Copper peptides are the latest craze in the hair growth world and let me just say I have some concerns. These peptides have been created ahead of the science. There are no real human studies and in my belief it means usage of these products should be treated with caution.

As someone who has been in the hair industry for 30 years I’ve seen so many “hype” products and what scares me the most is the adverse events that can occur with anything new like this. My immediate thought when I heard “copper” was “oh no, people are going to fry their hair off”. You might wonder why that was my first thought and it’s because part of my career has included development of bleaches and hair colours and one of the biggest no-no’s of using bleach and hair colour is to mix it with anything metallic! Adding metals to the mix causes the chemical reaction to speed up, cause excessive heat and basically mini “explosions” within the hair structure. This irreversibly damages the hair and can lead to breakage. The hair effectively melts under the excessive reaction.

So, what method of delivery is going to cause the worst reaction? Topical application is generally thought to be worse in terms of bleach/colour reactivity as it will be more concentrated on the hair strands themselves whereas injectables are “diluted” (for want of better terminology) and need to work their way throughout the body and into the hair follicle where the copper will then be contained within the hair fibre as it grows out of the scalp.

The issue is we just don’t know enough about the bodies response to these products so if you have any chemical service on your hair please ensure you advise your hair stylist/colourist that you’re using copper peptides.

P.S. There are other proven methods of growing your hair that won’t interfere with chemical services. Personally I’d be opting for those as a first step.