According to Mintel, the number of men’s grooming product launches worldwide has risen sharply since 2008, while another study highlights the fact that men are grooming themselves for self assurance and more confidence.
Research into male hair care conducted by L’Oréal indicated a 50 percent rise in the number of men visiting salons to have their hair dyed between 2008 and 2010.
Over the course of this year the industry has seen numerous launches of hair care ingredients in relation to the anti-aging category, including Divine Skin’s growth peptide, Unipex’s hair loss reduction ingredient and the announcement that L’Oréal is developing a pill to prevent gray hair.
Divine Skin launched a topical hair growth treatment based on peptide astressin-B, which claims to re-grow hair.
Astressin-B is a nonselective corticotropin releasing hormone antagonist that has been shown to block a stress hormone that is attributed to hair loss.
By applying the peptide subcutaneously to mice that had gone bald due to over-expression of stress hormones, scientists showed that astressin-B blocked receptors for corticotropin-releasing factor, involved in the stress response, and led to hair re-growth.
New head of hair
Similarly, Unipex also launched a hair care ingredient Capixyl designed to reduce hair loss and stimulate new growth.
According to Unipex, the ingredient is the combination of a peptide and a red clover extract and has been designed to target three hair loss factors: hair miniaturization, hair anchoring and inflammation.
The ingredient has been developed to be used as part of a topically applied formulation, according to a company spokesperson.
Prevention rather than cure
L’Oréal opened up recently to British newspaper The Daily Mail about its latest nutricosmetic pill to prevent grey hair. Based on a fruit extract that the company sayt it is not prepared to reveal, it has been in the research phase for ten years.
“Ideally you would take it for your whole life, but realistically we’d encourage people to start using it before their hair goes grey because we don’t think it can reverse the process once it has started,” said Bruno Bernard, head of hair biology at L’Oreal.
“We have a watertight proof of concept, and we think it will have a market among men as well as women,” he added.
Likewise, the French cosmetics company also tapped into the male grooming trend by launching its own hair care range MenExpert including dyes geared towards men ‘to blend away greys’.