07/08/2025
Two continually emerging factors that potentially and adversely influence you the client-consumer and myself the qualified specialist practitioner are:
1. Online mailed-to-your-door treatment products: topical lotions, supplements, ‘one-pill-suits-all medication such as ‘hairy pills/hair more’ drugs.
2. The AI explosion which now allows operators with NO qualifications in Trichology to generate websites and AI articles to create a veneer of expertise and ‘cash-in’ on unsuspecting, desperate people they might lure in.
Why these issues are generally not in the consumer’s interest are:
1. Mail-order treatments cannot and are not prescribed to the person’s individual needs. Most pre-suppose all hair loss conditions are genetic or stress-induced, whereas the nuances to the cause/s behind each woman’s thinning scalp hair (or scalp) concerns are as varied as the treatment offerings themselves.
As a small business operator with 30 years’ experience in the hair loss industry, I am always interested in assessing any new treatments or innovations I might offer my clients – but only if they have proven efficacy and are appropriate to my client’s needs.
We see almost every social media treatment usually presented by some persuasive, glamorous or medical influencer with a ‘sketchy’ personal back-story guaranteeing money-back success within a short timeframe.
Influencer explanations for hair loss tend to alter over time – currently it seems to be a ‘pre-maturely ageing scalp’ – a hypothesis I don’t subscribe to. The active ingredients in their ‘revolutionary’ new formulas tend to be a re-mix aromatherapy/essential oils, or some impressively named scientific additive that non-one has heard of.
2. Detecting an AI generated website, authorative interest articles, false facilities, offered services and even staff numbers would be extremely difficult for the average consumer anxious to find answers … but the clues are there if you diligently search the given address, reviews, and even peruse posted articles.
I have seen up to fifty articles ‘written’ and posted with the same date stamp – just not possible if the writer is researching and composing their own material.
The consumer may also suspect the consultant is ‘parroting’ a presentation with seemingly little knowledge outside of this. Disappointingly not even some doctors hide their reliance on AI diagnoses, seeking ‘answers’ while the client looks on.
Why mail-order treatments and AI are ‘at odds’ with experienced, qualified practitioners:
• Apart from the obvious: clients don’t need to consult an experienced practitioner if they feel they can ‘mail order’ treatments to their door. My experience is clients RARELY EVER feel they’ve resolved their hair, or scalp worries through mail order treatments.
They ARE, however, often disillusioned and frustrated with unfulfilled product promises, time and money wasted. This frequently leads to an understandable cynicism that the practitioner is able to help them.
• Passionate, researchers and topic writers like myself are increasingly vulnerable to having our copyright material harvested and regurgitated through AI to either become ‘another’s’ subject matter, or the AI platforms use one’s work to ‘educate’ algorithms without permission or credit for the original article.
Online sales and the emerging AI ‘revolution’ is an ever-increasingly part of society’s psyche today – for good or ill. I simply ask readers to appreciate that the complex workings of our body require more than some elementary scalp lotion or single pill.
Copyright – Anthony Pearce 2025.
