Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Does Rice Water Speed Up Hair Growth? What The Science Says...

- What's up guys?

Trav White here,

welcome back to the channel.

If you guys are interested in style, grooming, hair care

or just becoming a better version of yourself,

please smash that like and subscribe button,

join the family.

So today, I want to address a question

I've been getting quite a bit.

That question is,

"How do I speed up the awkward phase?"

(upbeat music)

You're growing your hair out,

but it gets to this annoying length

where you can't put it into a bun because it's too short,

and wearing it down

ends up looking like some horrible bowl cut out of the 90s.

And I've been scouring the internet,

checking for some hacks on how to speed up hair growth

and escape that awkward phase a little bit faster.

I'm not gonna talk about the obvious choices

that you guys have probably already seen a lot of.

Things like argan oil,

coconut oil, castor oil.

Those have all been addressed tons of times.

I might make some videos on those in the future,

if you guys are interested,

drop a comment.

Let me know if you're interested.

But this hack that I discovered,

I haven't seen discussed on too many channels

outside of female beauty channels.

Surprisingly, that hack is rice water baths.

- What, what the (beep).

- Yeah, rice water.

So, trust me,

when I saw this,

I had some questions.

Is this legit or is it some old wives tale?

In this video,

we're gonna answer the big question,

is rice water actually legit for hair growth?

Now, I do wanna drop a big disclaimer.

All the info that I'm about to share

is not considered medical advice

or a prescription of any kind.

This is all the opinion I've formed

based on my own independent research.

And I know you guys are smart,

but I just had to get that out of the way real quick.

Okay, so for centuries,

women in Asia have attributed

their incredible hair health, thickness and length

to rice water baths.

For example, the women of the Heian period

had floor length hair,

and they gave credit to frequent rice water bathing.

We can also look at the modern day equivalent

of Yao women who live in the Huang Luo village in China

and are known for having hair growth

up to six feet long.

In addition to its incredible length,

the Yao women's hair is also said

to keep its color for longer as they begin to age,

and they don't gray as fast

until they reach much older,

like in their late 80s.

And they credit their hair length and color

to the fact that they bathe it in rice water.

So I just wanted to address kinda two questions.

Does rice water work for men

as a natural supplement to treat hair loss, number one?

And number two,

a natural supplement to speed up hair growth

and, or protect it from damage?

So those are kinda the two questions

I wanna answer with this video.

Recently, I've seen a flood of female beauty channels

talking about rice water,

but I haven't seen a lot of men's channels talk about it.

I think I might have found one or two videos.

So I decided to do some research to answer the question,

is it legit for guys as well?

So what does the science say?

Well, honestly, I was really only able to find two studies.

And the first one was published

in the Journal of Cosmetic Science in September 2010.

It's titled The Effect of Rinse Water

Obtained From the Wash,

that's a mouthful, hold on.

The Effect of Rinse Water

Obtained From the Washing of Rice as Hair Treatment.

Now, in that study,

the authors mention that rice water may

"Reduce surface friction"

and increase your hair elasticity.

However, this study heavily relies on historical anecdotes

and it doesn't have any modern tests,

therefore no modern conclusion.

So not 100% reliable.

Now, the second study I found

highlights the development

of haircare products from rice water.

So the study's claim

is that there's this carbohydrate or sugar

found in rice water called inositol.

And inositol has the ability

to repair damaged hair

as well as protect the hair

from further damage and breakage.

However, it's important to point out

that the company that ran this study

sells haircare products.

They are obviously going to have a bias

and a direct commercial incentive

to produce positive results.

Even though that study

said that inositol is phenomenal for protecting hair,

I do have to question the outcome

because obviously the company has a bias.

I had to do some of my own detective work on inositol.

So I started looking up,

what is inositol?

What is it used for in the medical field?

Typically, inositol for a long time was called vitamin B8,

but it's actually a type of sugar

that influences the action that insulin has

and can affect some neurotransmitters

like serotonin and dopamine.

In fact, some of the uses I found online for inositol

range from treating diabetic nerve pain and panic disorders,

even infertility in women.

Most of the articles I read

linking inositol to preventing hair loss or promoting growth

said the evidence is insufficient.

They're not gonna say it doesn't work

but they're not gonna say it does.

They need more research.

Do I consider it 100% effective?

So when it comes to question one,

is this a legit supplement for male pattern boldness?

I'm gonna give it a no.

(buzzer beeping)

I'm gonna say there's not enough evidence.

And if you're suffering

from something like male pattern baldness, or MPB,

I would consult your doctor

and look at the other two treatments that you can have

like minoxidil, which is Rogaine,

or finasteride, which is Propecia.

Question number two,

if you don't have MPB,

can it help speed up hair growth

or at least protect your hair from damage?

I'm gonna say maybe,

I'm gonna say it's definitely possible.

We can look at that inositol study

showing that it does repair and protect hair from damage

that could be caused by heat or heavy rinsing,

or scrubbing or anything else

that could cause breakage in your hair.

Obviously, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence

for rice water working.

Of course, we can go back

to looking at the Yao women in China.

And if you look at the reviews

for inositol hair supplements on Amazon,

I actually found thousands and thousands of good reviews.

One called SugarBear

actually had almost 7000 reviews and a four star rating.

And most of the bad reviews

were due to side effects of other ingredients

found in the supplement

like biotin or different vitamins.

And nothing that bad was actually said

about inositol not working.

However, keep in mind,

that supplement mixes a bunch of other ingredients

so it's not just a pure inositol supplement.

So if it were me,

I probably wouldn't ingest this supplement.

But instead, I'm gonna be testing a homemade rice water kit

that I will be applying to my hair topically.

And I'm gonna see if it can speed up hair growth

and make your hair thicker,

things like that.

So one more thing I wanna add really quick,

is, in addition,

that I also found an article

on the Academic Association of Medicine

saying that inositol can be a great supplement on its own

for hair growth,

but it's even more powerful

when you combine it with choline.

When the two mix,

it produces phospholipids,

which is the compound

that helps produce more hair follicle membranes.

So choline is naturally produced in our bodies,

but is also found in egg yolk.

And it may be worth doing something like an egg mask

and then rinsing it out,

and then immediately doing a rice water bath right after

to get that sort of compound effect

of choline and inositol stacked on top of each other.

So I'm not your doctor, obviously.

I will never tell you that you must ingest supplement,

it is 100% your decision.

So I'll leave the links to all the research I did

in the description below

so you can do some of your own detective work.

I'm not gonna write off

rice water working for men's hair growth.

In fact, I'm gonna try it.

I'm gonna test it on my own for a couple weeks,

and then I'll come back with another video

and I'll post the results on there

of my full rice water tutorial.

So stay tuned for that,

and down in the comments,

I wanna know,

have you ever tried rice water,

and what were your results?

And let me know in the comments,

and I'll see you guys in the next video, peace.

(upbeat music)