A look back at the year that tightened the rules on cosmetic procedures, sharpened the warnings on finasteride and set out when to offer JAK inhibitors for alopecia areata.
From the editors
This edition looks back at 2025. Trichozette did not exist that year, and neither did Trichollective: our story begins with a conference at Whittlebury Hall in January 2026. But almost everything our members discussed in that first room had its roots in the twelve months before it, so we have gone back to see what really changed.
It is part of a retrospective series, Four years in review, published together in September 2026. Each year has four editions: this overview, and one each for the cosmetic, clinical and medical fields. Every factual claim is drawn from a regulator, a professional body, a journal or a reputable publication, and the sources are listed at the end.
2025 was a year in which the rules caught up with practice. Governments in England and Scotland set out how non-surgical cosmetic procedures would be regulated. Europe's medicines regulator confirmed a psychiatric side effect of finasteride. The British Association of Dermatologists updated its living guideline on alopecia areata. A French safety agency warned about an ingredient in hair straighteners, and the European Union banned a common gel-nail chemical.
None of these developments belongs to one discipline alone. A client who asks a stylist about a straightening treatment, a trichologist about shedding, or a GP about a hair-loss tablet deserves an answer that reflects what changed. We hope this volume helps, and that the quizzes at the back test you properly.
The Trichollective editorial team
The year in brief
Across the salon, the clinic and the consulting room, 2025 was defined less by new treatments than by clearer rules about who may do what, and with what warnings.
Photograph Good Faces / Unsplash
Words by the Trichollective editorial team
If you had to summarise 2025 for hair and scalp professionals in one sentence, it would be this: regulators spent the year drawing lines. Some lines were about who may carry out a procedure, some about what a product may contain, and some about what a patient must be told before taking a medicine.
On 6 August 2025 the UK Government set out its plans for England. The highest-risk non-surgical procedures, such as the non-surgical Brazilian butt lift, would be restricted to qualified healthcare professionals working for providers registered with the Care Quality Commission. Botulinum toxin, lip fillers and facial dermal fillers would come under a local authority licensing system, with practitioners required to meet safety, training and insurance standards. The Government also planned restrictions on high-risk procedures for under-18s and promised a public consultation in early 2026.
Scotland moved in the same direction. On 9 October 2025 the Scottish Government introduced the Non-surgical Procedures and Functions of Medical Reviewers (Scotland) Bill, creating offences for providing such procedures outside premises where appropriate healthcare professionals are available, or to anyone under 18.
On 8 May 2025 the European Medicines Agency's safety committee confirmed suicidal thoughts as a side effect of finasteride tablets, with frequency unknown, and asked for a patient card in packs of the lower-strength tablet used for hair loss. It concluded that the benefits still outweigh the risks for approved uses. In the UK, patient cards had already been introduced in 2024.
“Regulators spent the year drawing lines: who may carry out a procedure, what a product may contain, and what a patient must be told.
For alopecia areata, the British Association of Dermatologists published its 2025 living guideline online on 14 November. It strongly recommends offering licensed oral JAK inhibitors to adults and to young people aged 12 and over with severe disease, and asks clinicians to discuss the medicines regulator's safety warnings with patients who are older or have relevant risk factors.
Trichology remained outside statutory regulation in the UK and Ireland. The Institute of Trichologists, whose register is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, held the World Congress of Trichology at the Royal College of Physicians in London on 28 and 29 September. The NHBF's 2025 statistics described a hair, barbering and beauty sector of about 50,400 registered businesses, most of them very small.
Sources
Every fact in this edition, and where it came from.
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Next · 2025 · Cosmetic
Cosmetic, 2025
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