Wen: A Shameless Product Plug

Some of you know that I have been fighting to keep my hair.  The hair loss began in my forties and is one of the lovely side effects of polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS.  It's caused indirectly by excessive hormone production.  In the diagram below, see that arrow with the little dot over it?  That's the one that converts testosterone into estradiol.  A wonky enzyme or too much stuff getting shunted into the pathway backs that enzyme up like a toilet in a frat house.  End result - TOO MUCH testosterone. 


I include this for my nerd science friends



Every woman makes testoterone.  It's good for you.  Too much is not.  Too much leads to a whole host of secondary sexual characteristics associated with being male:  lower voice, facial hair, body hair, heavier jawline and.....wait for it.......male pattern baldness.  YAY!  The longer the disease goes undiagnosed, the worse the symptoms can get.  For women my age, late forties and older, who have gone their entire life without a proper diagnosis, that means we generally have the joy of all those things and more.  YAY!  Dark skin patches, weight gain, and cancer.  I can check all those boxes.  Grrrrrr...... If you ever wondered how I ended up studying all that holistic stuff - there's your answer right there. 

Even after I was FINALLY diagnosed correctly, even AFTER I had all the mommy parts removed, I still am struggling with the symptoms.  I paid a great deal of money to have my face lasered free of hair (OMG - why did I not do that years before?).  I understood that weight loss for me would never be as easy as it was for my friends and that I could balloon up forty pounds in a couple weeks if I ever let it go.  But at least the enemy had acquired a name. 

The thing that bugs me most these days is the hair loss.  I used to have thick glossy chestnut brown hair. It grows fast and is straight as can be.  A little less straight as more of it turns grey - underneath the Miss Clairol, I know it's grey.  Used to, I could barely get a standard pony tail holder around it.  Now I can get it in easily and have to wrap the band numerous times around the thinning and sad hank of hair.  Every morning when I comb through it, more of it ends up in my hands.  I'm not talking about the few hairs you lose every day.  I'm talking about a chemo patient worthy amount of hair. 

But I am a scientist dammit and I never give up!  I started with Nioxan, a shampoo designed to stimulate blood flow to the scalp.  It was tingly which I liked as a wake up in the morning, but it did nothing to stop the cascade of hair onto the bathroom floor.

About 2 years ago I read about the effects of SDS or SLS on the hair follicle and switched immediately to a sulfate free shampoo.  FYI - SDS is a chemical used to degrease machinery.  Your hair may be naturally oliy, but good gawd no one needs THAT!  I noticed immediately that my hair needed shampoing less often which is just damn ironic that removing the DEGREASING component made my hair less greasy.  I could shampoo every 2-3 days with the SLS-free stuff v every day with the standard shampoo.  Bonus.  And the hair loss slowed a bit, but hardly stopped. 

Last week I bit the bullet and ordered WEN to try it out.  This is the weirdest shit.  Sulfate free - check.  (I will NEVER put that shit in my hair again).  Suds free.  That takes some getting used to.  You lather it on and it feels more like conditioner than any shampoo I know of (and I will fess I am a shampoo hooker and have tried them all!).  In my head as I massage it around, I'm thinking no way is this going to clean my hair.  I will end up shampoing it out with my SLS-free stuff and a significant amount of money will be wasted.  But my hair seems to love it.  Shinier and softer than it has been in a while.  And it is clean without machine degreaser, without a single bubble.  Weird huh?

I am still able to go 2-3 days between shampoos without it looking a hot mess.  So that's good.  No better than my SLS-free stuff but also no worse.  I am most curious to see how the hair responds and if this one will slow the hair loss.  I would love someone forever if they invented something that did that.