Key Takeaways:
Globally, the longevity economy is booming, with an estimated $8.49 billion raised by longevity-focused companies in 2024, according to a report by data and trend platform Longevity.Technology. Consumers want to live longer, healthier, and happier lives; enter products, tools, and rituals to help them do so. And a whole host of categories are invested and investing: food, beverages, nutraceuticals, hospitality, tourism, and beauty. For the beauty industry, the longevity concept has gained significant ground in skincare. Now, haircare is working to grab a slice of the pie.
But are hair longevity products all they claim to be? And can we really extend and improve the life of our hair? BeautyMatter hit the show floor at Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna in Italy last month to delve deeper.
Longevity Needs a “360-Degree Approach”
“Hair longevity can be divided into two parts,” said Lidiya Stoycheva-Krasteva, pharmacist, safety assessor, and CEO of Bulgarian manufacturer BioPharma Laboratories. Hair longevity is about follicle health as well as hair health, and can only be addressed by taking a “360-degree approach,” Stoycheva-Krasteva told BeautyMatter.
On the follicle side, she said the goal is to prevent follicle miniaturization—where hair follicles at the scalp reduce in size as a person ages—to ensure melanin transfer to the hair, and to prevent hair loss. On the hair side, the goal is to repair and maintain structural health deep inside the lengths of the hair to avoid breakage.
“Think about it—with skin longevity, if we are just using an anti-aging ingredient, this is not longevity. And if we are only using a hydrating ingredient, this will not be longevity either. So, with haircare, it's totally the same: it should be a full approach.”
And there are a variety of approaches industry can take when developing formulations for hair longevity, Stoycheva-Krasteva said. “I'm most excited about the new generation of peptides,” she added.
Stickiness: Positively Charged Peptides and Adhesive Polyphenols
Peptides—which can be classified into four main groups: signal peptides, carrier peptides, neurotransmitter inhibitor peptides, and enzyme inhibitor peptides—can help create highly targeted formulations for previously unreached areas of the hair and scalp because they are “signature molecules,” she explained. “Peptides are super targeted. So, now, with the new generation of peptides, we have really increased our palette in order to reach and pinpoint the proponents of hair longevity and achieve better and better results.”
A good example here, she said, is using a small keratin protein in a positively charged peptide structure to reach a target area and have the active “stick” there, given that hair is normally negatively charged. Not only does this ensure improved efficacy, it also avoids actives being washed off and going down the drain.
Dr. Haeshin Lee, Professor of Chemistry at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) and CEO at the University's beauty tech spinoff Polyphenol Factory, agreed stickiness is key to efficacious haircare, but said it can be used in different ways.
Polyphenol Factory's haircare brand Grabity, for example, uses stickiness—achieved through a patented polyphenol-based complex, derived from marine mussels—to physically cross-link the gap between a thinning hair shaft and the pore to prevent shedding. “It's physically closing the gap. It's more of a macroscopic level, instead of a cellular level,” Lee explained.
The adhesive formula is designed for “grabbing,” he said, even when used with water, offering water-resistant action. “My research area is in coating and water-resistant adhesives…. I've been studying water resistance for years, so we're now using it for another area, which is hair loss.”
The brand's haircare products—shampoos, scalp shots, and water treatment for curls—claim to prevent hair weakening at the root and instantly thicken and lift fine hair from the roots, thanks to this anti-shedding technology that the Professor describes as “unique.”
Going Deeper with Microspicules
Nellie Self, Creative Innovation Specialist at UK manufacturer Herrco Cosmetics, said another important and highly promising, albeit nascent, area in hair longevity is working with microspicules. These very small, sharp, and hollow needlelike anatomical structures derived from sea sponges and sometimes coral can be used to penetrate the scalp like a natural microneedle, Self explained. “Typically, they're used in skincare. They create microchannels, which help to enhance the delivery of other actives, so you get that deeper delivery and a much more effective formulation.”
Herrco Cosmetics, for example, created a leave-on scalp serum with 1.8 million spicules per 15ml of product for advanced delivery of caffeine, known for improving hair root strength and increasing the number of hairs in the anagen growth phase, alongside another hair growth active.
For the time being, she said, use of spicules in scalp care remains “very new,” slowly picking up in Korea and Asia and being talked about very slowly in the UK and Europe. The problem for some is that these ingredients have a “love it or hate it feeling,” she said, given they create a tingling, almost irritating sensation on the scalp when applied, lasting for up to an hour after application. This also means that the ingredient system isn't appropriate for sensitive skin types, she explained.
Despite this, Self said the potential for microspicules remains significant, particularly in the development of preventative treatments, which hold strong appeal among Gen Z consumers, considered “the future pioneers of skincare and haircare.”
Inside Out: Pea Shoot, Biotin, and DHT Blockers
Another crucial approach to hair longevity is adding inner health to rituals and routines via dietary supplements, said Lucy Palmer, founder of UK brand specializing in haircare supplements Hair Gain – Nutritional Beauty London.
“There are many different reasons as to why our hair health can fail us,” Palmer said. And this is why Hair Gain takes a holistic “inside and outside approach,” she said, offering food supplements as well as topicals to address internal health and scalp health.
Hair Gain debuted in dietary supplements with its Hair Capsules product, made from a blend of vitamins, minerals, botanicals, and amino acids, including Mibelle Chemistry's pea shoot–derived polyphenol, which can stimulate specific signal molecules responsible for reactivating hair growth in the dermal papilla, found at the base of the hair follicle.
The supplements, also now available in gummy format, work to prolong the hair growth cycle as well as stimulate extra hair growth during the active anagen phase. Palmer said the product “feeds your hair follicles at a cellular level,” providing all the nutrition hair needs to “fire on all cylinders.”
In addition to these two supplement products, Hair Gain has a range of topicals, including a shampoo and conditioner formulated with peptides, vitamins, and marshmallow root extract; a leave-in scalp foam and hair mask both featuring the active pea shoot polyphenol AnaGain; and a dry shampoo made with peptides, biotin, caffeine, and red clover extract.
Maik van den Berg, founder and CEO of Dutch hair tech firm Neofollics Hair Technology, said taking both an ingestible and topical approach to hair longevity makes sense when you consider how many different mechanisms need to be targeted.
Neofollics Hair Technology also has a range of edibles and topicals designed to address hair health holistically. Its food supplement Hair Growth Supporting Tablets, for example, are made with a blend of vitamins, minerals, herbal extracts, and plant sterols, many of which inhibit the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is associated with disrupting the hair growth cycle and causing progressive miniaturization of the hair follicles. The company also has topical Hair Growth and Scalp Care ranges, containing its proprietary hair growth complex Neoxyl, designed to stimulate hair growth and reduce DHT.
“From the research we have done until now, and what we believe, is that a lot of mechanisms that relate to hair growth over the long term can be influenced, up to a certain level,” he explained.
The company's proprietary Neoxyl blend used in some of its topicals, for example, targets six mechanisms, including lengthening the anagen phase, slowing down the miniaturization of the hair follicle, and protecting follicles from DHT, he said. “What we definitely know is that hair growth is very complex, so there is no single approach. What we believe is that there is no mono-therapy or single approach to address all of these things. So, in order to be effective, [the product] has to do multiple things at the same time.”
The Future of Hair Longevity
Considering what lies ahead for hair longevity, Dr. Haeshin Lee said there remains much to be investigated from a scientific standpoint. Delving into the existing library of active ingredients to identify suitable actives targeting mechanisms related to hair longevity should continue, as should efforts to develop new components and blends. Focus on coatings should also be a resource for formulators and scientists to push ahead with the development of new coatings to improve overall hair health.
Beyond ingredients, the professor said advances being made around use of LED light are “very interesting,” particularly around getting LED light into “very close contact with the scalp.” A recent study published in Nature Communications shows the promise in developing wearable textile-based phototherapy devices in the form of a hat when targeting hair loss, he said.
As research and development in hair longevity continues to develop fast, Lee said the category will evolve rapidly. “Within 10 years, I think it's going to be equivalent to skin and scalp.”
Stoycheva-Krasteva said from a product development perspective, success will rely on scientists and formulators carefully considering equipment used during innovation work. “Many people think that the smaller your lab is, the better your science is, but that is simply not true,” she said. “If you think about it, you can do everything in a 100-gram cup, right? But then it has to be reproduced. The biggest mistake, in my opinion, is when a lab uses very, very complicated equipment and then, in production, this process cannot be repeated.”
For Self, innovation also needs to center around low dosages to make application of these actives as financially viable and accessible for manufacturers and brands as possible. Strong data backing efficacy is also a must, she said, and this will also prove important when brands work to educate consumers on what hair longevity really means.
There is still much more to learn about how hair longevity differs from person to person. Current research, for example, already shows that hair loss, hair density, and the ability to grow longer hair can vary based on ethnicity, Van den Berg said, so investigating these aspects in older populations could provide important findings as industry works to advance formulations and products.
“The concept of the Blue Zones [where populations live long lives, often past 100 years] is studied quite often, around why these people have such a high life expectancy. I guess it would also be interesting to conduct more research on people who have great hair when they are, say, 80, to discover what is actually happening on a cellular level,” he said.
