2.5mg – 5.0mg · Extend the growth phase. Drive active regrowth where you need it most.
Oral Minoxidil works through a completely different mechanism than DHT-blockers. It’s a potassium channel opener and vasodilator that extends the anagen (active growth) phase of your hair follicles, increases blood flow to the scalp, and promotes follicle size over time. Dutasteride and Oral Minoxidil target hair loss from two independent pathways. That’s why the combination outperforms either alone. Most men on the MANE & STEEL protocol run both.
2.5mg – 5.0mg oral capsules · Prescribed by a licensed US physician. Dispensed from a LegitScript certified compounding pharmacy. Fresh medication compounded and shipped every 90 days.
Ships every 90 days. Cancel before any renewal.
How the two available strengths differ, and who each one is for.
To work, minoxidil has to be converted into its active form — minoxidil sulfate — by an enzyme called sulfotransferase (SULT1A1). That conversion step is the whole story of why some men respond to minoxidil and others don't.
With topical minoxidil, that conversion has to happen right in the scalp, using whatever SULT1A1 activity exists in your own hair follicles. That activity varies a lot person to person — low follicular SULT1A1 is a well-documented reason some men see little to no results from topical minoxidil, no matter how consistently they apply it.
Oral minoxidil skips that bottleneck. It's converted to the active sulfate form primarily through first-pass metabolism in the liver — which has abundant sulfotransferase activity — before reaching the bloodstream and, ultimately, the follicle. That's a big part of why oral tends to outperform topical for men who didn't respond well to the topical route.
A 2024 study on hair follicle sulfotransferase activity and oral minoxidil found that response to oral minoxidil did not depend on follicular SULT1A1 activity the way topical response does — supporting first-pass hepatic sulfonation, not local scalp conversion, as the primary activation pathway for the oral route.