Does Spearmint Oil Stop Hair Growth? Everything You Need to Know

While Excessive hair growth caused by hormones, genetics, and drugs can be dealt with through temporary hair removal methods like waxing, shaving, and threading, you need more than that to manage hirsutism.

Recently, spearmint oil has been the talk of the town and a popular TikTok remedy to reduce unwanted facial hair growth significantly. Therefore, women often wonder “Does spearmint oil stop hair growth” before using it on the face and other areas with excess hair. 

So, did you also find your way here while wondering the same? Or are you looking forward to another method to help you eliminate unwanted facial hair?

Well, in any case, we have got you covered as we will talk about spearmint oil, its uses, its benefits for unwanted hair, its alternatives, and much more in this article. 

Table of Contents:

• Part 1: What is Spearmint Oil and Its Benefits?
• Part 2: Spearmint Oil for Facial Hair
• Part 3: Does Spearmint Oil Stop Facial Hair Growth?
• Part 4: Spearmint Oil Vs. Peppermint Oil
• Part 5: Spearmint Oil Alternative

Part 1: What is Spearmint Oil and Its Benefits?

Spearmint is a member of the mint family of herbs that resembles mint in appearance. It is fragrant, tasteful, and beneficial for health. It can be used as it is, to make tea, or in the form of oil. While spearmint itself has many applications, we will only discuss spearmint oil here. 

Spearmint Oil

Spearmint oil is an essential and concentrated oil extracted by distillation of the spearmint plant’s roots, shoots, and leaves. Depending upon the type of spearmint used and the process involved, the oil varies in color from clear to olive green. 

Benefits of Spearmint Oil 

The benefits of spearmint oil from every organ of your body are given as, 

1. Balances Hormones and Reduces Excess Hair

The topmost reason why women use spearmint oil is to balance their hormones, especially in conditions such as PCOS. Here is a little table showing its effects on different hormones. 

Consequently, hirsutism in women is reduced as increased levels of the male hormone testosterone are the culprit behind it. 

2. Plays a Role in Fighting Oxidative Damage

If we talk about the composition of spearmint oil, it contains a high level of 

• Vitamin C
• Flavones
• Flavonols
• Rosmarinic acid. 

As most of these components are anti-oxidants, they protect the body against oxidative damage caused by free radicals. 

Thus, it helps in the maintenance of health and preventing cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and lifestyle disorders. 

3. Good for Gut Health

The use of mint or spearmint in our everyday lives helps make your gut healthy by,

• Stimulating digestion
• Relaxing abdominal muscle
• Treating nausea and vomiting
• Managing irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, and indigestion. 

The carvone compounds of spearmint are mainly involved in enhancing your gut health.

4. Helps in the Management of Diabetes

Spearmint can be used in the management of diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes. This is because spearmint oil reduces,

• Body weight
• Cholesterol
• Blood sugar. 

Additionally, phenols present in spearmint oil work as antioxidants to fight free radicals produced due to increased blood sugar. 

Also, remember that most of these effects of spearmint are shown in animal studies and its effects on humans are yet to be found. 

5. Relieves Muscle Pain, Headache, and Cramps

Spearmint oil relaxes the muscles and in this way, it helps relieve muscle pain and cramps. Additionally, it can reduce the intensity of headaches by calming your mind.

Note that, these benefits are mainly associated with peppermint oil and spearmint oil, being part of the same family has mild effects in alleviating pain.  

6. Useful for Patients of Arthritis 

Arthritis is associated with joint pain, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Rosmarinic acid present in spearmint essential oil and spearmint tea can deal with all of the joint issues caused by arthritis, specifically pain.

Furthermore, it has shown effective results in the treatment of patients with arthritis. 

7. Improves Mental Health 

Spearmint oil helps in improving mental health by,

• Reducing anxiety, and stress
• Enhancing memory cells
• Stimulating peaceful sleep

It does so by boosting the effects of GABA neurotransmitters. Therefore, you can enjoy better mental health and functions if you use spearmint oil. 

8. Helps in the Treatment of Lifestyle Diseases 

In addition to diabetes, spearmint oil reduces blood pressure as well. The carvones in spearmint relax the blood vessels and reduce contractions in them. As a result, blood flow increases while blood pressure is reduced. 

9. Can be Used Against Microbes 

Spearmint oil has antimicrobial properties. Its use in meal prep reduces the incidence of diseases caused by bacterial infestation of food. Such diseases include E.Coli and Listeria infections. 

Additionally, its topical application helps in the treatment of fungal infections like Athlete’s foot.

Part 2: Spearmint Oil for Facial Hair

Spearmint oil has recently gained popularity as a natural remedy against excessive hair growth. Being an essential oil, using it directly on the skin might cause skin irritation and sensitivity.

Therefore, the trick is to mix a few drops of spearmint oil with a moisturizer and massage it into the skin with unwanted hair. 

Spearmint oil increases the level of female hormones, decreases the level of male hormones, and has antiandrogenic effects. As a result, it reduces facial hair growth. 

Its effects on animals have been determined scientifically in a study published in PubMed [1].  Similarly, a clinical trial took place in women in Turkey to find out if spearmint oil can help hirsutism in humans.

According to this research, the finding has been encouraging [2].  

Part 3: Does Spearmint Oil Stop Facial Hair Growth?

If we talk about stopping facial hair growth entirely, spearmint oil cannot do that. However, if we talk about reducing facial hair growth, spearmint oil is definitely effective as determined by a few clinical trials and research. 

There needs to be more research to confirm its effects on facial hair growth. Also, its efficiency in reducing facial hair differs from person to person. So, you will need additional methods to manage hirsutism in addition to spearmint oil.

Part 4: Spearmint Oil Vs. Peppermint Oil

As people confuse spearmint oil with peppermint oil, here are the comparisons between both. 

Specie

Both spearmint and peppermint belong to “the mint or Lamiaceae family”. Spearmint or mentha spicata is garden mint while peppermint is produced as a result of the reproduction of spearmint with watermint. 

Composition 

Both oils are rich in antioxidants. However, the content of menthol and menthone is higher in peppermint oil while the content of carvone and limonene is higher in spearmint oil.

Properties 

Because of the chemical properties of spearmint and peppermint, the scent and flavor of peppermint are stronger than compared of spearmint. 

Benefits and Uses

Let us compare the benefits and uses of both with the help of a table.

Role in Facial Hair Reduction and Hair Growth

As you can see from the table above, spearmint oil plays an important role in reducing unwanted hair growth. On the other hand, peppermint has a subtle to no effect in treating hirsutism. 

Therefore, the anti-androgenic and hormone-balancing properties of spearmint make it highly efficient in the management of PCOS and hirsutism. 

Which One to Choose?

Spearmint essential oil can serve you better if you want to get rid of unwanted facial hair with natural remedies as it has clinically proven anti-androgenic effects. 

In contrast, peppermint essential oil seems like a better option if you want to make your cuisine more flavourful and healthy. Also, it has more benefits for pain in different areas of the body. 

Part 5: Spearmint Oil Alternative

As spearmint oil alone is not enough to get rid of unwanted facial or body hair, you should use a hair removal method that can give you long-lasting results without any pain or skin damage. 

In such cases, the Ulike Air 10 IPL Laser Device brings you the most advanced and revolutionary IPL hair removal technology with,

• Dual lights, a wide treatment window
• Next-generation ice-cooling technology
• Quick 10-minutes treatments  
• Results lasting for 6 months
• Complete hair removal kit

Therefore, we recommend you use it in addition to spearmint oil. In this way, you can manage both the cause and effect of hirsutism. Here the cause is hormonal imbalance and the effect is strong hair follicles. 

Conclusion 

Spearmint oil has a high content of carvones, limonene, rosmarinic acid, and flavones. These antioxidants and phenol compounds help in the treatment of hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, gut disorders, and more.

However, its role in managing hormonal imbalance and thus reducing facial hair growth is worth appreciation. Therefore, we put a light on the way spearmint oil can reduce unwanted hair growth in this article. 

Additionally, ensure that you use spearmint oil and not peppermint oil for facial hair as peppermint oil shows effects on reducing unwanted hair. Lastly, you can boost the effects of spearmint oil by using IPL hair removal devices. 

References 

1. Role of Essential Oil of Mentha Spicata (Spearmint) in Addressing Reverse Hormonal and Folliculogenesis Disturbances in a Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in a Rat Model. Mahmood Sadeghi Ataabadi, Sanaz Alaee, Mohammad Jafar Bagheri, and Soghra Bahmanpoor. Adv Pharm Bull. 2017 Dec; 7(4): 651–654. PubMed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5788221/

2. Spearmint herbal tea has significant anti-androgen effects in polycystic ovarian syndrome. A randomized controlled trial. Paul Grant. Phytother Res. 2010 Feb;24(2):186-8. doi: 10.1002. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19585478/