BIOTIN AND VITAMIN B5 FOR BEAUTIFUL HAIR AND SKIN

Hi, I hope you’ve been doing awesome. I wanted to write a quick beauty post to share a couple of my recent findings about my hair and skin, and what to do if biotin in your multivitamin or hair growth supplement is causing acne.

Recently, when I was looking into silver-colored hair extensions (yeah, I know, but I saw some on IG and they looked awesome), I found this informative article about hair growth. Along with some tips about scalp circulation and stress reduction, the article named vitamins B6, C, E, and biotin as some helpful supplements for growing healthier hair.

I have taken hair growth supplements in the past, such as Viviscal, which was comprised mainly of a proprietary marine-based amino acid complex. And I can honestly say Viviscal did seem to make my hair thicker–but my favorite part about it was that it cured my monthly hormonal acne. Seriously, every month about a week before my period I used to develop a volcano-sized zit (or two!) on my cheek or forehead. But after taking Viviscal for a few months, that all stopped happening. It was great. Eventually, I stopped taking Viviscal because it’s kind of expensive, and thankfully, my crazy monthly zits didn’t come back. But my thin and brittle hair did, so I started up on Viviscal again.

I discovered the makers of Viviscal changed the formulation by adding biotin. And I also discovered that biotin causes acne (at least for me it does!). I stopped taking the Viviscal and stuck with a women’s multivitamin instead (which contains 400 mcg of biotin per serving). But even the multivitamin started causing some really red, inflammatory, cystic-type acne.

I did some googling and some Internet researching and read a theory that excess biotin can cause vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) depletion. And when you’re vitamin B5-depleted or deficient, you can develop acne, breakouts, or rashes because you need B5 to regulate what’s happening on the surface of your skin. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, then taking a vitamin B5 supplement along with my multivitamin should solve the problem, right?

It did! As soon as I started taking a pantothenic acid tablet with my multivitamin, the acne flares stopped and my skin cleared up. Even stayed cleared throughout my cycle.

Hair feeling and looking good thanks to vitamins, freshly dyed roots, and a blowout. Tassel earrings / Layered necklace c/o Sugarfix by Baublebar

So if you’re finding that your hair supplement, women’s vitamin, or biotin tablet is causing breakouts, try taking some vitamin B5. It seems to be working for me! Hope this helps and thanks for reading!