Overview

This week I’m trying the Hair Growth Routine by Scandinavian Biolabs; this routine was a pleasant surprise and for me, it delivered in increasing the speed of hair growth and left my hair looking better than when I started.

There is no shortage of hair growth products out there that ‘Rapunzel’ your hair for miles, but the unfortunate trade-off is usually brittle, dry and damaged hair at the end of it. Thankfully, even after 150 days, there was no such trade off with this, despite a rapid rate of increase.

In fact, I think thanks to the conditioner, it resulted in fewer split ends. There was an initial decline in shedding too, but this wasn’t visibly significant for me if I wasn’t measuring and returned to normal when I stopped use.

It didn’t necessarily do everything it claimed in other departments; the hair thickening seemed temporary and as a result of solely applying a product directly to the hair strands. It was also very ambiguous when purchasing it whether it claimed it can help regrow new or lost hair—from my experience, it doesn’t, but the website didn’t make that clear either.

Lastly, I wasn’t 100% sure if hair strength/elasticity improved as my measure was quite rudimentary but I think it did.

Given it promises results in 5 months (and that you start seeing it 40 days), it can be costly given most of the package lasts only 1 month.

The Claims

1. Increases Hair Thickness ❓
2. Reduce Hair Fall (Shedding) ❌
3. Increases Speed of Hair Growth ✔️
4. Improved hair elasticity/strength ✔️
5. Less split and damaged ends ✔️
6. Not a direct claim but, New Hair Growth or Regrowth ❌
7. If no results after 150 days, then a money back guarantee ❓

The Experiment

The routine consists of applying a shampoo, conditioner, and a hair growth serum. I put each claim to the test across the recommended 5-month period, which combined quantitative and qualitative methods, including tools to measure the thickness of the hair and self questionnaires that I then converted to data to see its change over time.

I recorded my results once a week and will be using a control experiment I did at another time in the last 6 months. This is because doing a new control will take a year to review this product, as I cannot be using them at the same time!

I’ve summarised the results in a table over the 5-month period to show how it changed, for better or worse. Unfortunately, due to the sample size being only me, testing for statistical significance i.e the probability my results were due to chance, will not be possible. So I will infer from the data as objectively as possible, and you can too.

I will go into each measurement process in details within its respective section if you are interested to know exactly how I did this. One problem I faced when making measurements is that it’s difficult to know if you are measuring the same set of hair every week, but I did my best to isolate these from the crown of my head.

Routine – How do you use Scandinavnian Biolabs?

I went by the product description on the FAQs section on the Scandinavian Biolabs website (https://scandinavianbiolabs.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions). The shampoo, conditioner and serum are recommended to be applied daily, which sounds like a lot, but the rationale is that you want a constant supply from the ingredients in the shampoo.

My usual routine is washing my hair every other day and as they state it’s not compulsory, I will be sticking to that to ensure any change isn’t from how much I’m washing. I don’t know a single woman that washes their hair daily and I don’t think it’s practical either given how much it can potentially damage hair.

Shampoo – Apply 8ml worth for cleaning. In actual terms this is just one generous pump which is sufficient for long, thick hair so you will never need to use more.

I genuinely liked this as a cleanser and have continued to use it. This is what a shampoo was designed to do; keep your hair as it is, just wash any dirt off it. I don’t need the fancy scents or additional moisturising – just don’t strip anything off my hair and I’m happy!

Conditioner – Same here, 8ml per cleanse which is just one pump. If you have thick hair you will need another half a pump though.

I’m generally not a fan of conditioners even though people swear by needing it but I may just be lucky with hair genetics. This leaves a layer of fatty moisture on my hair which probably had a lot to do with calming the split ends.

Hair Serum – 2 pipettes worth are applied directly on to the scalp and hair should be relatively dry otherwise it mixes and dilutes with the moisture in the hair. Leave in for 6-8 hours before washing it off.

A note, you can expect a burning sensation after you apply the serum which supposedly gets better over time – for me this was just a tingle but I could easily ignore it. But, if you have any open wounds be careful because it burn like hell!

I can only assume its the hair serum but there was excessive drying in the scalp for me, particularly after the first month and I did have to stop use for a bit.

Since the whole set costs £57 and lasts only a month, it is very pricey. Thankfully you should have a good idea if this is for you after a month and a half.

Key Ingredient Breakdown

1. Turmeric
2. Niacin (vitamin B3)
3. Aloe Vera

Claim 1: Increases Hair Thickness

As mentioned, I felt my hair did initially thicken, visibly and from feeling the hair itself.

The way I measured hair thickness was by using a micrometer to measure the thickness of my hair on the front, the crown and back of my hair. I worked out the average thickness and average change in this once a week. Just a reminder I applied the routine once every two days.

Hair thickness increased within the first 2 weeks of application and the measurements do show this; when I started using it the average thickness rose from 70 micrometres to 78 micrometers. This stayed consistently high and crossed the 80 micrometres mark throughout, with a few outliers.

One thing to note, with this measurement and all others, is that the ups and downs are because I’m not actually a scientist using precise measuring tools or systems so sometimes the hair is picked from a different section which can vary in thickness itself.

I stopped use in Week 21 and you can see there was a nosedive down in the following weeks around the same level as I started with, maybe slightly higher. This makes me think it is purely from the hair shaft getting volumised from the products themselves as opposed to the roots growing thicker hair.

Whilst it does technically do what it says, it’s far less impressive and can be achieved by any run-of-the-mill volumising shampoo.

Claim 2: Reduce Hair Fall (Shedding)

I measured the change in hair fall by massaging the scalp for 5 minutes straight once a week and counted the number of hairs that had fallen. Straight away I noticed there were many problems with this form of measurement, for example it would be affected by if I had washed my hair that day or not, how much physical activity I had done, or even the number of times I ran my hands through my hair.

Rest assured, I wouldn’t call this an accurate measurement but just checking regularly gave me insights. I feel overall it was reducing the number of hairs I noticed whilst I was using the routine but the caveat is my normal haircare routine is just using a shampoo every other day.

This routine requires me to use 3 different products which means three times as much movement to allow for loose or dead hairs to fall off when I’m applying.

So who is to say how much of the decrease in hair fall was due to me touching my hair more or because the ingredients in the routine helped. As the data didn’t show any conclusive results, I can’t say that it did.

You can see that by the 3rd week there was a big drop in the number of hairs I found simply because I was washing more often. The highest peaks following the 2nd week were lower throughout, even when I stopped using it in week 21. Notice the gradual increase from week 20 onwards, though!

Claim 3: Increases Speed of Hair Growth

I’m most impressed by the speed of hair growth because even without the data it was very noticeable. From the very first week I thought I saw a difference but I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it—the data confirmed I wasn’t.

Measuring this variable wasn’t the most accurate technique but I negated some of this inaccuracy by triple checking and increase the sample size of hairs on my head. By the middle of the experiment, I coloured some hairs to make sure I’m picking the same ones. Genius!

There was a gradual and consistent increase since week 1, with a potential outlier in week 2. Hair growth started at 1.41mm week and shot to almost 2.4mm a week by the end – that’s a full 1mm increase! Insane.

And I have to add that hair quality did not suffer as a result of this.

Claim 4: Improved hair elasticity/strength

I used the ‘elasticity’ test commonly used for hair; you wet the hair and comb it backwards so you are left with a handful of strands. You then pull on it to see how much force it can handle. If you are a hair stylist you are doing this simply as a guide to check the hair isn’t weak but the objective isn’t to break hair.

Since I’m doing it on myself, the objective was to see how much force would be required to break it before and after the experiment. Purely from anicdotel experience, I think it made me hair stronger or at least require more effort to break it.

I think similar to hair thickening, the products itself reinorced the hair strands to allow it to take more pressure before breakage which is exactly what it intended to do. If this is true, it would carry the same caveat which is you can expect these benefits to go when you stop using it.

Claim 5: Less Split and Damaged Ends

There were most definitely fewer visible split ends by the end of the experiment. I would attribute it to the very thick and smooth conditioner that hydrated that part of the hair

What does the data say?

I used a questionnaire and rated how split my ends were every week, giving a score of 1-5 (1 being not much, 5 being a hell of a lot) to 4 different aspects of split ends e.g did they look visibly dry, severity of split ends, how prevalent they were across my whole head, how far up the hair strand the breakage was.

I then aggregated this data and plotted across the 21 weeks and there was a sudden drop from first use. This stayed consistently low throughout the use of the hair routine and only increase slightly after the 21 weeks.

4 is technically a perfect score because it would mean I gave a 1 for every aspect and week in week out it wasn’t far from that! Good job Scandinavian Biolabs!

Claim 6: New Hair Growth or Regrowth (Not a claim really)

If you’re like me, you’ll probably be wanting this for hair growth or rather hair regrowth. So if you have a balding patch, or you just want new hair growth on your scalp then the chances are that is what your expectation of this product was.

Well you’d be wrong to expect this because the company doesn’t claim it really helps with this.

At the same time, I’d say it is misleading because it doesn’t do a good job differentiating what it means by hair growth. It doesn’t (possibly intentionally) try hard enough to say, “hang on, it won’t help grow lost hair but it will speed up the growth of your existing hair” which I feel is disingenuous.

I only realised after I bought this and I did keep an eye out for new hair growth but there was no such development. The hair thickening and speed of hair growth can easily fool you into thinking that’s what you are getting. The main difference being these are temporary effects that last as long as you use the product.

Claim 7: 150 Day Money-Back Guarantee

The “150 Day Money-Back Guarantee” really rubbed me the wrong way. It is a giant statement advertised on their website to show the confidence they have in their product which is great, but a lot more complicated than it seems.

Thankfully I checked it out before I started using the product because otherwise you probably wouldn’t get a refund at all. Here are the steps and prerequisites for it:

• Go to their claim form here: https://scandinavianbiolabs.typeform.com/to/x2KLcKBj?typeform-source=scandinavianbiolabs.com
• You need to have taken a time-stamped photo once a month for the five months of your hair under good lighting and the same hairstyle throughout
• Other information in how you used it and if you were using other products alongside it

There is nothing wrong in making sure people are using the product correctly but if someone didn’t get timestamped photos throughout then they won’t be able to get a refund.

I made it through the 5 months of using this product and I wasn’t satisfied it helped with what I thought were the main aspects of the product which is to reduce hair fall and increase hair growth, albeit it did increase the speed and texture. In my scenario, I also cannot benefit from the guarantee because it did something for me.

And of course they are at liberty to issue refunds with what they deem is appropriate which wouldn’t give you a vote of confidence because a temporary buff in hair thickness may count as the product working.

Overall, I liked the product, but this final aspect left a bad taste in my mouth and didn’t make me trust the company I was buying from.

Progress in Pictures

Here are pictures of the crown that I took once a month for 5 months, the most noticeable difference is the change in visible thickness that makes the bald patch less prominent. I tried to keep lighting as consistent as possible.

FAQs

Does Scandinavian Biolabs Work For Men?

The company provides a routine for men and women however judging by the ingredients, it looks like it may be a marketing thing, as the pages and ingredients look exactly the same.

In practise, men and women’s hair loss or thinning are not the same thing, even if physiologically they happen for the same reason. The cause of that physiological reason can vary between gender; for men it is primarily the presence of DHT (which itself can have a multitude of reasons why it causes inflammation and why it doesn’t sometimes) whereas women are unlikely to suffer for this reason. For females, nutrition deficiencies are far more common and as a result easier to fix.

Who Are Scandinavian Biolabs?

This is a Danish company that’s focused on using natural ingredients to tackle hair loss. A noble cause and a noble route I suppose; they’re into their environmental sustainability and produce and test their products in Denmark. A team of 14 people, all thankfully with a generous head of hair that looks like sincere folks in what they are trying to pitch.

How Quickly Will I See Results?

I hate this question because no one can possibly tell you how your environmental factors, genetic tendencies and severity of your (undiagnosed) condition will fare relative to the average.

However the company claims you should see reduced hair loss within 45 days of use and of course the 150 mark is when you will know if it has worked or not. For me, the initial results showed within 2 weeks if I was to see any. Otherwise, the remainder of the time really just maintained those results till I stopped using it.

Where to Buy – Delivery – Packaging

Price

The cheapest and quickest way to order this is directly from the Scandinavian Biolabs website:

Hair Growth Routine | For Women

You will find it for £58.70 of if you buy 3 months at a time, it will save you £3.37 per set. This is a total savings of £16.85 across 5 months if you choose to test it for that long.

You may consider buying some of the bottles separately depending on what you need; for example a conditioner won’t be affecting

Delivery Time

Shipping according to them take 1-3 working days if you are based in Denmark, Germany, Netherlands or Sweden. Otherwise, it takes 3-5 working days, with potential more delays if you are in the UK, thanks Brexit. It took 6 working days for me, so the timeline is fairly accurate.

Don’t bother to look at Amazon or other sites, they have just added a premium on their prices and they will have the exact same shipping times, if not more, because it is only produced in Denmark. Amazon kindly adds an extra £10 on to the item, as if it wasn’t pricey enough.

Packaging

Nothing special to say about the packaging (nor should there be). They come in a cardboard box with pump style bottles and the hair serum with a pipette. Only necessary packaging, which is a good sign and not what you’re likely to get with Amazon, so you can be happy you’re being environmentally conscious.