History Main / NeverTrustAHairTonic

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'', King Neptune tries to use some hair tonic, but accidentally it gets into his eye. [[EyeScream So his eyeballs grow hair]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' story "Nose No Bounds" (Cartoon Network Block Party #41) has Grim letting Billy use some otherworldly hair tonic. He inhales it, and it causes his nose hairs to grow and gain sentient life.

For similar forms of hair-related hilarity, see MyHairCameOutGreen and occassionally KaleidoscopeHair. See also AllNaturalSnakeOil for the same principle applied to more serious ailments, not usually played for laughs.

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' had a [[http://scpclassic.wikidot.com/scp-491 hair tonic]] which caused its users to be "completely torn apart from the inside by torrential amounts of internal hair growth."

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E20ItIsntTheManeThingAboutYou It Isn't the Mane Thing About You]]", when Rarity loses most of her mane in an accident involving misuse of a powerful magical cleaning product and tries to grow it back, it turns out that hair magic is ridiculously hard to use. When Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer (two of the setting's most powerful magic-users) try to use magic to restore Rarity's hair, the first spell they try takes the hair from another pony and transfers it to Rarity (before said hair simply shatters), the second creates wooden hair from a chunk of a door, and the third causes RapunzelHair to appear on the castle's walls.

* Crocodile tears in the book ''Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure'' by Bill Peet. The zebra notes that crocodile tears might help Hubert regrow his mane. Getting them proves enough of a problem...and then the tears cause the mane to grow so long so fast that it winds around Hubert and the other animals. They have to call a baboon with some shears to cut them loose.

* Crocodile tears in the book ''Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure'' by Bill Peet.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' has Billy purchase a hair growth product because he wants to have a beard. Nothing happens at first so Grim uses his scythe to supercharge the product. Unfortunately, not only does he overuse the potion on himself, he ''[[WhatAnIdiot drinks it]]'' as well! He soon grows a large beard, which turns into a Bigfoot pelt. Billy is fine with this... [[BodyHorror until he grows hair on his tongue as well]].

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' has Billy use a magical potion in an attempt to grow a beard. Unfortunately, not only does he overuse the potion on himself, he ''[[WhatAnIdiot drinks it]]'' as well! He soon grows a large beard, which turns into a Bigfoot pelt. Billy is fine with this... [[BodyHorror until he grows hair on his tongue as well]].

* Similarly, some hair-voodoo worked by Dr. Facilier in ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' initially grants a man a full head of hair, but it quickly spreads to the rest of his body. In this case, it's not a potion but a magical powder Facilier blows in his face.

* ''Series/TheTwoRonnies'' did a skit at an inventors' conferrence, one of the inventors had created a hair tonic with two problems. First it makes the hair grow pink and second is that it falls out if the drinker has a shock.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' has a female variation, when short-haired Ako thinks she should grow her hair out to be more attractive. A (not so) helpful denizen of the magic world promptly gives her a magic hair-growth potion, which works perfectly for all of a minute before the hair begins to engulf her.
* An early ''Manga/InuYasha'' story has two demon brothers kidnap Kagome. She thinks they simply want to eat her, but it turns out one of them is severely balding and embarrassed about it, and he has heard you can get a hair growth potion by ''boiling down a human maiden''. At hearing this, Kagome angrily insists they eat her instead. (Not 100% really this trope, since we never learn whether the potion works -- but the kidnapping does lead to the demon losing his last few hairs -- before he is killed.)

* A WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck comics story "Black Wednesday", written by Creator/CarlBarks, features Uncle Scrooge selling hair tonic to the "Chillyboot Indians", which actually causes baldness. Donald later returns with a hair tonic made by Gyro Gearloose; that one works too well.

* In an ''ComicBook/AchilleTalon'' comic strip, Achille tries multiple ways to cure his baldness, all of which turn out to be ineffective. His last attempt is a hair tonic that is revealed to work very well -- too bad he accidentally falls into it, covering him of hair everywhere ''except'' on his scalp.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy" story "Nose No Bounds" (Cartoon Network Block Party #41) has Grim letting Billy use some otherworldly hair tonic. He inhales it, and it causes his nose hairs to grow and gain sentient life.
* An issue of Bart Simpson's solo comic had him stealing a powerful hair growth formula from Professor Frink to prank everyone with. This is after finding out that he's genetically immune to its effects, which he exploits both to handle it without protective gear and as part of the delivery mechanism.

* In ''Film/PetesDragon1977'', when [[SnakeOilSalesman Dr. Terminus]] comes to town, the townspeople confront him about his various medicines that didn't work the last time he was there, including one man whose hair turned from gray to pink, thanks to the doctor.
* In the Canadian family film ''Film/ThePeanutButterSolution'', a boy loses his hair after seeing ghosts, then grows it back with the titular solution. It works only too well. Unfortunately, he used too much peanut butter making it, so it won't stop!
* In ''Film/TheNakedGun 33 1/3'', there's a flashback with the detectives in what's supposed to be the 1970s. Drebin has long hair, and when Nordberg appears, he has an Afro so huge he can't fit through the door. After the movie returns to the present, Ed says to Nordberg, "I do remember! You were one of the first cases for minoxidil." [[note]]Minoxidil is probably best known to the general public under the name Rogaine.

[[/note]]

* Crocodile tears in the book ''Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure'' by Bill Peet.
* The title character in ''The Witch's Son'' by Vivian Van Velde goes through several variations on regrowing a girl's golden hair, [[HilarityEnsues none of which work.]]

* In ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', one of the works-in-progress in the Inventing Room is Hair Toffee, which gives its eater a full head of hair plus a mustache and beard, a half hour after it's consumed. It's still a work in progress because currently it's too powerful -- when an Oompa-Loompa tested it, "In the end we had to use a lawn mower to keep it [the hair] in check!" according to Willy Wonka. Also, it apparently has the same effect on men ''and'' women, and even works on children -- which is his intention, in order that "there'll be no excuse any more for little boys and girls going about with bald heads!"

* Hazmat of the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' is cueball-bald due to his failed hair tonic. Aquerna arranges for Phase to look at it and plans are put into place to sell it as a hair-removal application for women.

* In the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes short ''WesternAnimation/RabbitOfSeville'' Bugs Bunny rubs and sprinkles a number of tonics (including fertilizer) on Elmer Fudd's scalp, only for flowers to sprout from his head instead of hair. On the other hand, the hair tonic he used earlier in the same short to grow him a beard worked perfectly.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' uses this trope twice.
** In the episode "Simpson and Delilah", "dimoxonil" actually ''does'' grow hair on Homer's head, but the SnapBack to baldness comes because Bart spills Homer's bottle[[note]]splashing it on his face in hopes of growing a beard[[/note]] and he can't afford any more (mainly because the dimoxonil cost Homer 1000 dollars, which he could only afford by [[InsuranceFraud lying about his medical insurance]]). There's also the affordable tonic the doctor offers Homer because he can't afford the 1000$ dimoxonil, which the doctor even states that any hair growth Homer would experience while using it would be purely coincidental.
** At the end of the episode "Barting Over" Homer acts in a commercial for Viagra-gaine, a drug that "gives you hair and what you need down there" and has side effects including loss of scalp and penis.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MotherGooseAndGrimm'' cartoon had a hair tonic which could grow hair on billiard balls, as advertised...but it couldn't grow hair on anything else.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', Dexter makes a hair tonic for Dee Dee after she accidentally cuts off one of her pigtails. Despite repeated warnings to use only one drop, Dee Dee uses the entire bottle. Three guesses what happens next.
--> '''Dee Dee''': I ''did'' use one drop, just... [[ExactWords a very big drop]]...

* Gargamel and Brainy learned this lesson the hard way in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episode "Symbols of Wisdom" when they both try to grow their own beards, since it caused their beards to grow so long. Also, Papa Smurf had Hogatha's hair spell in "Smurfette's Golden Tresses" purposely altered by giving her bear fur dyed in the color of Smurfette's hair, which caused the hair to grow so long on Hogatha's head that it covered her face and immobilized her.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' has a female example in "Bad Hair Day", when Candace uses a machine her brothers built for her in order to fix her hair after a botched attempt to cut it herself. Of course, she can't wait the designated time and decides to [[OvenLogic turn 30 mins into 10 seconds by cranking up the power level]]. Cue Candace getting covered in hair and being mistaken for a tangerine orangutan.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters'', a prank gone wrong causes Krumm to lose his armpit hair, and Ickis, looking to help out his buddy, comes across some Super Grow Hair Tonic (thrown out in the dump by a scientist who thought the tonic was useless since he didn't grow hair on his bald head the second he rubbed the tonic on it) and uses eleven bottles of the chemicals to regrow Krumm's armpit hair, which ends up growing longer to a point where it is now grown all over the dump.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/HiHiPuffyAmiYumi'' had Kaz ordering a hair tonic to overcome his male pattern baldness, and it ends up frequently turning him into a werewolf who terrorizes the girls' cats. The cats later take the tonic themselves to use it against Kaz, and when Yumi finds the smashed tonic bottle she points out these kinds of products usually have side effects; in this case, Kaz and the cats have all of the hair on their bodies fall off.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' has Billy use a magical potion in an attempt to grow a beard. Unfortunately, not only does he overuse the potion on himself, he ''[[WhatAnIdiot drinks it]]'' as well! He soon grows a large beard, which turns into a Bigfoot pelt. Billy is fine with this... [[BodyHorror until he grows hair on his tongue as well]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Grojband}}'': In "Hair Today, Kon Tomorrow", Kon uses a hair tonic (intended for dogs) that causes him to become completely covered in hair. A blow to the head then gives him DelusionsOfDoghood.
* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "Bald Spot" depicts this straight. Muscle Man purchases a hair tonic that supposedly hides his bald spot, [[spoiler: which is later revealed to be an accidental haircut near the end]], only for said substance to leak off of it.

* ''WesternAnimation/GetBlake'': In "Get Hairy!", Blake and Mitch use an experimental hair growth formula invented by Mitch's dad to grow moustaches so they can get in to a see a scary movie. The next morning, they try to shave off the moustaches only to discover that Mitch had not read the label and it was actually a 'Never-Ending Hair Growth Formula'. Their entire bodies end up covered in hair, causing them to be mistaken for sasquatches.

* A running gag subplot in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'' involved their balding boss Jerry experimenting with hair growth potions. They work in making hair grow but fail in making it grow ''anywhere'' but the top of his head where he wants it. At one point he excuses being late because one variation sprouted long locks on his ''feet''.