History Main / NeverTrustAHairTonic

* 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'' 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''.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' 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.

* In the gag manga ''UrayasuTekkinKazoku'', 43-year-old Daitetsu Osawagi has a bald spot and fearing of becoming completely bald like his father. A RunningGag had him losing hair by force, such as laying unconscious on an escalator and pulling off a glued wig. Chapter 51 in the ''Ganso'' series showed him losing faith in his hair tonic dumping every bottle in his hair-clogged sink. The tonics cause hair in the sink to grow out of control and start to consume Daitetsu and the house.

* In the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes short ''WesternAnimation/{{Rabbit of Seville}}'' 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.

* One ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' arc featured a compound made from cat sweat, originally intended as an underarm deodorant, which caused massive hair growth wherever it was applied. Its [[MadScientist creator]] immediately turned it into a hair tonic instead. Sales were ridiculously, dangerously good for a while... and then customers' hair started falling out. As in, all at once, poof-gone-you're-a-bowling-ball. And it makes you start saying "ACK!", presumably because it was made from Bill the Cat's sweat.

** An issue of the comic book adaptation of ''WesternAnimation/ArchiesWeirdMysteries'' has it that [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti bigfoots]] converts humans into more of them by convincing them to use an ointment that makes their hair grow before transforming them fully. The full substance compels them to both keep using it and convince others to use it.

* 'WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' uses this trope twice.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' 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. Hasn't minoxodil (of which dimoxonil was obviously a parody) become a lot cheaper than it was in 1990? Homer could probably afford it now! There's also the affordable tonic the doctor offers Homer because he cant afford the 1000$ dimoxonil, which the doctor even states that any hair growth Homer would experience while using it would be purely coincidental.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' used this trope twice. 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.

* In an ''Franchise/ArchieComics'' comic, Professor Flutesnoot invents a hair tonic which apparently does a great job growing one's hair back. Though he stresses that he's still testing it, Mr. Weatherbee insists on secretly using it on himself. By the end of the comic, it's revealed that the tonic makes one grow a freakish amount of hair, with pouring water on it being the only way to stop the process.

* In ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' Anne is vexed by her red hair. One day she buys a Tonic/Dye from the Tinker to turn her hair raven black. Instead it turns her hair green, and she has to shave her head.

** There's also [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3802 "hare growth by dado,"]] made by an... [[LiteralMinded interesting]] pharmacologist at the request of a parent who's daughter lost her hair to chemotherapy. It actually does [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what the name says it does]], but that typo isn't there by accident (and [[BodyHorror God help you if you're not a child]]).

** There's also [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3802 "hare growth by dado,"]] made by an... [[LiteralMinded "interesting"]] pharmacologist at the request of a parent who's daughter lost her hair to chemotherapy. It actually does [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what the name says it does]], but that typo isn't there by accident (and [[BodyHorror God help you if you're not a child]]).

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' had a [[http://oi56.tinypic.com/eb91rl.jpg hair tonic]] which caused its users to be "completely torn apart from the inside by torrential amounts of internal hair growth"

* Similarly, some hair-voodoo worked by Dr. Facilier in ''Disney/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.

** A variant in ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'' with the character "Snowy" Slopes (who's not an assassin; [[DistinctionWithoutADifference he just kills people for money]]) and his terrible dandruff, which he resorts to various forms of AllNaturalSnakeOil to cure and ends up being identified as a suspect because of them. None of them ever worked.

It seems that a man's greatest fear is losing his virility...er, hair, and once it's gone, it's gone for good. Which is why a bald character is bound to try using some kind of product that promises to grow back their hair. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin This product never works]]. Or rather, it usually works too well, with way [[RapidHairGrowth more hair sprouting than necessary]], and often in places that it wasn't wanted. Other side effects may occur as well, including, but not limited to, the hair turning an unnatural color or what little hair was left falling out completely.

It seems that a man's greatest fear is losing his hair, and once it's gone, it's gone for good. Which is why a bald character is bound to try using some kind of product that promises to grow back their hair. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin This product never works]]. Or rather, it usually works too well, with way [[RapidHairGrowth more hair sprouting than necessary]], and often in places that it wasn't wanted. Other side effects may occur as well, including, but not limited to, the hair turning an unnatural color or what little hair was left falling out completely.

* In a fake ad that is interrupted by the Energizer Bunny (the actual product being advertised), a man hawks a hair tonic that's way too ''effective'': it causes hair to sprout not just on his head, but also on his back when the excess spills and even on the concrete pool surface when the Bunny knocks the bottle over.

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* Used for {{squick}} factor when Disco Bear from ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' dunks his head in hair tonic after burning his afro. His hair grows back... but in his eyes. Cue EyeScream when he cuts his eyes off with a razor as he tries to remove the hair from his eyes. He slips on a bottle of hair tonic and falls to the tub of hair tonic and grows more hair.
** And not just Disco Bear, Cuddles coughs out his hairy organs before choking to death after mistakenly drinking a bottle of the formula that fell into his soda cooler and a bottle bursts open on Flaky while driving, causing her spines to impale her passenger, Handy.
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* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]], Mr. Halpen, head of Ood Operations, is constantly drinking hair tonic given to him by his personal Ood servant, Ood Sigma. [[spoiler:It's actually Ood graft which eventually [[KarmicTransformation transforms him]] into the very species he had been enslaving.]]

TruthInTelevision: most over the counter baldness remedies ''don't work or don't work well,'' especially when used once the condition is sufficiently advanced. Prescription systemic treatments are somewhat more likely to work (though they also come with bad side effects for men -- namely, they work by reducing testosterone and/or its effects on the body in most cases). The gold standard of baldness treatment is hair transplant with ongoing maintenance, as it is the most likely to actually be worth the money spent on it with the least systemic side effects.

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* An episode of ''Series/DoctorWho'' called "Planet of the Ood" has a similar situation. Ood Sigma constantly hands his boss, the villain of the episode, a drink which he claims is hair tonic. It turns out to be [[spoiler:ood-graft which eventually transforms him into an Ood.]]
* ''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.

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'': George Costanza's Chinese baldness cure. We never find out whether or not it actually works, because it smells horrible and [[ItMakesSenseInContext he recently developed a crush on Elaine]], so he rushes to wipe it off whenever she comes around.

* In a DreamSequence on ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'' Rob's hair turned into lettuce, because he was given a baldness preventative[[note]]as opposed to cure -- he had hair, he was just worried about losing it[[/note]] that was basically oil and vinegar -- aka salad dressing.

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* One ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' arc featured a compound made from cat sweat, originally intended as an underarm deodorant, which caused massive hair growth wherever it was applied. Its [[MadScientist creator]] immediately turned it into a hair tonic instead. Sales were ridiculously, dangerously good for a while... and then customers' hair started falling out. As in, all at once, poof-gone-you're-a-bowling-ball. And it makes you start saying "ACK!", presumably because it was made from Bill the Cat's sweat.
* It's happened a few time in ''ComicStrip/{{Curtis}}'', often thanks to the titular character's misuse of a Flyspeck Island substance.
* ''ComicStrip/DreamOfTheRarebitFiend'': [[http://www.comicstriplibrary.org/display/912 A balding man has a dream]] where he's using a hair tonic to restore hair to his shiny dome. It winds up working too well, and the now extremely hairy man becomes a sideshow attraction.

[[folder:Theater]]
* Pirelli's Miracle Elixir from ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'', which turned out to be, in Sweeney's words, "an arrant fraud, concocted of piss and ink."
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* ''Gasp'': In "Hair of the Fish", Gasp buys a Peruvian hair tonic online in an attempt to cure the bald patch he accidentally created on Catflap. After he is doused in the tonic, Gasp ends up growing hair all over his body. Gasp, it should be pointed out, is a fish.

* ''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.

* ''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 transfer it 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.

* 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 the whole box to regrow Krumm's armpit hair, which ends up growing longer to a point where it is now grown all over the dump.

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--> '''Dee Dee''': I ''did'' use one drop, just... a very big drop...

* Similarly, some hair-voodoo worked by Dr. Facilier in ''Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' initially grants a man a full head of hair, but it quickly spreads to the rest of his body. In this case, its not a potion but a magical powder Facilier blows in his face.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'', King Neptune tries to use some hair tonic, but accidentally it gets into his eye. So his eyeballs grow hair.