Hair loss often becomes a concern for both men and women as we age. Studies reveal that by age 50, half of all men and 25% of women experience hair loss.
Even though genetic factors are a significant cause of hair loss, you can manage hair loss and encourage hair growth by using products rich in scalp-stimulating ingredients that promote healthy hair. Divi's Scalp Serum excels at this, providing a synergistic blend of clean ingredients, scientifically proven to nourish the scalp and hair follicles and treat the effects of hair loss.
Copper gluconate is an often-overlooked ingredient in hair care products, but it plays a pivotal role in stimulating hair growth. Below, our team of experts goes over the benefits of copper gluconate for treating hair loss through empirical data and scientific studies to help you understand how it works and why we include it as one of our Scalp Serum ingredients.
What Is Copper Gluconate?
Copper is an essential mineral to the human body. Copper gluconate — the water-soluble copper salt of gluconic acid that binds to copper in your body — derives from D-gluconic acid, the oxidation product of glucose. We can find gluconic acid in plants, and since it develops through fermentation, it is abundant in honey and wine. This copper salt is produced commercially by a fungal fermentation process, and it's used in cosmetics, food products and pharmaceuticals.
Copper gluconate, when applied topically to the skin, helps deliver copper to the skin cells for absorption, making it a significant component of many skin and hair care products. Gluconic acid increases the bioavailability of the trace element copper in skin cells.
Copper and Its Role in the Human Body
Copper is an essential mineral for human health and our various systems to function. It affects our immune systems, nervous systems, blood vessels and connective tissues and plays a significant role in energy production. Copper can also provide many health benefits for our skin, hair and scalp.
Applying copper gluconate topically to certain skin regions, such as the scalp, can stimulate hair growth at the follicle.
Hair Health Is Skin Health
You might think that skin and hair are two completely independent parts of the body, but they are quite connected. Hair follicles — the pockets in our skin from which hairs grow — form in the skin, creating a tube-like cavity that incubates the emerging hair fiber through which the hair grows outward.
Hair forms from a protein called keratin in the outer layer of our skin. Hair follicles experience a growth cycle with several phases, typically lasting between 2-6 years. The hair growth cycle changes as we age, as does the pigmentation related to melanin, which produces our hair color.
Recent studies affirm that scalp health is essential for optimal hair growth and retention. A treatment study demonstrated that when the scalp is weakened, the hair quality also suffers. The researchers fortunately also found that such detrimental impacts on hair are reversible with the restoration of scalp health.
There are many potential causes of hair loss, the most well-known being male- and female-pattern hair loss (androgenic alopecia) and other forms of alopecia. Besides these, other dermatological scalp conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, seborrhea, fungi and lipophilic yeasts like Malassezia can all also contribute to diminished hair quality. Oxidative stress, caused by aging and certain health conditions, is also often responsible for premature hair loss.
The crucial role of the scalp in determining hair health is why products such as Divi's Scalp Serum are so valuable. Our proprietary formula addresses the root causes of hair and scalp problems by treating the scalp, which can help create the best environment for your hair to flourish. Read on as we explain how copper gluconate can work within Divi's formula to help contribute to a healthier scalp.
How Does Copper Gluconate Keep the Scalp (and Hair) Healthy?
Copper, in its many forms, is essential to our bodies in many ways.
Destroys Harmful Organisms That Can Irritate the Scalp
Copper has potent biocidal and antimicrobial properties that can destroy harmful organisms. It can also help provide nutrients to accelerate wound healing.
Helps to Create Collagen and Elastin
Copper plays a role in forming new blood vessels (angiogenesis) via vascular endothelial growth factors. Copper is essential to many physiological and metabolic functions that keep almost all tissues in the human body functioning.
One of those functions is the creation of collagen and elastin, two proteins central to hair growth and development. In the skin and scalp, copper synthesizes and stabilizes proteins such as collagen in the extracellular matrix (ECM), a network of proteins and molecules supporting the body's cells and tissues.
One of the most significant effects of copper on hair and skin health is its role in forming collagen, one of the major structural components of the extracellular matrix. Your body needs copper to produce collagen, so when you apply Divi's Scalp Serum, you can help provide direct copper absorption to your scalp to promote healthy, elastic hair and skin.
Supports Dermal Cells and Provides Antioxidants
In the skin and scalp, copper plays the following roles:
- Stimulates the proliferation of dermal fibroblasts: cells in the skin's dermis layer that generate connective tissue and enable the skin to recover from injury
- Regulates the fibroblasts' production of collagen and elastin fiber components
- Stimulates heat shock protein 47 (Hsp-47), a chaperone protein for collagen formation
- Stabilizes the skin's extracellular matrix by increasing crosslinking of collagen and elastin
- Serves as a cofactor of superoxide dismutase, an antioxidant enzyme in the skin
- Inhibits cellular oxidative effects such as membrane damage and lipid peroxidation
- Serves as a cofactor of tyrosinase, a melanin enzyme responsible for skin and hair pigmentation
Your skin plays a vital role in determining hair growth. Proteins like collagen have the potential to grow when copper levels are sufficient. Applying a hair serum enriched with copper gluconate to your scalp can help you take advantage of these benefits and keep your hair follicles and skin nourished to encourage healthy hair growth.
How Copper Gluconate Benefits Your Hair and Scalp to Treat Hair Loss
Copper gluconate has established itself as a potent protective and regenerative element. Copper gluconate helps to treat hair loss and encourages hair growth by improving the bioavailability of copper in your body. Copper gluconate supplementation via Divi's Scalp Serum comes with numerous benefits.
Promoting Synthesis and Stability of Collagen and Elastin
Collagen is the most common protein found in your body. It comprises connective tissues and is a significant component of our skin, bones and muscles. As we age, we face a reduction in elastin and collagen production, which contributes to hair loss and skin aging processes like wrinkles.
Copper helps synthesize collagen and several other skin proteins in the extracellular matrix. Collagen, which consists of three amino acids (proline, glycine and hydroxyproline), enables your skin cells to function optimally, which helps strengthen your scalp and create the best environment for your hair follicles. Proline (found in collagen) is one of the main components in keratin, which strengthens hair and enhances its appearance.
Collagen can also fight damage to hair follicles from free radicals brought about by stress, pollutants, and environmental contaminants. These compounds damage the hair follicles, but collagen can provide the antioxidants to fight free radicals.
Collagen can also reverse age-related hair thinning. The body tends to produce less collagen as we age, but supplementing collagen production with copper can prevent hair thinning and reverse these effects.
Elastin is another major skin protein. Copper gluconate can aid the synthesis of elastin. Hair follicles depend on elastin fibers to function correctly. The hair follicles are in the reticular dermis, a layer near the bottom of the skin surrounded by a net-like structure of elastin and collagen fibers, which support the skin's structure and elasticity.
Stimulating Hair Growth
One of copper's most significant benefits for your hair is its ability to stimulate hair growth. Copper deficiencies can cause several problems for your skin and hair. Hair loss and pigmentary changes are both examples of clinical manifestations of trace element deficiencies. Using copper gluconate can potentially reverse these effects and stimulate hair growth.
Reducing Hair Graying from Copper Deficiency
Since copper plays a role in melanin formation, low copper levels can cause prematurely graying hair. This link between copper and hair graying suggests that copper gluconate could help reduce hair graying caused by a copper deficiency.
Helping to Maintain the Structure of the Hair Shaft
Copper is significant in maintaining the structure of the hair shaft. Research suggests that the presence of copper in the hair follicle may influence the formation of the hair fiber shaft. As a result, a topical copper gluconate serum should indirectly promote hair shaft strength and structure.
Copper deficiencies may lead to hair becoming too thin or brittle, so Divi's Scalp Serum coats each hair follicle in nourishing copper gluconate and other clean ingredients to keep hair strong and supple and prevent breakage.
Increasing the Size of Hair Follicles
Topical application of copper gluconate to hair follicles stimulates copper peptide bond formation. Copper peptides produce several health benefits for scalp and hair health, including follicular enlargement. A 2007 study shows that a copper peptide can also promote the growth of human hair follicles. Your hair follicle size can impact the fullness and thickness of your hair.
How Divi's Scalp Serum with Copper Gluconate Improves Hair Loss
Divi's Scalp Serum helps with hair growth by combining ingredients proven by scientific studies to help treat hair loss and grow healthier hair. From copper gluconate's benefits for treating hair loss to other ingredients like revitalizing caffeine and moisturizing glycerin, our Scalp Serum improves hair structure and color. It prevents hair loss due to male pattern baldness, aging, or hormonal changes.
Divi’s Scalp Serum prevents hair loss and improves hair health by:
- Stimulating blood flow to the scalp
- Inhibiting follicle death to retain hair
- Enhancing hair strength and shine
- Increasing the size of hair follicles to make hair thicker
- Keeping hair feeling smooth and silky
In addition to copper gluconate benefits for treating hair loss, Divi's Scalp Serum includes other ingredients to boost scalp health, including caffeine, tea tree oil, rosemary leaf extract, peppermint oil and more. Our clean, vegan-friendly ingredients — including a range of botanical extracts, amino acids, peptides and vitamins — work together to provide a nourishing scalp care product that boosts hair health and promotes thick, healthy hair growth.
Side Effects of Copper Gluconate
The ingredients in our Scalp Serum meet the recommended daily intake requirements for topical application, and our formula is dermatologist-tested. A clinical study found that Divi's Scalp Serum caused no adverse effects in any participants.
Healthy Hair with Divi's Scalp Serum
Copper gluconate is a safe and effective water-soluble substance that's a valuable tool in maintaining the structure and formation of the hair shaft. It's an important ingredient in our science-backed, topical Scalp Serum formula. Copper gluconate has the potential to help combat hair loss by improving hair structure and elasticity and nourishing the scalp.
Apply a ¾ drop of Serum to your scalp, then massage it in and allow the product to soak into your hair follicles (no need to rinse). One application per day (either in the morning or at night) is enough to help improve your hair health, and one bottle will last a full 30 days.
Divi's Scalp Serum smells wonderful, soothes the scalp, and clears scalp buildup. Try it today for a refreshing boost to your scalp and hair health, and see the difference!