In the News – Chinese Men Using Western Hair Loss Treatments Instead of Snake Oils

Snippet from the article:

After raw-ginger scalp rubs and walnut snacks failed to counter Shi Yang’s receding hairline, the 26-year-old Shanghai engineer says he’s ready to ditch his mother’s advice and give Western drugs a go.

Traditional herbal remedies for male pattern baldness are losing ground to treatments such as Merck & Co.’s Propecia and Johnson & Johnson’s Rogaine in China, where a full head of black hair on a man is a sign of health and virility. Shi, a slim, bespectacled college graduate, has a better chance of landing a girlfriend with a thick thatch of hair like President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang, both of whom are in their 50s, he said.

Sales of Western hair-loss treatments doubled in China the past five years, growing almost twice as fast as the broader hair-product segment, according to Euromonitor International. The hair-loss market is still small because baldness is only now being seen as a problem requiring pharmaceutical help, and Western companies have only recently begun to seize on the concern.

Read the rest — Snake Gall Bladders Ditched for Drugs by Balding Chinese