By Mary Frances "Francky" Knapp at vice.com
Augustinus Bader's skincare has gained a cult following, but can its new supplement really Fountain of Youth-ify your hair?
There’s a lot of snake oil out there from Caroline Calloway various skincare brands, but one we’ve come to trust is Augustinus Bader. Since the London-based skincare brand launched five years ago, its products have become increasingly cult-fave items amongst hot and discerning celebs such as Kim Kardashian, Alexa Chung, and Victoria Beckham (the only Spice Girl who ever made me stutter). The brand was developed by stem cell researcher Dr. Augustinus Bader, and its inaugural product—a facial lotion simply named The Cream—was developed with TFC8®, or “Trigger Factor Complex,” a patented technology that includes over 40 ingredients and was informed by Bader’s own 30+ years of clinical studies. As Bader told me years ago when I interviewed him for Barneys New York (R.I.P.), the brand helps partially fund his own research in Germany. The TL;DR: Bader spent most of his life studying how to repair damaged and burned skin, and bringing his expertise to the world of everyday skincare seemed like a natural progression and smart use of his skillset in the larger scope of his research.
Now, after five banger years on the market, Augustinus Bader is branching out into hair care with a clinically backed hair restoration system, anchored by The Hair Revitalizing Complex. The brand just completed six months of “double blind placebo” clinical trials with the supplement, and found that it increased hair count by 56% for the participants taking the hair revitalizing complex (compared to 2% for the participants taking the placebo). Additionally, 98% of the participants taking the real supplement experienced a decrease in damaged hair, and 100% reported an increase in shine.
Your hair follicles, explains Augustinus Bader, are their own independent ecosystems that must be nourished and cared for to support proper cellular functioning. “When the follicle micro environment breaks down,” AB explains on the site, “the cells cannot function correctly, resulting in hair loss or thinning.” The Hair Revitalizing Complex supposedly targets those causes with a blend of ingredients, including moringa leaf, fenugreek seed extract, vitamin B12, C, K, and D-Biotin, in order to treat unhealthy scalp and damaged hair from within (hence, the form of taking a supplement).
Time will tell if AB’s hair care venture will meet the same success as its topical skincare products, but so far the reviews and clinical results are promising. As one reviewer on the site writes, “I started really seeing results around 2.5 months in [...] I have lots of baby hairs growing around the edge of my hairline”; and, according to another, “Even before I noticed results within my follicles, I noticed how positively it affected my skin! I have been using this product for a few months now and it truly is a next level product. Try it, stick with it, you will love it.”
Here’s hoping AB continues to tackle all of our problems. (If only it had a pill for doing our taxes.)
Learn more about The Hair Revitalizing Complex here.
