Benefits of Spearmint Tea for Hormone Balance & Reducing Chin Hair

Any other women out there who deal with those pesky, thick chin hairs that pop up from time to time? In order to reduce the amount of excessive hair that grows on your chin/body (and increase the amount of luscious hair that grows from your actual head), you may need to work on balancing your hormones – specifically testosterone.

I’ll talk about this more in depth when I start working on my PCOS series (because spearmint tea is an excellent herbal tool), but the basic issue that chin hair and PCOS often have in common is the presence of excess androgens (testosterone and other “male” hormones). A higher than normal amount of these hormones in women can lead to hirsutism (chin, face, chest and/or back hair), ovarian cysts, acne (especially chin/cystic), and head-hair loss.

This is part of the reason why dairy is so bad for those with hormonal acne: dairy contains something called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) which means it has insulin-like activity. Too much insulin can prompt our ovaries to produce too much testosterone in the first place… so removing dairy alone can get to the root cause and give you some great relief! The more insulin (or IGF-1) you have, the more likely you are to develop hirsutism <1>. IGF-1 is also strongly linked to acne <2>.

Luckily, something as simple as spearmint tea can help combat body/chin hair and help balance your hormone levels. A 2010 study found that women with PCOS who drank 2 cups of spearmint tea per day for 1 month showed much lower testosterone levels than the control group. The study concluded that spearmint tea is a helpful natural treatment for hirsutism in PCOS <3>.

Spearmint essential oil (which is released into the tea as you brew it) has potent anti-fungal properties according to a 2011 study <4>. On top of this, spearmint and rosemary extracts have been found to improve memory and act as antioxidants in the brain <5>.

(This is why rosemary is in my Brain Juice formula!)

2 cups per day is the dosage found effective in the literature. I drink the organic tea bags by Traditional Medicinals 2-3 times per week and find that it does help with the frequency and thickness of my chin hair, plus it doesn’t hurt that it tastes so good.

References:
<1> PMID: 18722607
<2> PMID: 22870349
<3> PMID: 19585478
<4> http://www.ipcbee.com/vol15/10-U00041.pdf
<5> http://www.slu.edu/rel-news-spearmint-1112