You may be on finasteride, minoxidil, or any number of other hair loss treatments for your hair loss protocol but have you considered the fact that the shampoo and conditioner you use also could be providing potential hair regrowth and maintenance? This is an easy, low-risk, and consistent way to improve your hair if you aren’t already doing it.
Welcome to the official guide on the best hair loss shampoos!
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Introduction
If you haven’t already seen my post on the “Big 3” hair loss treatments do check it out. I talk about ketoconazole shampoo there alongside some of the data and mechanisms behind it. In this post, I will quickly outline my favorite shampoos I use that contain ketoconazole and other helpful ingredients for hair regrowth and maintenance.
The point of this post is therefore mainly focused on hair appearance after use, product cost, and convenience. I do not discuss Ketoconazole itself and its efficacy in this post. If you do want to read up on ketoconazole do that here. If you want to quantify hair loss consider taking progress photos in consistent lighting or consider a hair catcher device for your shower.
Ketoconazole
Ketoconazole is a topical medication used as an antiandrogen, antifungal, and antiglucocorticoid. (Wikipedia) Although it is mainly used for fungal infections ketoconazole is now also used off-label for hair loss due to these effects. This means that it decreases androgens in the scalp, targets fungus, and reduces inflammation through various mechanisms.
All of these benefits are extremely powerful in the context of fighting hair loss. If nothing else, it appears to be safe in regards to side effects – especially when compared with some of the other major hair loss compounds. Your risk-to-reward ratio is great here.
Usage
All you need to do is work a small amount of the shampoo into your hair and leave it on for 5-10 minutes. The goal here is to work the product into the scalp itself and let it “soak in” to gain maximum benefit before washing it off. How I like to do this is just put it in first thing when I go to shower so I can do other things while it sits and does its work.
You should only do this twice weekly as some claim the ingredient can be drying though this is most likely due to the shampoos themselves and not ketoconazole as an ingredient – we’ll talk about this soon.
You can get either 1% or 2% strength of this product. Most of the studies for hair loss have been on 2% but logically 1% should still have some benefit. Depending on location you may be able to get 2% strength easily, other countries may require a prescription for it.
Nizoral
This product contains 1% ketoconazole although they also offer 2% (again depending on location). Cost: 14 fl. oz. @ $28 (for the 1% I purchase).
Nizoral is a generic for ketoconazole shampoos, you’ve likely seen this brand before and your local stores most likely have it as well. It is therefore extremely convenient and is one of our most cost-effective options.
I’ve used the blue 1% Nizoral for years – if I had to say one thing about that product it would be that it will make your hair look and feel extremely thick. Density and feeling are much improved immediately after using this product (my experience). This may relate to how nizoral dries out hair for some people – however, I love this effect. The smell is nice in my opinion, you may think it gives off an “old” vibe but I do enjoy it. My all-time favorite “daily driver”.
The only time I noticed excessive drying was when I used the product greedily over two consecutive days in large quantities. To counteract some of the drying you should target the scalp itself and not your hair. I’m not sure if people online overplay the dryness but this is likely more of an issue with the generic shampoo product and not ketoconazole itself as an ingredient.
Keeps
This product contains 2% ketoconazole. Cost: 4 fl. oz. @ $33.
Starting, this product is more expensive compared to Nizoral – but for those located in the USA, this may be the most convenient way to get 2% ketoconazole shampoo. Keeps is a telemedicine company that allows them to produce and prescribe such a product efficiently. If you want the strength that the studies for hair loss use and are trying everything to save your hair – this is what you go for.
Honestly, I don’t like this shampoo as much. It may be twice as strong compared to Nizoral shampoo but in terms of convenience of sourcing it and how it feels I’m not a fan. The Nizoral brand makes my hair feel insanely thick, nicely colored, and with great density, while this shampoo just makes my hair feel a bit dry. The smell is pleasant but nothing special. I also can’t spread or lather this brand into my scalp well at all compared to Nizoral, it takes more product in general.
Overall I’m not impressed with the price – Nizoral 2% can be found for way cheaper. This might just be the price you have to pay if you want reputable 2% ketoconazole in the US. If it was cheaper and offered a solution more easily latherable then I would consider using it long term.
Intelligent.shop
This product contains 0.9% ketoconazole. 10 fl. oz. @ $35 (Shipping is cheaper than Keeps, a nonissue).
Intelligent.shop is a brand created by Derek from MPMD (you may have seen some of his stuff before). I was excited to try out his product because he is a staple creator in the hair loss community providing lots of high-quality information so I was certain his product would be great.
Strength
Some reviewers claimed there wasn’t much ketoconazole in it so I had to confirm – personally .9% ketoconazole is super close to 1% so if the shampoo itself is better than the generic version I’d rather use this instead. I confirmed this with them and they stated this is to keep their product in OTC status due to FDA regulations.
I love this product, it smells fresh in a good way (not overbearing) and provides a great lather and appearance to the hair. I would compare it most directly to the standard Nizoral formulation in terms of feel. They did this right, an amazing job in my view.
It also includes all of these ingredients which also help aid hair:
- Black Cumin Seed Oil
- Pumpkin Seed Oil
- Saw Palmetto
- Ketoconazole
- Peppermint Oil
- Caffeine
This is big because you have a shampoo (and conditioner combination if you want) that can be used as a more normal hair product. What I mean by this is that if you find generic shampoos to be too drying this may be a great balance: you still get nearly 1% ketoconazole while also getting a unique formulation with added ingredients that generics don’t have. You also aren’t getting too beat up on the price here when compared to some of the other options we’ve seen.
DS Laboratories
This product contains 0% ketoconazole. 7 fl. oz. @ $35.
I am so excited to write about this brand because I love using them. I’ve used the high-performance hair density shampoo and conditioners for a while (years at this point) and loved the coloring, feeling, and appearance the combination provided for my hair. It gave my dirty blonde hair a crazy copper sheen for the day after use which was a cool effect. I’m not sure if this was because my hair itself was glowing or due to the product itself causing a sheen of color if that makes sense.
The combination of the shampoo and conditioner provides a crazy chilling and refreshing feel to your scalp. This is likely due to the peppermint or other ingredients offered in the product. I also loved the smell and coloring of the product. It feels like it is stimulating hair growth.
As for the ketoconazole amount, unfortunately, while requesting to see the exact amount included they informed me that they recently took out ketoconazole entirely to comply with FDA regulations for their product. I think before the amount was low as well so it’s not a huge blow for me – I’m still a fan of the product for all of the other benefits.
Conclusion
I honestly don’t think you can go wrong with any of these products. These are all great hair loss shampoos. My personal choices would have to be my all-time favorite Nizoral 1% and then the Intelligent.shop shampoo takes a close second, especially with all of those added ingredients and nongeneric formulation in terms of the shampoo itself. They might be tied for 1st place.
I’m going to be trying 2% Nizoral to see if the feel is similar for the 1%, if that’s the case then I’ll update this post or create a new one sharing my experience. If the Nizoral brand 2% feels the same as the 1% I see no reason not to switch, I just can’t easily access it without resorting to buying the product second hand which isn’t optimal.
For the cost, ease of acquisition, and anecdotal results I recommend Nizoral at the very least. The benefits of using something like this compared to the costs and risks are amazing for a hair loss treatment. I love it and find no need to bother with a stronger formulation – it’s able to give me 1% ketoconazole reliably and cheaply.
As for different brands of ketoconazole shampoos – it just depends on your goals, ease of access, personal experience, and what you can tolerate. I would just advise you to be careful of companies claiming to have ketoconazole as a main ingredient only to find out they aren’t using even close to 1% strength – check the labels or inquire before buying if you aren’t sure like I did here.
Hopefully, you learned a lot, good luck!