New Worry: Having an 'Old' Hair Day

Haircare industry cashes in on aging population's thinning locks
By Ruth Brown,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 4, 2013 11:41 AM CDT
New Worry: Having an 'Old' Hair Day
Haircare industry cashes in on aging population's thinning locks.   (Shutterstock)

The haircare industry has a problem: The population is aging, and older people wash their hair less. How to avoid losing all those valuable baby boomer buyers? "Anti-aging" hair products. Women are already willing to shell out serious cash for beauty products that promise to fight wrinkles and age spots. Now, companies like L'Oréal, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever are launching a range of products that claim to fight "old hair"—and betting that these women will gladly drop $60 for something called "scalp revitalizer," the Wall Street Journal reports.

It's not total BS: Hair obviously becomes grayer as you get older, but it gets thinner and more brittle, too. But can pricey hair treatments really fight the natural lifespan of your luscious locks? The scientists who work for the haircare companies sure think so: A senior P&G scientist claims one of its products can increase each strand's thickness by 5%, an effect that's equivalent to gaining 6,500 more hairs on your head. Independent experts are not so convinced—one says you may change the look of your hair, but the follicles will remain the same: "It's like throwing gasoline on your car and expecting it to go." (More hair stories.)

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