CollegeChemistryStudent,
Thank you for being the only one to seemingly to have noticed this astonishing find. Before I get to you remark about estrogen and hair growth with an anecdote of my own regarding lavendar and tea tree oil, lets take a second to spell out what is exciting about this find.
$$ It measured the drop in HUMAN sebum secretion somewhere on a human being.
$$ The study is from Japan, a place where good scientific prinicples are generally followed.
$$ The study clearly said that some components in licorice and peppermint and clove inhibit alpha five reductase.
$$ The study also showed that rose hips (in some shampoos as rose fruit extract) and sunflower (scultellaria extract) also had some androgen receptor binding inhibiton.
This is in human skin, and these things are plentiful in nature and can even be planted in your backyard. Like Ive been saying for a good while on these sites, there is a good chance that there will be a compound found in nature that will inhibit human alpha five reductase enzymes and be able to downregulate and/or block human androgen receptors out of the gazillions of chemicals in various plant life out there. Well, there appears to be more than one for each of these tasks.
Now to estrogen and hair...................................As many of you know, based on the tea tree oil and lavendar oil body washes having the effect of producing gynochomastia in young boys, I was hoping that these compounds might have anti-androgneic activity also and wanted to test them. My reasoning was the gyno is a side effect seldom seen, but seen some nonetheless with finasteride. To my suprise lavendar oil and the lavendar tea tree mix actually GREW hair on one of my toes (my right big toe) relative to the other toe. It was obvious growth. The toe hair (Im a pretty hairy man, like alot of men with male pattern baldness) was darker and thicker and longer than the other toe at three months. This was pretty obvious growth, and only a glance could discern the difference.
Well, if lavendar and tea tree can mimick estrogen enough to make tits, then whatever they do also has a hair promoting effect in human body hair at the very least (toe hair anyway). Ive seen it with my own eyes.
Ive also told everyone that would hear it that peppermint oil mixed with PURIFIED water lessened the beard hair on one side of my chin. I thought perhaps it was due to androgen receptor binding, and still find it hard to believe that there isn't any receptor affinity within peppermint. This got to be pretty obvious as the months went on as one side of my chin had beard hair that grew thicker faster than the other.
CollegeChemistryStudent,
Do you read labels? Have you any idea how many shampoos contain peppermint oil? Tricomin, Tricomin conditioner, American Crew Thickening (mint leaves), Paul Mitchell LemonSage Thickening, Paul Mitchell Tea Tree, Jasons Tea Tree, and there is more. Some shampoos contain "menthol" which can by synthetic or organic. I'd want the organic because I want real peppermint oil made from real peppermint leaves. Alpecin has menthol as well as quite a few other shampoos.
Ive seen licorice extract in various shampoos before, as well as rose hip extract, as well as many many shampoos (like Paul Mitchell Tea Tree) that have lavendar in them and well.............tea tree.
I dont think big cosmetics companys fool with this stuff for no reason, and they have private testing facilities and are under no pressure to release their private testing results. Parabens (from blueberries) have some estrogenic effects, but they are weak. Parabens are in tons of shampoos. I imagine these cosmetic companies know much more about the abilities of these substances than they ever advertise.
Companies cannot claim to use anything that will block the human androgen receptor because that is a "pharmacuetical action". However, would they not be silly not to look for something that would. If a great receptor blocker could be found (and maybe rose oil extract or sunflower extract oil or licorice oil could be that), young men could start using it before they ever started to lose hair, and all the other stuff would be uneccessary.
Look at this google result for "hair removal and licorice",
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... l+licorice
Now look at this google result for "hair removal and sunflower",
http://www.google.com/search?hair loss=en&rls= ... +sunflower
Now look at this google result for "hair removal and peppermint",
http://www.google.com/search?hair loss=en&rls= ... peppermint
CCS, do you think ALL of those companies were simply unaware that licorice blocks 5AR, sunflower blocks receptors, and peppermint blocks 5AR (and probably either ties up testosterone or has some affinity for receptor sites also)?
Kinda hard to swallow all of this is by "chance". Peppermint in all those shampoos, etc.?
I bet if you buy some licorice oil (or just use peppermint oil), and mix it with purified water and put it on some body hair for a good 3-4 months, you will see a reduction in body hair relative to a corresponding place (other arm, other side of chest, other leg) on your body.....................and it isnt because these substances that are in so many shampoos 'hurt' hair in anyway, its because they are anti-androgens.
