The dreaded day has come (hair loss)

Tex Mexico

I sort of wish mine would start going properly so I had the excuse to get rid. As it is it's just receding, but very slowly and evenly so I'm left trying to guess when "fringe" becomes "combover".

My hair's really fine and takes quite a lot of work to not look rubbish anyway. If I grow it long it just goes flat and straggly, and when it's short it looks a bit Hitler youth and I have to gel and blowdry it every day. I have the kind of hair where if I wear a hat and take it off it looks like someone's poured a bucket of water over me.

Problem is, I don't look good with it clipped either.

Moleman

Reading through this thread really brings it home to me how closely tied to our self-image our hair is. I’ve never, ever had short hair in my life. Looking at some old photos of me as a kid from five years old, I had a beatle-type home hair cut with a long fringe. As a teenager I got into Heavy Metal (NWOHM) and started growing my hair long. By about age twenty I had really long straight hair that eventually grew to touch the bottom of my back. 

Since I started losing my hair over the last fifteen years or so, I’ve gone progressively shorter to around a long shoulder length. Just before the lockdown I was very overdue for a haircut (I have maybe two trims a year - Summer and Winter) so I am completely overgrown now. I’m losing my hair quite badly from the crown although I’ve still got some coverage (I think!) and don’t want to self consciously start wearing a hat indoors all the time like some men I know. What I also don’t want to do is end up looking like the stereotypical old Rocker/Biker look of having an almost completely bald head and a wiry, thin ponytail with about two hairs in it...

I do still have my natural colour at age 51 though. In fact someone asked me if I used “Grecian 2000” recently...!!??

Funkfingers

One of my former work colleagues, then in his mid Fifties, did a sponsored head shave for a charitable cause. 

Unfortunately, this revealed the parallel scars on his scalp from a shrapnel wound that he received while serving in Northern Ireland. (One of his old nicknames was Tramlines.) Needless to say, his wife hated the look.

Hattigol said:

Embrace the clippers.

If you can, try to raise a few quid for a good cause at the same time.

Alternatively, do like some television presenters. Wear a loud tie or pullover.

RiftAmps

Going through this right now, first noticed it after two-days on the beach 4 years ago and had a very sunburnt head. It's slowly been getting worse and I can't quite bring myself to shave it all off. I've been wearing a hat since the start of lockdown. It hits you harder than you think, completely get why men have struggled with it in the past, it's quite brutal.

In my early twenties, I did a #1 all over for a laugh and it looked awful, like something you'd see in an internet meme of shit haircuts.

I suppose the solution is to slowly reduce the length every time I go to the barber's until I'm down to a #2 or so. Currently at a #7 on the sides with a scissor cut on top. I would prefer to not have to worry about my hair every day, so there is an upside I suppose.

Balrog68

Started shaving my head when I was a Door supervisor in the 90s.....not sure when I went bald! 

Bidley

I'm 34 and I buzzed my shoulder-length hair off about 3 years ago. I was self-conscious about my bald patch for a couple of years which was rubbish - once I clipped it it was like a weight off my shoulders.

I still do resent not having autonomy over having my hair how I want it though - the choice of Ghandi, Bill Bailey or Bobby Charlton isn't exactly inspiring.

Funkfingers

Get one of those car washing gloves. Pretend it is a Billy Gibbons nudu.

RandallFlagg

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter:

Zoolooter

Go to Turkey and get the Wayne Rooney treatment.

WiresDreamDisasters

RandallFlagg said:

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter:

Richard?

Philly_Q

RandallFlagg said:

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter:

I can't quite accept the notion that you're not actually Ken Dodd.

RandallFlagg

WiresDreamDisasters said:

RandallFlagg said:

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter

Richard?

huh? What you on about?

Dominic

Balrog68 said:

Started shaving my head when I was a Door supervisor in the 90s.....not sure when I went bald! 

It's almost part of the Uniform ............strange really ,why is that the standard image ?
Perhaps physiologically it looks more intimidating
 The hairstyle I hate is "The Clown "........bald on top with long wavy sides (waving goodbye) , sometimes pulled round into a scrawny ponytail but obviously designed to kid people that you're not bald. Almost like a monks Tonsure but with thinner and longer sides beloved of sad old rockers , Paedos and 50 year old men who still live "with mother"

boogieman

 The hairstyle I hate is "The Clown "........bald on top with long wavy sides (waving goodbye) , sometimes pulled round into a scrawny ponytail but obviously designed to kid people that you're not bald. Almost like a monks Tonsure but with thinner and longer sides beloved of sad old rockers , Paedos and 50 year old men who still live "with mother"

John Otway 

  

LoFi

Funkfingers said:

One of my former work colleagues, then in his mid Fifties, did a sponsored head shave for a charitable cause. 

Unfortunately, this revealed the parallel scars on his scalp from a shrapnel wound that he received while serving in Northern Ireland. (One of his old nicknames was Tramlines.) Needless to say, his wife hated the look.

Forgot to mention in my sob story - the operation when I was a kid also left me with a scar straight down the middle of my head from just above the hairline to the middle of the back. Although if I were to go grade one all over, this would become less visible.

victorludorum

Iamnobody said:

axisus said:

Oh well, I've had a pretty good innings, the hair lasted until 57, but I can't deny the extreme thinning at the top/front now. I was going to record a guitar video for YouTube, but just looks too patchy under the lights! I dug around for a cap but that doesn't look right either. I've warned the Mrs for years that I would have to shave it off short when the time comes, but I'm apprehensive about that as well, mostly because my dear old mum would HATE it, but I also have a nagging feeling that it could look worse. 

Seems like a first world problem in the light of current affairs, but still somewhat bothering. 

Do it - shaving it will almost certainly look better, keeping the length short and regulated always looks better than the semi-balding look.

My mum hated it when I shaved my head, “you look like a thug, you’ll never get a decent job”.

That was over 20 years ago...

CHRISB50

RandallFlagg said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

RandallFlagg said:

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter

Richard?

huh? What you on about?

I think he means Richard Homer.

(or he's calling you a Dick)

dafuzz

42 here and took the plunge about 4 weeks ago - went for the totally bald look and hated it. I'd been playing a lot of Hitman and thought I'd get the cool Agent 47 look. I did not

So I've let it grow a bit and maintained a number 2 all over ever since, with a similar stubble, and I actually like it now

I imagined a flurry of ridicule at work and on social media but nobody really cares - they have their own stuff going on

Do it

RandallFlagg

CHRISB50 said:

RandallFlagg said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

RandallFlagg said:

Get over yourselves you losers, I'm bald and proud. You have to make the best of what God gave you. The ladies will swoon when they see this and probably one or two fellas as well.

Bald Lives Matter

Richard?

huh? What you on about?

I think he means Richard Homer.

(or he's calling you a Dick)

Nice one, I always wondered why people shout out "Oi, Dick" to me when they see me in the street. Bizarre.

WiresDreamDisasters

Yeah you look a bit like Richard Homer.

And Bob Hoskins.