An interesting read if you can get through it!

[windyballoons]

Hey everyone,

I came across this http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2013020719&recNum=1&maxRec=&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=&queryString=&tab=PCTDescription


And it seemed pretty relevant.

Looks like the ingredients in this patent are natural extracts- I can identify Onion and Lemon, and it seems that these extracts were successful in delaying the catagen or "shedding" phase of hair growth!

It's a bit dense, but worth a read! Any thoughts, insights (or clarifications from the science-minded) would be great!

[chen bao jun]

Interesting. I guess Theobroma is cacao or cupuaca (both are members of this family) but Paullinia are things I never heard of and some of them are highly toxic! Or that's what I found out from google search.
I do know that lots of folk remedies include onion juice for hair. A lot of Russian or Ukrainian folk remedies especially do and I know a lot of Ukrainians and they grow amazing long hair.
I couldn't get through the whole article (not scientific) but it was very interesting. I already use some cocoa butter on my hair and might consider using onion juice, though I have heard things about the smell being hard to get rid of. I don't use lemon because I'm afriad of my hair lightening, but I do do a vinegar rinse maybe change to citric acid.

[Hootenanny]

Super interesting article, thank you so much for posting! I'm going to leave this link here for anyone who would like to make an Allium cepa (=onion) extract at home: http://www.livestrong.com/article/553005-how-to-make-onion-extract/ Of course, as chen bao jun said, you could just use the juice, as many cultures (and a number of members here) do, but the extract is pretty simple to make as well, and presumable would store longer. Supposedly it can improve acne and fade scars as well. Pretty cool stuff!

[Leafy]

Do you mean telogen, instead of catagen?
Catagen is when the hair stops growing but still stays in place on the head for a few months, before the telogen phase where the hair gets pushed out by the new hair growing underneath (or you brush it out, which is why you may still get a few hairs in your brushes and combs even when your hair is healthy and not breaking). :D

I'll go check out the link now~

[Liz_park]

Thank you for posting! It is an interesting read, especially since they had such positive results. My only concern is the number of participants. They only recruited 20 people, and 6 didn't complete the study entirely, leaving an n=14. Typically you would want to test a substance in many more subjects before drawing any conclusions. Also you would want to have age and gender matched controls. It's a good pilot study though! Maybe there will be a replication study in the future!

[windyballoons]

@ Leafy- according to the abstract, these extracts delay the catogen phase- I'm sorry if I described that phase incorrectly, I must not have totally understood! But, either way it seems to be good news!

@Hootenanny- thanks for sharing that!

@Liz_park- I agree, I wish there was a bigger sample size! Hopefully I can find more studies on this. I'm prone to thinking that, because they bothered to patent it, it must be worthwhile, but who knows for sure!

I'm thinking of making a lotion containing lemon extract, lemon oil, cocoa butter and onion extract and applying that to the scalp- I've put worse things on my head! Lol!

[Leafy]

Yeah, I saw that after reading the article. a better way to have put it was that it keeps your hair growing for longer before stopping and fiiiinally falling out. Sounds even better to me, but the article certainly needs more tests before I give this new thing any consideration.