So I was watching UFC this past Sunday and noticed a repetitive commercial about a shampoo. The commercial doesn't explicitly say that it will grow your hair back or even prevent male-pattern baldness, but it implies it a great deal.
The reason why they don't make the claim that it does work is because they are not allowed to, because it likely isn't true but is just another snake oil in a looooong line of salves whose existence preys on the insecurities that men (and to a lessor degree, women) feel when age takes hold and starts making your hair go bye bye.
If you look a bit closer into Alpecin's claims you will see that they have done scientific studies that show some hair regrowth. However, this was done in a laboratory in a petri dish using high doses of caffeine and a little thing called testosterone. They don't mention the testosterone part in the commercial for obvious reasons.
It's actually a pretty funny commercial, because at no time does the advertisement say anything about curing baldness but somehow, based on what sort of program that you are watching when it airs, it is pretty obvious what they are talking about.
Just to anyone out there that might get duped in by this due to positive reviews of the product I am sure you already know that these reviews are almost certainly people inside the company. Also, know this: There are exactly zero clinical trials that prove that caffeine shampoos have any affect at all on hair loss. The only products that have such evidence (and it is still extremely small amounts of success) are a prescription pill called Finasteride and Minoxidil, which is the active ingredient in Rogaine.
I think the best solution to hereditary baldness is to accept your fate and develop a new hairstyle that accommodates it. It might suck at first (and I am currently going through this at this very moment in my life) but it is a lot better than spending a bunch of money on overpriced products that don't actually work anyway.