Search "DHT hair loss" and you'll find page after page written for men. Norwood scales, receding hairlines, before-and-after photos of blokes in their twenties. Almost nothing written for a 52-year-old woman watching her parting widen.
That gap is unhelpful, because DHT plays a central role in female hair thinning too, particularly after 45. Here's the woman-first explanation that's oddly hard to find anywhere else.
What DHT actually is
DHT (dihydrotestosterone) is made when an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase converts testosterone. And yes, women have testosterone. In small amounts it's entirely normal and necessary: it contributes to bone density, muscle maintenance, libido and general wellbeing. Testosterone is not a male hormone that women shouldn't have. It's a hormone we all have in different quantities.
The trouble is specific to the scalp. Certain hair follicles carry androgen receptors that react badly to DHT. When DHT binds to them, the follicle shrinks slightly. Repeat that over years of growth cycles and the follicle produces progressively finer, shorter hairs until eventually some stop producing anything visible at all. That's miniaturisation, and it's the entire mechanism of hormonal hair thinning in both sexes.
Why DHT becomes a problem at menopause specifically
Here's the part almost nobody explains properly.
For most of your adult life, oestrogen acts as a counterweight to androgens like DHT. It keeps hair in its growing phase for longer and offsets the pressure DHT applies to sensitive follicles. The arrangement works, and you never think about it.
At menopause, your DHT levels don't necessarily rise. This is the bit that confuses women who get hormone panels back showing nothing dramatic. What changes is the balance. As oestrogen falls, the counterweight lifts, and DHT's relative influence on those sensitive follicles increases considerably. Same hormone, different environment, very different outcome.
Which is why so many women describe thinning that starts suspiciously close to their other menopausal symptoms, and why "but my testosterone is normal" doesn't rule it out.
The female pattern looks different
Men typically recede at the hairline and thin at the crown, in the recognisable pattern the Norwood scale describes.
Women more often experience diffuse thinning across the top of the scalp: density falls gradually and evenly rather than in dramatic bald patches. The most visible sign is a widening parting, sometimes described using the Ludwig scale, the female equivalent grading system. The frontal hairline is usually preserved.
That preserved hairline is a double-edged thing. It means female thinning is easier to disguise, which helps day to day. It also means it's easy to miss for years, and it means other people frequently don't believe you when you tell them. "Your hair looks fine to me" is well-meant and infuriating in equal measure, and it's a big part of why women often arrive at treatment later than men do.
The oiliness clue
DHT stimulates the sebaceous glands, so a scalp that has suddenly become far oilier than it used to be, at the same time as thinning, is a meaningful signal rather than a coincidence. Plenty of women report exactly this combination and assume they're dealing with two unrelated problems. They're usually dealing with one.
Can you lower DHT naturally?
Certain plant compounds have been studied for their ability to inhibit 5-alpha reductase, the enzyme that creates DHT in the first place. Two have meaningful human evidence behind them.
Saw palmetto. The best studied of the natural options. Research shows it can help reduce DHT levels by up to 30%. It's a partial, gentler inhibitor rather than a potent pharmaceutical blocker, and it's generally well tolerated. Studies have typically used oral doses in the region of 200 to 320mg daily. Crucially for women: it has been studied in mixed and female populations, which matters because the prescription DHT blocker finasteride is licensed for men only in the UK.
Pumpkin seed oil. Also studied for 5-alpha reductase activity. In a 24-week randomised, placebo-controlled trial (Cho et al., 2014), participants taking 400mg daily saw a 40% increase in mean hair count, against 10% for placebo.
Those two ingredients, at those research-matched doses, are exactly what's inside our Hair Growth Softgels: 300mg saw palmetto and 400mg pumpkin seed oil. One product, two ingredients, both working the same pathway from slightly different angles. There's no biotin, no collagen, no long list of extras at doses too low to do anything. Just the two things with the evidence, at the amounts the evidence used.
A note on prescription options
Some women are prescribed anti-androgen medication such as spironolactone by a GP or dermatologist, and for some it works well. If that's a route you're exploring, it's a proper medical conversation, and it's worth telling your prescriber about any supplement you're taking so they have the full picture. Nothing here replaces medical advice. It sits alongside it.
Equally, if you're on HRT, that's relevant: HRT's effect on hair varies depending on the formulation, and it's worth raising specifically with whoever prescribes it rather than assuming.
Important cautions
Saw palmetto has hormonal activity, which is precisely why it's useful and also why it warrants respect. Don't take it if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. Speak to your GP first if you're on HRT, hormonal medication, or blood thinners.
The takeaway
If your thinning began around perimenopause, sits at the parting and crown, preserves your hairline, and arrived alongside a scalp that's suddenly oilier than it's ever been, DHT is very likely a significant part of your story.
And that's genuinely useful information rather than a life sentence, because unlike your age or your genetics, DHT is the part of the equation you can actually do something about. The women who do best are the ones who identify the mechanism early and address it consistently, rather than spending two years working through shampoos that were never going to touch the cause.