The Miracle Hair-Growth Product You’ve Never Heard Of
Facial hair does not come easily to all of us. Growing a thick, rich, lustrous beard is a little like ballet, in that part of success is talent and commitment and the other part is ultimately genetic. (I was once told that I would never be a ballerino because I was genetically inflexible. This was unprompted at a yoga class.) We assume that on a facial-hair spectrum from Howie Mandel to Jesus Christ, your place is fixed.
Try as I might, I cannot grow a mustache so that it meets in the middle. This is embarrassing both for me and for every person I meet, all of whom are forced to regard me with tactfully concealed pity. In terms of facial hair, I have a beautiful beard, I have beautiful eyebrows—plus an additional set of eyebrows that live on my upper lip and are horrible.
So it is with great and hairy pleasure that I introduce to you the answer to your and my facial-hair woes: a little hair stimulant called bimatoprost. Your mom calls it Latisse.
Bimatoprost is a synthetic hormone that was invented to treat glaucoma (among other things), until a few astute, gorgeous scientists realized that it was also effective for lengthening eyelashes. It was reformulated for topical application, approved by the FDA in 2008, and thus Latisse was born. Now, with a doctor’s note and $7 million dollars, you too can have more hair around your eyes.
Pivot briefly to the men’s hair-growth market, which is bleak and sad and spoken about in hushed tones around different dark pockets of the Internet. Aside from bimatoprost, finasteride and minoxidil are the only FDA-approved medications to stop hair loss and promote hair growth in the United States. (Your dad calls them Propecia and Rogaine.) The results are all over the place—plenty of guys see results, while seemingly just as many decry both. One day, trawling some weird hair-growth message boards, I came across an enthusiastic review of Latisse from a former Rogainer who was farming his hairline. This, to me, was something of a breakthrough.
Studies, though limited, show that Latisse works for increasing hair density on the scalp—it won’t make you grow new hair (few things will), but it thickens existing hair, which is great if you’re thinning. Intrepid guys have also been trying it on their beards with mixed to positive results. It’s off-label but promising—will Latisse give me the Tom Selleck mustache of my dreams?
The problem, other than the one on my upper lip, is that Latisse is expensive and hard to get. That's changing: The market is exploding these days with serums that use prostaglandin analogues (of which bimatoprost is a specific kind) for eyelash enhancement. We can’t say “growth” because they’re not FDA-approved for that kind of language, but they’re available at our local beauty emporiums, and they’re priced to sell. As a bonus, they’re designed with tipped brushes for precise application. Perfect for your mustache, or your eyebrows, or your both, or your wherever. The best one I’ve tried is Lashfood Eyelash Enhancer, which uses a proprietary compound for growth and boasts excellent user reviews. You apply it once a day to the most deforested parts of your face, and that’s it.
After three weeks, my mustache is noticeably denser—I normally trim it once a week but have had to up the routine, lest my mustache hairs invade my top lip. Again, it does nothing for barren skin: No hair will sprout where there wasn’t hair before. If you’re looking for thickness, this is an excellent option. If you’re looking for your mustache to finally meet in the middle, if the fact that it doesn’t already meet in the middle is one of your greatest insecurities, if your name is Brennan Kilbane, I am so extremely sorry. I hope you’ll accept longer, denser hair as consolation.
One downside: As with minoxidil or Latisse, you have to keep it up every day. If you don’t, the hair will literally just fall out. It’s a devil’s bargain for the not-so-thrifty price of $78, in the case of Lashfood, and your eternal daily servitude. But it does work.
These products tend to come with pesky side effects that I mostly ignore for the sake of vanity. Lash users sometimes report a darkening of the skin or increased eye irritation, but this is an especially sensitive area, unlike the lower half of your face. I can report nothing but success and will be sure to let you know if the skin under my nose erodes away.
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