Ulo Debuts as the Latest Entrant in the Telehealth Hair Care Industry

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This isn’t news about future treatments. Instead, this is about a new U.S.-based telehealth brand, Ulo, and its innovative prescription and over-the-counter treatments for hair growth.

There are dozens of telehealth hair care brands, yet Follicle Thought has never partnered with any entrant. This is, in part, because of a mismatch between what telehealth brands offered and what Follicle Thought hoped for: better-dosed topicals, customizable formulations, and a fully supported hair growth experience for its customers.

Ulo has solved these problems. Their offerings and flexibility in product customizations align with the ethos of Follicle Thought. For this reason, we have partnered with Ulo to help spread awareness about the brand and its launch.

Until we have a cure for hair loss, Ulo represents the highest flexibility in hair care offerings. Here’s more about the company.

Just a heads up: all links in the article include a 15% discount for all recurring purchases on Ulo, forever – that means even on subscription renewals.

What Is Ulo?

Ulo is a new telehealth brand offering personalized prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) hair loss products for both men and women.

What Makes Ulo Different?

What distinguishes Ulo is also what excites us about the brand: its commitment to innovation, personalization, and consumer safety. These are values that directly tackle some of the biggest issues we’ve seen develop across the broader hair loss industry in recent years.

Of note:

• Ulo offers low-dose topical finasteride and dutasteride, with dosing concentrations that, according to limited clinical research, may actually localize to the scalp. This is a warranted departure from higher-strength finasteride topicals, which, according to research, are effective but also have systemic effects.

• Ulo allows ample flexibility for prescription products, so prospective customers can indicate the exact product formulations they’d like before being evaluated at their medical appointment.

• Ulo formulates its topicals without propylene glycol, a common ingredient in hair serums known to cause irritation and allergic reactions for many users.

• Ulo does not add corticosteroids to its topicals, avoiding the serious risk of long-term skin thinning sometimes caused by daily steroid use in other brands’ products. 

A Step Forward In Compounded Formulations

Ulo has also identified and solved several oversights made by other major telehealth brands, of which most consumers aren’t yet aware. In particular, they’ve addressed a major issue with widespread, improper compounding of oral dutasteride.

Oral dutasteride is often marketed as a more powerful DHT reducer, with several clinical studies showing the drug’s superiority to oral finasteride. However, telehealth brands selling oral dutasteride often depart from the dutasteride formulations used in clinical studies, specifically using dutasteride as a soft gel. Soft gels contain specific lipid formulations that increase dutasteride’s bioavailability, allowing for more DHT suppression than finasteride. Unfortunately, many telehealth brands have abandoned this soft gel formulation and are instead turning dutasteride into a powder, allowing it to be combined with ingredients like biotin, folic acid, and minoxidil into a single powdered capsule. Brands claim this enhances convenience and efficacy.

Unfortunately, powdered dutasteride absorbs poorly; it is less effective at lowering DHT, and it also doesn’t match the formulations from the dutasteride-finasteride clinical studies. Ulo tested powdered dutasteride and found it to be substantially less effective at lowering DHT than soft gel dutasteride. As such, the brand deliberately avoids compounding dutasteride orally, and instead, only offers it as a soft gel (with flexibility for separate prescription offerings, like oral minoxidil, pending your eligibility for a prescription).

What Does Ulo Offer?

Ulo offers more than 60 total prescription- and over-the-counter hair growth products, with a lot of flexibility in product customization. Here is a sampling of their core offerings.

Prescription Oral Treatments

Ulo offers a wide range of prescription oral hair treatments, including all the usual offerings. However, you can also add other treatments to maximize the efficacy. For example, you can indicate a preference for finasteride 1 mg or dutasteride 0.5 mg, and also add oral minoxidil for a multi-pronged approach. These combinations are available for men, with the addition of spironolactone for women.

Low-Dose Topical Finasteride & Dutasteride

Ulo offers low-dose topical finasteride (0.005%) and topical dutasteride (0.02%). These dosages are based on clinical studies (finasteride, dutasteride) that have shown improvement in hair parameters without significantly affecting serum DHT levels.

Other telehealth companies sell topical finasteride at concentrations up to 0.3%, which, if applied at 2 mL daily, equates to 6 mg of finasteride exposure per day. A significant portion of the drug goes systemic and likely produces serum DHT reductions similar to those of the oral medication. To our knowledge, Ulo is the only major entrant offering low-dose formulations of both finasteride and dutasteride. While these formulations may not perform as well as ultra-high concentrations, it is encouraging to see a brand at least attempting to offer smaller doses for those with medication sensitivities.

High-Strength Prescription Topicals

For those wanting to maximize their hair growth potential, Ulo also provides potent formulations of 0.2% topical finasteride and 0.2% topical dutasteride. These options are available from various telehealth providers, but Ulo also offers the ability to personalize your topical by incorporating additional ingredients such as 7% minoxidil, 0.01% retinoic acid (tretinoin), 1% cetirizine, 0.2% caffeine, and 0.01% melatonin. Importantly, these formulations exclude propylene glycol and corticosteroids, eliminating some safety risks.

Growth Booster Prescription Topicals

For those who cannot tolerate finasteride or minoxidil, Ulo also offers prescription topicals containing 7% minoxidil, 0.01% retinoic acid, 1% cetirizine, 0.2% caffeine, and 0.01% melatonin, which are designed to target different aspects of hair loss without systemic effects on DHT. There is also flexibility in the product formulation, including the ability to add or remove ingredients of your choosing.

For instance, Ulo offers a 1% cetirizine-only option, with optional add-ons of melatonin 0.01% and caffeine 0.2% – for those who may be sensitive to minoxidil but are still interested in prescription options for hair growth. While the research is limited, studies show that cetirizine can significantly increase both terminal and total hair density in patients with androgenic alopecia compared to a placebo.

Daily Supplements, Serums, & Non-Pharmaceutical Products

Alongside the pharmaceutical offerings, Ulo also stocks a line of natural hair growth topicals and supplements. These include ingredients like Redensyl, Capixyl, Procapil, saw palmetto, l-carnitine, adenosine, melatonin, and Vitamin D for those who want to avoid the pharmaceutical approach. While these are provided by other companies, Ulo actually researched the best doses based on the current literature when formulating these products, enabling you to get the most out of your non-pharmaceutical product.

Ulo also carries a daily-use shampoo and conditioner designed to be non-irritating and leave hair feeling fuller. They’re designed for daily use, which those who live more active lives and who need to wash their hair more regularly might appreciate.

Reflections

In the telehealth hair care space, more options aren’t always better. Refreshingly, Ulo appears to take significant strides toward solving the industry’s existing problems, all through a personalized, science-based, safety-first approach.

With its low-dose topicals, gentler formulations, and prioritization of ongoing support, we’re proud to partner with Ulo. We hope you benefit from and enjoy their offerings for years to come.