Many of us have experienced stress-related hair loss (known as telogen effluvium) during the pandemic. And, meanwhile, androgenic alopecia (male and female pattern hair loss, which is genetic) affects up to 50% of all men and women.
The great news is that there are hair loss treatments available that have been proven to work for many people. And many companies in the hair loss space are content to rely on those safe and efficient treatments and stop there.
With more than 15 years in business and over 2 million customers worldwide, DS Laboratories has a wealth of experience developing treatments for hair loss concerns. They don’t rest on their laurels, either. DS Laboratories continues to innovate, experimenting with and introducing new ingredients to their products — like nanoxidil and CBD — as the science evolves to support them. So, should you invest in hair loss treatment from DS Laboratories? To help you answer that question, our testing team fully explored the company and their products. Read on for the summary of our findings.
Pros
- Minoxidil and nanoxidil hair treatments available
- All bottles and packaging are biodegradable
- Multiple products designed to target specific conditions
- Direct links to clinical studies
- No photos required for hair assessment
- Developing a line of skincare products
- Products for beard and mustache growth
- Get free shipping on orders over $60
- Subscribe and save up to 20% on your order
Cons
- Slightly more expensive than some competitors
- Nanoxidil studies are somewhat limited
- Return policy is a bit strict
Bottom line
We recommend giving DS Laboratories a try. Anyone interested in cutting-edge hair regrowth strategies would do well to consider DS Laboratories. They also cater to those interested in minoxidil and other tried-and-true products, only expanding their potential reach. The company has a firm commitment to sustainability and ethics (biodegradable packaging, no animal testing, etc.). They’re constantly looking for new and innovative ways to formulate, produce, and deliver their products to you. Their use of things like nanoxidil, CBD, and their nanosome technology are just a few examples of what makes DS Laboratories worth trying.
DS Laboratories
DS Laboratories offers multiple products designed to target specific hair loss conditions.
Nanoxidil and minoxidil treatments are available for order after a quick and easy hair quiz. DS Laboratories is a trusted source for hair loss treatments; they back their ingredients with clinical studies. Check out their emerging skincare line too!
Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions involving staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.
We extensively test each health product and service we review. We try our best to give you, our readers, an unbiased exploration of at-home health services, free of marketing jargon or gimmicks. We base our evaluations on adherence to quality, the latest medical evidence and health standards, and a simple question: would we buy the product or service ourselves if it weren’t part of our job, and would we recommend it to family and friends?
Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review of DS Laboratories was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.
DS Laboratories is a purveyor of hair care products designed to address hair loss and provide their users with healthier, fuller hair. They offer products for the scalp and serums for use in eyebrow growth, eyelash maintenance, and beard stimulation.
Their products are ideal for anyone with thinning hair, especially hair loss due to androgenetic alopecia or telogen effluvium. Most of the ingredients in their products have low-to-non-existent side effect profiles, so they’re suitable for just about any skin or hair type. That makes them particularly good for anyone who’s tried products containing minoxidil and suffered some side effects. There’s a good chance that with DS Laboratories’ nanoxidil-based products, you won’t have the same negative experience.
Any products containing ingredients that sometimes require a prescription only use those ingredients in small enough quantities to sell them over-the-counter. As a result, none of DS Laboratories’ products require a prescription.
Their product catalog consists of:
Shampoos
DS Laboratories’ shampoos include formulas for thinning or damaged hair, dandruff, and sensitive or irritated scalps. They contain caffeine, ketoconazole, niacinamide, biotin, CBD, hydrolyzed wheat protein, tyrosine, and others.
Conditioners
DS Laboratories offers a conditioner to go with every shampoo. So, they address all the same concerns, from hair loss to dandruff. They contain many similar active ingredients as their partner shampoos but add ingredients like keratin, aloe, and shea butter to moisturize, strengthen, and reduce frizz.
Topical treatments
A tiny number of DS Laboratories products use minoxidil (generic for Rogaine) as their primary active ingredients. Most others rely on nanoxidil. Their topical treatments include anti-thinning serums, formulas specifically for women, a treatment that fights stress-related hair loss, and formulas dedicated to growth and health in the eyebrows, eyelashes, and beard.
Supplements
Some hair loss ingredients work just as well, if not better when you ingest them rather than apply them topically. For that reason, DS Laboratories has a pair of supplements designed to fight hair loss. They contain things like zinc, biotin, and keratin. One of the two supplements targets stress-related hair loss, and it includes a powerful antioxidant called superoxide dismutase.
Devices
The devices you’ll find from DS Laboratories are suitable for use alongside any other treatments. There’s a roller fit with rows of needle tips designed to stimulate hair follicles on the scalp or face. There’s also an exfoliating brush that vibrates at a high frequency, like an ultrasonic toothbrush for your skin.
Kits and bundles
DS Laboratories offers several kits and bundles you can purchase that will save you a fair amount of money. They combine the above product categories to deliver multifaceted and targeted treatments for your specific hair care concerns. There’s an anti-dandruff kit, a lash and brow kit, a hair restructuring kit, and kits designed to treat hair loss in men or women.
Beauty and skincare
Recently, DS Laboratories announced an upcoming line of skincare products, but they are highly secretive about what these products will do. There has been no information about potential ingredients or intended uses, but one picture on the site clearly shows a vitamin C serum. The size of the bottle leads us to believe that this particular product will be a general face cream designed to revitalize the skin. Still, there’s no reason to think the company won’t also release products for the eyes and other specific zones.
Nanoxidil vs. minoxidil
One of the most significant differences between DS Laboratories and their competitors is their use of nanoxidil instead of minoxidil. Minoxidil has more research behind it and more years of successful public use. Studies show its efficacy time and time again. But nanoxidil and minoxidil are incredibly similar.
There’s nearly no difference between the two at the molecular level because minoxidil was the base from which scientists developed nanoxidil. Ultimately, nanoxidil has one less carbon chain, and that’s about it. But that slight difference is enough to reduce nanoxidil’s side effect profile dramatically.
Minoxidil already had minimal side effects. But users would sometimes report increased sensitivity in the scalp, and some even had to suspend treatment due to the discomfort. Nanoxidil appears to have the same level of efficacy as minoxidil but with far less sensitivity. That makes it the best of both worlds, in our opinion, and well worth trying.
Nanosome technology
One of DS Laboratories’ proprietary innovations, nanosome technology promises to deliver the active ingredients in topical solutions directly to the source. It also allows those ingredients to linger there before being completely absorbed. That extra time allows those ingredients to do more work restoring hair follicles’ circulation and activity.
Essentially, nanosome technology encapsulates minuscule quantities of active ingredients in liposomes that look like medical time-release gel caps. They then place those caps in a spherical nanosome, measuring approximately 10 microns across its diameter. They suspend these nanosomes in their serums. When you apply a serum to your scalp, the nanosomes seep down into hair follicles before beginning to dissolve and releasing the active ingredients right where you want them.
Getting started with DS Laboratories is straightforward. When you go to their website, you can immediately begin pursuing their catalog of products, or you can search from a list of potential concerns, including:
- Hair loss
- Hair repair
- Dandruff
- Eyebrows
- Eyelashes
- Beard
- Damaged hair
- Sensitive scalp
You can also take DS Laboratories’ hair assessment questionnaire. Unlike many questionnaires you’ll find on other sites, the DS Laboratories quiz is short and non-invasive. You won’t have to take any pictures of your hairline or crown/vertex to receive a thoughtful and precise recommendation.
From there, you can look into individual products or bundles.
Pricing, payment, and insurance
Pricing on the DS Laboratories website is clear and up-front. You can easily save a little extra money by using bundles where applicable, and most products are available on a subscription basis that will save you an additional 20%. You can set the frequency of deliveries between every 1-6 months.
DS Laboratories uses a Shopify checkout interface that accepts all major credit cards and takes payment through PayPal.
Here’s a quick look at the prices of some popular products from DS Laboratories, as well as the money you stand to save by subscribing:
| One-time cost | Subscription cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Spectral.DNC-N 5% Nanoxidil | $40 | $32 |
| Revita hair stimulating shampoo | $35 | $28 |
| Spectral.BRD beard stimulating serum | $28 | $22.40 |
| Revita.CBD cannabidiol conditioner | $38 | $30.40 |
| Spectral.BROW eyebrow revitalizing serum | $69 | $55.20 |
| Revita.SOD tablets for stress-related hair loss | $42 | $33.60 |
Privacy considerations
DS Laboratories integrates with Shopify for their store and checkout infrastructure and Google for analytics. They link to those two companies’ privacy policies on their own privacy page and make no claim to arbitrate how they might use your data. DS Laboratories also uses cookies and other means to track your time on and use of their site, and they readily share that information with advertising partners.
It’s also worth noting that DS Laboratories does not alter their site’s data collection behavior in response to any “do not track” signals that your browser might generate.
Ultimately, this data collection and use level are typical across the internet, but it would be nice for DS Laboratories to find ways to reduce their reliance on it. There are many ways the company strives to maintain a certain degree of ethical responsibility to their world and their customers. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.
DS Laboratories doesn’t offer the lowest prices for their products, but the value is definitely there. They use more advanced formulas and cutting-edge ingredients and technologies than almost anyone else in the hair loss space. We highly recommend them to anyone who’s suffered side effects from minoxidil, as well as anyone looking for products to help thicken their beard or eyebrows.
As the company continues to expand and offers a line of skincare products, we’re confident that their value will continue to rise.
At Innerbody Research, we customize our evaluation criteria depending on the type and nature of the health-related service or product. For health products and services, we have five areas that we use for our evaluations, including:
Quality: How well does the company deliver its core service(s) to the customer? For testing services, does the company adhere to the latest and most advanced testing technologies and achieve a very high degree of accuracy? For non-testing telehealth services, is the quality of the service high enough that we would recommend it to loved ones without hesitation? If not, why not?
User-friendly: How intuitive and user-friendly is the service? Does the device, program, app, or website achieve a good degree of user-friendliness for its customers?
Value: Are you getting your money’s worth? Are there any hidden costs or charges? Does the company offer discounts?
Privacy: If health data is stored, will your data be stored securely? Are payments secure?
Customer support: Particularly in situations where ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t make sense, how well does the company help to make the service ideal for you?
