Can I learn to love my thinning thatch?
As scientists close in on a cure for baldness, Nick Harding decides it’s time to accept and embrace his thinning hair
The other day my wife, Stephanie, took me by the hand and gently explained that perhaps it was time to let go. “You’ve been fighting bravely for so long now. We both know that it will never get any better. It’s best to end it while you still have your dignity,” she said.
I knew she was right. Since my mid-thirties I’ve been living in denial, trying to maintain the illusion of a full head of hair while male pattern baldness has stalked my scalp. Despite a range of different potions and gadgets, the problem has only worsened and baldness has carved out a cruel shape on my bonce. From the rear, I am a tonsured medieval monk with a comical dish-sized shiny bald pate. It is a look I have never been comfortable with. For too many years I’ve tried to maintain a mid-length modern style and cannot bring myself to engineer a comb-over or a complex Trumpian arrangement. But, increasingly, the battle has been in vain; the temples are now receding to meet the barren central plain and each time I catch a glimpse of my profile, I hear the buzz of the barber’s clippers.
I am not alone. The UK has the fifth-highest count of balding men, with 39per cent of males going bare-headed. Our icons are those who manage to do bald well; Prince William, Bruce Willis, Jude Law, Jason Statham. Even David Beckham looks to be thinning. Most standard-bearers have embraced hair loss with dignity, panache and, in some cases, a buzz-cut.
A study last month revealed that a cure may be on the horizon, with researchers at Yonsei University in Seoul finding that when the CXXC5 protein bonded to another hair loss was prevented in mice, with bald areas capable of regrowth.
But in the meantime, I must accept my fate and finally get a haircut befitting of a balding 48-year-old. For advice on this most delicate of subjects, I approach the best in the business. Truefitt and Hill in St James’s, London, was established in 1805 and is the world’s oldest barbershop. It is barber and Royal warrant holder to the Duke of Edinburgh and pampers male celebrities, politicians and aristocrats alike – no other establishment knows better how a distinguished gentleman should adapt his remaining locks.
I meet Michael Symeon, Truefitt and Hill’s master barber, for a consultation, fully expecting him to administer my hair the last rites and dispatch what remains with a razor. My heart soars when he offers hope.
‘Once it is gone, it is gone. You cannot bring something back from the dead’
“First, we don’t talk about baldness here,” he explains. “We talk about thinning. There are products that will claim they can regrow hair, but those claims are false. However, there are tricks and methods good barbers can use to make the most of what is left. If it gets to the point where a customer would be better with a shaved head, I will always tell him, but you haven’t reached that point yet.”
Michael explains that, like me, the mistake many thinning men make is to try to compensate for their loss by growing their remaining hair longer. As normal hair is thicker than receding hair, the thin patches are accentuated. In my case, the long hair creates a marked step around the bald patch. The best way to illustrate this effect is to visualise the difference between Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor, and Phil Spencer, Location, Location, Location presenter. Both have a similar pattern of hair loss, but approach styling in a very different way.
Michael suggests that the most stylish and effective remedy for my specific type of male pattern baldness would be to clipper and thin out the sides and back, shorten the top and graduate the length from back to front, creating a more balanced, level look all over. At the front he also suggests shortening the hair in the middle of my widow’s peak to develop an even hairline across my forehead. At its shortest, he suggests a grade one. I’ve never gone below a three.
The hair loss journey that has led me to Michael’s chair began in my midthirties, when I first started noticing a thin patch on my crown. I’ve tried different solutions: in my late thirties, I bought an expensive three-stage hair loss kit, which included a urea-based serum. I have used caffeine, volumising and regenerative shampoos, and vibrating brushes. In later years, I’ve been mildly obsessed with finding the correct styling product for my remaining tresses. I’ve tried dusting powder, matt paste, pomade and putty, but the results always disappoint.
I laugh it off. When my 11-year-old son jokes innocently about my lack of hair, I slap my pate and tell him to listen to the sound of his genetic destiny, while inside I weep. Society can be cruel, and terms like “baldy” are bandied around too flippantly. No man, after all, really wants to be bald.
Dr Sharon Wong is a consultant dermatologist at the Homerton University Hospital where she runs a successful NHS hair clinic. She explains that male pattern baldness, or androgenic alopecia, is caused by an inherited sensitivity to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is a naturally modified form of testosterone. Contrary to belief, bald men do not have more of the male hormone – they are simply more sensitive to one of its by-products.
“In men with male pattern baldness, the DHT shortens the growing phase of the hair, which determines length and coarseness. The more sensitive the follicle becomes, the thinner the hair gets until the follicle is no longer viable and the hair dies,” she says. “If you intervene early enough, you can slow it or halt regression with topical products or oral drugs, but if it goes past the critical stage, there is nothing you can do.”
More radical interventions include hair transplants and platelet injections, the latter of which involves harvesting growthpromoting plasma from a patient’s blood and reinjecting it back into the scalp – a procedure Dr Wong performs.
“It is assumed that men can just shave their hair when they start to thin and it is laughed off,” she says. “But in my experience, men are anxious about hair loss. Deep down they do care, but to admit that is seen as vanity. Hair loss can be isolating.”
Back in the wood-panelled comfort of Truefitt and Hill, with photographs of Winston Churchill and the Duke of Edinburgh hung on the walls, Michael puts the finishing touches to my new look. As he brings the hand mirror round the back of my head for the dreaded rear view, I do not flinch like I normally do. He has not covered the offending area but has skilfully made it look part of the hairstyle, rather than a hole within it, which somehow makes it easier to accept.
“It’s important for men to be aware that there are things that a skilled barber can do,” he concludes. “Thinning hair does affect confidence but the right cut can give you a good hair day every day. Ultimately, there is no point stressing about what in many cases is inevitable because stress leads to hair loss, so you are making matters worse by worrying about it.”
‘Deep down men do care but to admit it is seen as vanity. Hair loss can be isolating’