What’s the best natural solution for hair loss?

If you’re worried about thinning hair and you’re looking into some of the more natural solutions that you can use at home, then this article is designed to give you some helpful insights.
Three members of my family have put three popular hair loss solutions to the test: Calecim Professional’s Advanced Hair System, a Red Light Cap from HigherDose, and Hairguard’s Growband scalp massage device.
We’ll look at the science behind each treatment, explore how they work and whether they’re effective – and also take a realistic look at just how much of a difference natural hair loss solutions can make.
Calecim Advanced Hair System
Let’s start with the treatment we have most experience with and that’s Calecim’s Advanced Hair System.
Back in November 2022 I shared some initial results that my husband David had experienced after using Calecim’s stem-cell-derived hair system for 6 weeks to help treat what was early-stage thinning around his crown.
Where once he had thick full coverage, the crown was starting to become exposed and his hair felt thinner
And at the time we were pretty blown away that within just two months of beginning to use the Calecim hair system we were starting to see a visible improvement.
Since then David has been using Calecim on a maintenance program and I will come on to his long-term results very shortly.
Because while my husband was happy with his results, the best was yet to come.
I gave my now 80-year-old dad a few of the 5ml bottles of the serum just before Christmas 2022 to try on his rather advanced balding patch at the back of his head.
Just a few weeks later he appeared on my front door step saying he could feel baby hair springing up where there was previously very little coverage.
His results continued to improve over the following months and then plateaud, but you could see a very visible difference around his crown area. Where once he felt bare skin, there was now a light covering.
How does Calecim work?
Calecim’s Advanced Hair System involves microneedling a small amount of serum into the scalp that’s made with growth factors and exosomes extracted from stem cells found in the umbilical cord of red deer.
Umbilical cords are typically discarded after birth but they contain billions of stem cells. When I first interviewed a Calecim representative two years ago only one umbilical cord had been used to produce their entire product range to date – so it is a very sustainable option and completely free of animal cruelty.
No actual stem cells are used in the conditioned media in Calecim’s products – but rather it contains growth factors that are extracted from them.
And the idea is that these proteins message your own cells stimulating them to behave as they did when they were more productive, thus reducing inflammation which is one of the big drivers of cell aging.
Calecim say this can lead to not only renewed hair growth but also an improvement in the productivity of the melanocytes which produce hair pigment. They have observed grey hairs growing in darker with this serum and we saw a degree of that with both my dad and husband.
I recently shared this two-year review of my dad and husband’s results with Calecim including details of how we used it and the maintenance program they now follow to keep the cost down while protecting their results.
The cost
Calecim’s Advanced Hair System is currently sold at £295 or around $360. Totting it up, using the serum once weekly longer term will still cost around £100 or slightly more in dollars a month. I’ve got a 15% off discount code for Calecim products shared with the product link below which helps bring the cost down, but it’s still a big outlay.
The results
In my husband’s case the new hair growth we noticed after the initial 6-week treatment, giving him slightly more coverage around the crown, has held up under the maintenance treatment.
When he first started using the treatment he was 58 and is now about to turn 60.
It’s a point in life when many men will see hair thinning, if they have not already, so I would say that while he has managed to maintain his initial results two years on, they have not improved over time and probably plateaud after the first few months of treatment.
My dad’s results were pretty dramatic at first and seemed to continue to improve for up to 6 months before stabilizing. But all in all, we felt that considering his age, it was pretty impressive to see some visible new hair growth with this system.
HigherDose’s Red Light Hat
Now how about using red light to stimulate hair regrowth?
Well my mum who is just about to turn 82 has very fine hair. She’s always looking for ways to improve the volume, particularly around her crown area where the hair was still thinner than she’d have liked.
So, along with my dad, around four months ago she started to use a red light hat every evening.
In my dad’s case he wanted to see if he could add to the results he’d got with the Calecim serum.
They use what looks like a big baseball cap, but is in fact quite a sophisticated device from HigherDose which has 120 LED bulbs providing 650 nanometers of red light – a wavelength shown in studies to deliver results for stimulating hair growth.
The idea is that the red light (also known as low-level laser therapy) increases blood circulation to the scalp, decreasing inflammation and boosting both hair follicle and scalp health to optimize the conditions for increased growth.
Consumer reviews of red light for hair growth are mixed – as is the case with most hair regrowth products – but there have been a couple of studies pointing to its potential, with results reported in groups with androgenetic alopecia (or pattern hair loss) treated with 650 nanometers for between 5 and 10 mins daily.
The results
My mum appears to be among the success stories. After around 10 weeks of using the device for 10 minutes daily she said she could feel her hair was thicker.
When I took a photo recently and compared it to one taken before red light treatment (shown above), it was clear to see she now has more hair around her crown where she experienced most volume loss.
For my dad, on the other hand there is no real difference to see but he thought he could feel some new hair growth and he continues to use the red light to prevent further hair loss and to support his Calecim results.
The cost
The HigherDose red light hat is priced at £449/$449. A 15% discount code is included on the product panel above which helps but even with that the HigherDose device is a significant investment. However, it compares favorably to several other well-known brands.
And although you’ll find much cheaper red light hats on the internet I would be wary of going too cheap and I would stick to a brand that is established and has plenty of independent reviews.
The Hairguard Growband
Finally to our third natural solution. A few months back on the channel I interviewed Gus Slator who together with his brother Will, run Hairguard which provides hairloss solutions and they also run a Facebook community forum for advice.
And Gus, who has a first class degree in chemistry, talked us through their belief – based on more recent research – that with male pattern baldness in particular the hormone DHT could also be involved in an inflammatory process that causes the skin in the scalp to stiffen and become more like scar tissue that is harder to manipulate.
This they think impairs blood flow to the scalp reducing the supply of nutrients and oxygen.
That theory they said is supported by research showing that when botox is injected into the scalp, relaxing the tissue, it can lead to new hair growth.
That research has led some hairloss experts to recommend that you massage the scalp to relax and soften the tissue improving blood flow and the supply of nutrients again and creating the right conditions in the follicle for hair to regrow.
The Device
But Hairguard created a device that will do it for you because studies suggest you should ideally do it for 10 to 20 minutes daily for at least 3 months which is not easy to do yourself.
So they created the Growband which works a bit like a blood pressure monitor in that an airbag around the band inflates and tightens around your scalp pushing it up as it does and then contracting to relax it again.
The idea is you use it daily for 10 minutes at a time and results would typically be seen in around 3 to 6 months.
The device itself comes with a rechargeable battery that lasts around 120 minutes so that’s 12 days worth of sessions before it needs a recharged.
So my husband used it daily for the first few months and has tapered off to using it a few times a week now.
You’re just sitting relaxing when you wear it so it’s no big burden, but he found it a bit of commitment to keep it charged and to remember to use it daily when he has a very busy schedule.
And I guess because he wasn’t seeing quick results with it the enthusiasm did start to wane after a few months and that is just a reality with a device like this. You do need to think about whether you’re going to be able to commit to using it daily for at least several months.
The Results
What he did say is that true to the theory, his scalp did indeed feel stiff and hard to manipulate when he first started using the device and within a couple of weeks he noticed his scalp tissue had become easier to move around.
He also says his hair feels thicker immediately after treatment and what he means by that is not that new growth has suddenly sprung up which would obviously be impossible, but that it feels like oil is being squeezed out of the follicles giving his hair a stronger more textured feel.
That in itself doesn’t mean it’s growing but it does mean he can feel an effect from each treatment and suggests the follicles are being manipulated.
Considering he’s now 60, he was beginning to worry last year that his hair was thinning again – there was nothing too visible but it was more how it felt. Adding massage may have brought some stability to that, I’d say it’s given him a bit more confidence again because his hair feels thicker in terms of the texture of the hair.
Now I’m a big believer in encouraging blood flow for both skin and scalp health so anything you can do to help with that I see as a positive.
The Cost
To save time and effort you could use a device like the Growband and at the end of the day it’s down to what you feel you could actually commit to and the cost which is $497, or around £400, at the time of filming.
I did have a viewer comment very recently that she had tried massaging her head for 10mins a day for two months and was seeing a difference in her hair loss.
So simple hand massaging is a great starting point.
Final Verdict
Weighing it all up, based on our experience and also some of the feedback I get from viewers, my recommendation would probably differ slightly between men and women.
For female friends I would recommend using a red light hat as the first port of call and include microneedling, potentially adding in something like Calecim or another growth-factor or peptide-based treatment if the microneedling alone wasn’t delivering results.
Using something like a scalp massager in the shower is also a quick way of giving yourself a bit of a blood flow boost each day as well to support regrowth.
For men who want to take a more natural approach to hair loss, my first port of call would be to try microneedling with a serum and I would also try scalp massage, particularly if, like my husband, you can feel a stiffness in your scalp tissue.
Increasing blood flow to your scalp and to your hair follicles can only be a good thing and getting in early is absolutely crucial.
Depending on budget, you could add in red light to support the microneedling.
In my dad’s case it hasn’t moved the dial but studies show low level laser therapy can promote hair regrowth in both men and women to some extent.
Can natural treatments really make a difference?
In terms of realistic results to expect. These natural solutions I think would be most helpful when you’re at the earlier stages of thinning. If you have substantial hair loss and that has been the case for a prolonged period of time the hair follicles may have died and the options become much more limited.
You can see with my dad whose hair loss has happened gradually over many years, that there is only some recovery of hair growth – enough for him to be able to feel a thin coverage over the back of his crown now which he appreciates. And that’s also been the case for my husband who has been able to improve his initial thinning and now stabilize it with these preventative measures.