HairlossTalk Support Forums

Just yesterday I obtained and read the full-text of the recently published clinical trial results. (J Am Acad Dermatol. 2007 Nov;57(5):767-74.) It is shameful how misleading the promotional information for Rogaine foam is about its effectiveness.

People on these boards who are thinking of trying the foam in hopes of greater efficacy over the liquid should really read that paper. The results of the treatment were evaluated in two ways - one was by subjective self-assessment by the participants. That is where the oft-touted 70-something % success rate comes from. The other way is by objective measurements and photographic evaluation by trained researchers. Those measures told a different story. It turns out that participants were significantly biased in their self-evaluations and that even in the placebo group 40% of them judged a success even though the researchers found no such true effect. I suspect this bias was lessened in the liquid trials because its hard to say your hair improved when its been looking greasy everyday.

30-something % of the foam group regrew hair, as compared with 50-something % in liquid trials. Objective measures increase on average about 10% as opposed to significantly more (can't remember exactly) in liquid trials.

The discussion at the end of the paper stated that the foam is desirable because of its cosmetic superiority to the liquid, but explicitly acknowledged its inferior results. A pre-test also had shown that blood serum levels of minoxidil were half that of liquid users.

Of course, the foam certain did work to at least maintain for the vast majority of participants, and there is the curious fact that a previous study in stumptail macaques yielded better results than liquid! However, I thought this is a pertinent piece of information that appears to be widely unknown as of yet.

Hmmm, no replies... I thought this would be a revelation!

I'm not surprised. I was very amazed that a small amount of foam, left on for 1 minute, could grow more hair than a liquid that had all the time in the world to absorb.

Also, I've been applying the liquid, without any mess. I just get it right on the scalp. If I run my fingers through my hair a hour later, I get some shine on them though.

I really like this once a day after the shower application. I think I might start using the liquid again on the sides as well. I bet the foam will maintain the sides after the liquid has done it's regrowth. I'm just worried about the liquid damaging my hair piece bond, or hurting the dye.

Now I am really confused?? Why does the compnay then claim that the foam regrows more hair than the liquid? Please someone shed some light on the situation!

Who cares. Just use more foam. Ive had fantastic results from foam especially on the crown. The hairline is maintained. I will never use liquid again, it makes your head flake and it takes hours to dry. A lot of these companies and their products rely on the placebo effect to work in many circumstances anyway. If you believe it works, it will certainly help more than having unbelief.

Give it time but what we really need is the actual study, not just your interpretation.

Aren't there any copyright issues with posting the whole study here?

And re: placebo effect, it wasn't an actual placebo effect, as in growing more hair - rather, they believed they had improved when an objective observer didn't see the improvement.

People are not flocking to it because your title sucks. You need to make it "liquid better than foam, PROOF!!" or something to that effect

Good call.

Anyway, if a $13 bottle of foam has the same regrowth power as a $5 bottle of 5% that is diluted to everclear to make it a 3% bottle for $3, which evaporates faster, then it would be hard for me to justify buying the foam, except for the good smell.

And you could give us a link to the full study.