that have any form of chemical processing they should be using a hair mask, which is a heavy-duty conditioner. It's ten times a condition, at least once a week. But use an internal conditioner. Most of the conditioners out there are waxes, balsams, and oils. They're only external, they're anti they're anti-statics. Most of it goes down the sewer. But internal conditioners actually soak through the hair, even build up more elasticity to hair in the cortex of the hair. So that's the best thing to do for the hair to for the manageability. More sheen, more everybody wants shiny, good condition hair, which makes it easier to manage. So this is very important.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

So, since we've talked all about hair, I want to ask one final question about you guys. So I have this tradition on the podcast where I ask each guest, what would they detach themselves away from that's limiting them today? It can be something very personal. It can be your ego, it can be your For me. It's been my hair. It's been my hair.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

My hair was twice the length I really had to detach myself from the idea of being able to uh only if I am here to teach people how to have their most beautiful hair, I need to have really long hair. And I had to let go of that attachment. I'm like, you know what? Shorter hair can also be very, very healthy. And I can still spread the message of to be able to have uh healthy hair, it actually starts from within, not on the scalp.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Would you detach yourself away from that's limiting you today? Is there something that's getting in your way?

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Getting in my way. Um I suppose in general getting more sleep.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

And if you want more hair, you want to sleep more.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Well, that's fine, being more relaxed, I suppose. No, changing the lifestyle. Yeah. Changing the lifestyle a little bit, slowing down a bit, I think. That's the main thing.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think we uh kind of under-evaluate how important a good deep sleep is. Because that's where we repair, that's where we refuel. We kind of revitalize our growth hormones, regenerate. So I think, yeah, I think yeah, sleep is a very, very undervalued asset.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

Thank you guys for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. You're gonna smashing episode with this.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Thank you.