In the world of beauty supplements, biotin is treated as the magic fix—like the beauty equivalent of restarting your phone. Hair feeling thin? Take biotin! Brittle nails? Try biotin! Skin looking blah? B-I-O-T-I-N. You hear about it so often that you probably don’t even think to question it.
But if you’ve long been taking biotin for hair benefits and have noticed absolutely zero difference in how long or thick it is, you might be wondering if it’s just a capsule full of lies. So, I turned to board-certified dermatologist Dhaval G. Bhanusali, MD, and trichologist Bridgette Hill with Paul Labrecque Salon and Skincare Spa for the facts.
What is biotin?
You might know it as biotin, or maybe you’ve heard it called vitamin B7 or vitamin H, oooor maybe you just refer to it as the ultimate supplement for skin, hair, and nails. Call it what you want, but here’s the gist: It’s a water-soluble B vitamin found in our bodies that works by turning fats, carbs, and proteins into energy.
When your body is deficient in biotin, Dr. Bhanusali says it can lead to hair thinning and brittle nails (among many other things, according to the National Institutes of Health), but since it’s also found in a lot of foods, like meat, eggs, fish, nuts, and some dairy products, you probably get an adequate amount in your diet. In other words, the likelihood that you would be biotin deficient is pretty low.
Does biotin really work?
Alright, let’s cut to it: The simple truth is that there’s not enough scientific proof that biotin is the key to growing your hair really, really long. “While, in the past, there was belief biotin supplements were needed to grow strong and healthy hair, there is actually little evidence that it makes much of a difference,” Dr. Bhanusali says. “Most dermatologists tend to agree—while it likely doesn’t hurt, taking biotin may not make much of a difference in your hair.”
And remember how I said biotin was water soluble? What that means is any excess amount of it in your system gets flushed out through your urine, so loading up on biotin won’t give you great results, unfortunately. “Biotin can only impact hair growth if there is an existing biotin deficiency,” Hill adds. “Taking extra biotin supplements does not lead to extra nutrient-based hair growth.”
How long does it take biotin to work on hair?
Dr. Bhanusali says if you are actually deficient (he points to some evidence that women can be mildly biotin deficient during pregnancy or while breastfeeding, but you’d need a blood test to determine any deficiencies for sure), it would still be a few months before you would see results from taking biotin for hair benefits. Otherwise, if there is any improvement, the visible results would be subtle at best. Read more
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