Monat
Honest Review · 12 Months In
MONAT IR Clinical Review: What Happened When I Tried It After Noticing Subtle Hair Changes
I resisted MONAT for years. Then my own hair changed for the worse, and I could finally relate to what so many women were going through with their hair.
I need to say something up front, because it matters.
24 YEARS BEHIND THE CHAIR
I didn't come to this as someone who was easy to sell.
I spent 24 years as a professional colorist. Two-time Best of Boston. Newbury Street. I have seen thousands of heads of hair.
I know the difference between a product that performs and one that has simply been marketed well. I am not easy to impress, and I am definitely not easy to sell to.
Megan Graham Beauty on Newbury Street in Boston.
So when I tell you I cried over my own hair, I need you to understand what it took to get there.
For most of my life, my hair had been one of those things I could count on. Long, blonde, full. It was part of how I felt like myself.
Then it changed.
At 47, I was in the middle of the hardest health stretch of my life. At the same time, I started noticing things in my hair that I had never dealt with before. More shedding. Less fullness around my temples and part. My hair simply did not look like the hair I had always known.
And then I moved to a new state and trusted the wrong stylist with my long blonde hair. She darkened it, then had to lighten it again to correct the mistake.
If you know hair chemistry, you know what repeated lightening can do to long hair. It breaks.
So now I had two things happening at once: hair that looked thinner than it used to and long hair that had been badly compromised by color.
For someone who had spent her entire career helping women feel beautiful, I suddenly felt like I could not fix what was happening on my own head.
And it wasn’t just that I wanted less shedding.
I wanted my hair to look beautiful again.
Long. Full. Glossy. Healthy-looking through the ends. Hair I actually wanted to wear down and style instead of constantly thinking about what was wrong with it.
I think that distinction matters, because sometimes conversations about thinning hair make the goal sound like simply making the problem less noticeable.
That wasn’t my goal.
I wanted to love my hair again.
“My hair had always been the one thing that held steady, even on my hardest days. When that started to go too, I felt something quietly collapse.”
Megan Graham, master colorist and founder of Megan Graham Beauty.
I had been cold-messaged about MONAT for years. As a salon owner, I wanted nothing to do with it. The pressure, the hype, the DMs. All of it put me off. If I feel pushed into something, I’m out.
But eventually I decided to try the IR Clinical System myself.
I used it consistently for a year.
And somewhere along the way, something I absolutely didn't expect happened: after watching what was happening with my own hair, I realized these were products I genuinely felt good about recommending.
They met my standards as someone who had spent 24 years behind the chair, which is why I eventually became an independent MONAT Market Partner.
Today, I help people figure out which MONAT products make sense for their hair. If you need help choosing a different combination or navigating checkout, we can help with that, too.
What follows is my honest assessment of the IR Clinical System, what I noticed over those twelve months, and what my hair looked like at the end of the year.
THE ROUTINE I USED FOR 12 MONTHS
The exact IR Clinical System I used
I used the complete three-step IR Clinical routine throughout the year: shampoo, conditioner, and the leave-in serum.
If you decide to order through my site, you’re ordering through Megan Graham Beauty.
See the IR Clinical System I UsedYou’ll be taken to MONAT’s secure retail checkout with the three products I used already in your cart.
As an independent MONAT Market Partner, I may earn a commission on purchases made through my links.
What Is the MONAT IR Clinical System?
This is MONAT's most advanced system for thinning hair. It's a three-step routine: shampoo, conditioner, and a leave-in serum, designed to work together rather than as standalone products.
The goal isn't cosmetic volume or temporary fullness. It's to address the actual conditions at your scalp and follicle that cause thinning in the first place: inflammation, poor circulation, buildup, and a shortened growth cycle.
That distinction matters. A lot of products make your hair look fuller. This system is working to make it actually be fuller, over time, from the root.
The Ingredients That Do the Work
Capixyl™
A peptide complex combined with red clover extract that targets inflammation at the follicle and helps anchor hair more securely at the root. I've long believed inflammation is at the root of most physical issues in the body. This ingredient addresses it directly where hair growth begins.
Caffeine + Melatonin
These stimulate the follicle and extend the anagen (active growth) phase of the hair cycle. A longer growth phase means hair grows longer and denser before it naturally sheds. That's where real density gains come from over time.
Rejuveniqe S™
A lightweight blend of botanical oils that nourishes the scalp without weighing hair down or causing buildup. For anyone dealing with scalp sensitivity or product-related inflammation, this ingredient made a meaningful difference for me personally.
Healthy hair doesn't grow in isolation. It grows from a living follicle influenced by hormones, circulation, inflammation, and overall scalp health. If your scalp is tight, flaky, or congested, your follicles are under stress. Stressed follicles produce weak, brittle hair that sheds early. This system works on the environment, not just the strand.
Who Should Consider This System?
You don't need to be experiencing dramatic hair loss to benefit from the IR Clinical routine. In my professional opinion, this is the right system for you if:
- You're recovering from illness, stress, or major hormonal changes
- You've noticed less density at your temples, part line, or ponytail
- Your scalp feels tight, itchy, or inflamed
- You've had color or chemical damage that has weakened your hair
- You want to protect your thickness as you age, before the problem gets loud
I've always believed it's better to address something when it's a whisper rather than a scream. I caught mine somewhere in between, and I'm glad I didn't wait longer.
My Results: Month by Month
I was methodical. Shampoo, conditioner, serum, every single wash, no skipped steps. Here's what I actually noticed:
The first thing I noticed wasn't growth. It was gentleness. I could get a brush through my hair without snagging or ripping. That alone reduced breakage and changed how my hair felt every day.
My scalp felt different. Less tight, less reactive. I hadn't realized how much low-level inflammation I'd been carrying until it started to calm down. I used to get itchy by day two after washing. I could now comfortably go three or more days.
Less hair in my brush. Less hair in the drain. The year before I'd had to ask my husband to help unclog it regularly from all the fallout. That quietly stopped happening. I didn't even mark the moment it changed. I just noticed one day that it had.
My ponytail felt fuller. My part line looked denser. Baby hairs around my temples that had disappeared were sprouting back. I started receiving compliments again, something that had completely stopped. I won't pretend that didn't matter. It did.
I took an after photo. I had been so focused on how my hair felt day to day that I hadn't really looked at the back. When I finally did, when I saw that side-by-side, my jaw dropped. The thickness. The shine. The density. In one year, I had results I would have expected to take three years of working very hard for.
The back of my hair at one year. I genuinely did not expect this. The thickness and shine speak for themselves.
My hairline. Left: before. Right: one year later.
“I had been so focused on how my hair felt day to day that seeing the photos side by side genuinely surprised me.”
Habits That Helped Maximize My Results
The IR Clinical System does the heavy lifting, but these habits made a real difference alongside it:
- Avoid tight hairstyles. Switch to fabric scrunchies. Never put your hair up when wet. That's when it's most vulnerable to breakage.
- Skip extensions while in recovery. They strain already-stressed follicles and slow regrowth.
- Exfoliate your scalp weekly. I use MONAT's Scalp Purifying Scrub. Buildup at the follicle is the enemy of growth.
- Wash consistently, 2 to 4 times per week. Don't let buildup accumulate, but don't strip the scalp daily either.
- Limit dry shampoo. It's convenient, but heavy use suffocates follicles over time.
- Massage the serum in. Use your fingertips or a scalp tool. It improves circulation, feels amazing, and it depuffs your face too.
My Honest Final Verdict
I resisted MONAT for years. The hype put me off. The cold messaging put me off. I had every reason to dismiss it, and as a professional, I felt like I was above needing it.
I was wrong.
After twelve months, my hair is the healthiest it has been since my health challenges began. The shedding has stopped. The density has returned. The baby hairs that had disappeared are back. And I stopped feeling embarrassed about my hair. For someone who built her entire career on helping other women feel beautiful, that is not a small thing.
The improvements I saw in one year were what I would have expected from three years of working very hard. That is not nothing. For where I was, for what I had been through, that is everything.
If your hair is telling you something has changed, you do not have to just accept that this is as good as it's going to get.
THE SYSTEM I USED
Ready to try the routine I used?
I’ve pre-loaded the cart with the exact three-step routine I used for the year: shampoo, conditioner, and IR Clinical serum. Everything is together so you don't have to hunt for the individual products.
Get The Exact Routine I UsedYou'll be taken to MONAT's secure retail checkout with the three products I used already in your cart.
Want a different combination? Message us in the chat , and we're happy to send you a custom cart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan Graham
Megan is a two-time "Best of Boston" award-winning colorist with 24 years behind the chair and former owner of Megan Graham Beauty on Newbury Street.
After developing sensitivities to products she worked with throughout her career, she made it her mission to find high-performance alternatives she felt good about using.
