Hair Loss Treatment in Singapore

Almost everybody who comes to us about hair loss has already spent money on it. Usually on shampoo, sometimes on supplements, occasionally on a course of something they could not name afterwards. The reason it rarely works is not that the products were fake. It is that nobody established what kind of hair loss it was first, and the kinds need different things.

Shedding and thinning are not the same problem

This is the distinction that decides everything else, and almost nobody arrives knowing which one they have.

Shedding is hair leaving. The count in the drain goes up, the hair on the floor is full-length, and the hair that is still on your head is the same thickness it always was. Shedding is usually a response to something — an illness, a crash diet, a hard few months, a pregnancy — and it usually settles.

Thinning is hair coming back finer than it went. The count in the drain may be completely normal. What is changing is the diameter of each new hair, cycle after cycle, until the parting lets light through. Thinning is gradual, it does not settle on its own, and it is the one people notice last.

They feel identical in the shower. Under magnification they look nothing alike, which is why the first thing we do is photograph the scalp rather than ask you how it feels.

How much is normal

Everyone loses hair every day — it is how the cycle works. Rather than counting, use these three, which are what actually tell you something has changed:

• The parting is wider in photographs than it was a year ago
• Your ponytail is measurably thinner to hold, not just to look at
• You can see scalp in ordinary light where you could not before

One of those on its own means very little. Two of them, over months, is worth doing something about.

The kinds, and how they differ

Androgenetic — male and female pattern

The most common by a distance, and the one most people mean when they say hair loss. Follicles sensitive to DHT shorten their growing phase a little with every cycle, so each replacement hair is finer and shorter than the last. In men it goes to the temples and crown; in women it widens the parting while the hairline usually holds. It is genetic, it is gradual, and it is a medical condition — the treatments with the strongest evidence behind them are prescription drugs and transplantation. We do not sell those and we do not pretend to replace them.

Telogen effluvium — the delayed shed

A stress pushes a large share of follicles into their resting phase at once, and they all let go two to three months later. The trigger has usually been forgotten by the time the hair falls: an illness, surgery, a bereavement, a period of very little sleep, childbirth, a sharp weight loss. This is the one kind that typically recovers on its own once the cause has passed.

Alopecia areata

The immune system attacks the follicle. It arrives suddenly, in smooth coin-sized patches, often with no warning and no symptoms. This is a dermatologist's problem, not ours, and the sooner it is seen the better.

Traction alopecia

Mechanical. Tight ponytails, braids, extensions and weaves pulling at the same points for years. It shows at the hairline and above the ears, and it is the only kind on this list you can stop simply by changing how you wear your hair — but only while the follicle is still alive.

Scarring alopecia

A group of inflammatory conditions that destroy the follicle and replace it with scar tissue. The skin often looks smooth and slightly shiny where the hair has gone. This loss is permanent, which is exactly why it needs a doctor quickly — the point of treating it is to stop it spreading, not to recover what has gone.

An inflamed scalp

Seborrheic dermatitis, severe dandruff and folliculitis do not cause pattern baldness, but a scalp that is inflamed for months is a poor environment for hair, and the shedding that comes with it is real. This one we can genuinely help with, and it is more common than people expect.

The causes worth testing for before you spend anything

Several common causes of diffuse hair loss show up on a single blood panel at a GP, and they are all correctable. Ask for:

• Ferritin, not just haemoglobin — iron stores can be low enough to affect hair while a standard full blood count still reads normal
• Thyroid function — both an underactive and an overactive thyroid cause diffuse shedding
• Vitamin D and B-12, particularly on a vegetarian or vegan diet

We say this before we sell anything because if one of those is the answer, it is a cheaper and better answer than ours.

What the scan actually reads

Four zones — crown, hairline, parting and nape — photographed at high magnification and scored on five things, including hair density, the diameter of the shaft, how many hairs are emerging from each follicle opening, and the condition of the skin between them. It takes about fifteen minutes, it is free, and you leave with your own images whether or not you book anything.

The point is not the photograph. It is that the same four points get re-shot at every visit, so what you are looking at later is your own scalp against your own scalp — not a brochure, and not how you remember it looking.

If the scan shows something that is not ours to treat, we will say so. That happens often enough that it is worth coming in just to rule things out.

What a scalp studio can do, and what it cannot

Plainly, so there is nothing to be disappointed about later.

• Can: clear congestion and build-up from the follicle opening, settle inflammation, improve circulation at the root, and give the scalp a better environment to grow out of. On a scalp that has been neglected, that is not a small thing.
• Can: catch a reversible cause early, and tell you when the problem is medical rather than cosmetic.
• Cannot: regrow hair from a follicle that has scarred over. Nothing can.
• Cannot: do what finasteride or minoxidil do. No shampoo, tonic or in-studio treatment works the way a prescription drug works, and anyone implying otherwise is selling you something.
• Cannot: give you a number in advance. We do not publish percentages we cannot source, and we will not invent one to close a sale.

Which treatment, and in what order

Order matters more than most people expect. A congested, inflamed scalp gets cleared before anything is asked of the follicles — doing it the other way round wastes both sessions.

• Deep Cleansing first if the follicle openings are blocked with oil and product
• Fortifying for shedding and roots that have lost their grip
• Reviving for hair that has gone fine and flat
• RF Scalp Therapy for a scalp that feels tight and cool to the touch
• Follicle Activation where the follicles are quiet rather than gone

At home, the Growth series is three steps: shampoo to clear the follicle opening, conditioner on the lengths only, and tonic on the scalp between washes, which is where the peptide spends the most time. There is no minoxidil, no finasteride and no ketoconazole in any of them, and the ingredient list is published in full on every product page.

What eight weeks should look like

Hair grows about a centimetre a month, so nothing visible happens quickly, whatever anybody promises.

• Week 1–2: the scalp feels different — less tight, less itchy, less oily by the afternoon. Nothing has happened to your hair yet.
• Week 3–6: if shedding was the problem, the count usually starts to come down. This is the first thing you can actually measure.
• Week 8: the week to judge it. We re-scan, and the comparison is against your own first set of images.
• Month 3–6: new growth at the parting, if it is going to come. This is the honest timeframe.

If week eight shows nothing moving, the answer is to change the plan, not to buy more of the same.

See a doctor first if

• Hair is coming out in smooth, coin-sized patches
• The scalp is painful, burning, or the skin where hair has gone looks shiny and smooth
• Loss arrived suddenly alongside other changes — weight, periods, fatigue, a new medication
• You are already on treatment from a dermatologist, in which case come anyway and tell us, because we work alongside that rather than instead of it

Where to start

With the scan, not with a product. It is free, it takes fifteen minutes, there is no obligation at the end of it, and it is the only way to know which of the things above you are actually dealing with. Your first customised treatment is $59 if you decide to go ahead, at Raffles City or The Centrepoint.

If you would rather read more first, the guides on female hair loss, male pattern baldness and postpartum shedding go into each pattern properly.