Is Vitamin B5 Really Helpful for Hair Growth?

Whether you currently have issues with hair loss or you’re just trying to reduce the likelihood that you do in the future, it’s common for people to research how to manage hair growth and loss. As you start researching, however, you’ll quickly realize that there is a lot of information out there surrounding what supplements do and don’t help.

Is vitamin B5 a helpful supplement? Should you add it to your routine? What are the actual benefits of this vitamin, and how much supplementation is useful? Here, we’re breaking down what you should know about vitamin B5 and its impact on hair health.

What is vitamin B5?

Vitamin B5, which you’ll also probably see under the name “pantothenol” or “pantothenic acid,” is one of the eight B vitamins. As with other B vitamins, it helps convert the things you eat into energy. In addition, vitamin B5 strengthens and nourishes your hair follicles, which means that it can promote healthy hair growth while also reducing hair loss. When you take it as a supplement, it can help hydrate and smooth both skin and hair.

Signs of a vitamin B5 deficiency

Vitamin B5 deficiency is quite rare. Experts recommend 5mg/day of vitamin B5 for best results, but an active deficiency is exceptionally rare in humans because vitamin B5 is in almost all foods, albeit in very small amounts in some foods. If you have a vitamin B5 deficiency, it’s usually due to a genetic mutation or general malnutrition. However, vitamin B5 deficiency can result in the following symptoms:

  • Headache
  • Fatigue
  • Stomach cramps and other muscle cramps
  • Disturbed sleep and/or fatigue
  • Irritability and restlessness
  • Depression

How does vitamin B5 affect hair growth?

As with most of the B vitamins, vitamin B5 helps your body process all kinds of food, and it also helps your body ensure proper functioning of nearly every process in the body. Because vitamin B5 can be helpful for skin health, some scientists and dermatologists have considered whether it’s also helpful for hair health.

Most research on vitamin B5 has to do with topical applications, but it’s speculated that vitamin B5 supplementation could help in many of the same ways the topical applications do. In one 2021 study, scientists noted that the underlying mechanisms of vitamin B5 could be related to prevention of cellular aging and premature death. Another 2020 study, done in vitro on mink cells, suggested that there was an impact on specific cell proliferation expressions. There are also no established upper limits to supplementation, as there are no known reports of vitamin B5 toxicity in humans.

What foods can I eat that are high in vitamin B5 to support hair health?

Essentially every food has some amount of vitamin B5, as it’s one of the most widely-available vitamins in food. However, if you’re specifically looking to incorporate foods that are high in vitamin B5 into your diet, you may want to consider some of these foods:

  • Beef
  • Chicken breasts
  • Eggs
  • Mushrooms
  • Potatoes
  • Avocadoes
  • Brown rice
  • Legumes and nuts

Additionally, if you want to supplement with vitamin B5 as an addition to your dietary intake, you may want to consider the HAIRLOVE Growth Complex. On top of a number of other supplements, this growth complex multivitamin offers 5mg of vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) per two capsules. That’s 100% of your daily value, so you can rest assured that you’re getting enough vitamin B5 every day.

Other ways to encourage hair growth

There are many great ways to encourage hair growth, and supplementing with vitamin B5 is just one step. First of all, there are actually many different supplements that can encourage hair growth. You could add zinc, Cynatine HNS, and biotin, for example, to your daily routine.

Second, as an addition to your hair growth journey, you could also try treating your hair more luxuriously. Better haircare can develop into stronger, healthier hair. Try adding a luxury hair towel to your shower routine to minimize breakage and friction, using a scalp massager to exfoliate your scalp and improve circulation, or swapping out your current scrunchies for luxury silk scrunchies to reduce the amount of hair you lose to hair ties.

Get support on your hair growth journey

One of the best ways to start out your hair growth journey is to switch from multiple hair supplements in the morning to a single hair growth multivitamin, like the HAIRLOVE Growth Complex. In just two capsules, you’ll get vitamin C, vitamin E, biotin, vitamin B5, zinc, selenium, Cynatine HNS, and Bioperine. Take two capsules every morning with a glass of water to get the benefits from all of these supplements at once. 

While you almost certainly get vitamin B5 from all the foods you eat, it can still be a helpful nutrient to supplement with. Adding it to your daily routine is a great way to improve hair growth, shine, and strength.