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What do you use for thinning, grey hair and balding on top?

My cousin has thin receding hair on top and swears by the old adage ‘if you can’t hide it make a feature of it!’
Consequently he has his hair very short (a no 1 Summer or no2 Winter crew cut) and uses a drop of whatever liquid shampoo and conditioner his wife buys him.

I like your cousin. I too promised myself a long time ago that I'd never be one of those guys who pretends he has more hair than he does. I keep mine buzzed year round.
 

3fingers

One Too Many
Messages
1,797
Location
Illinois
They say your hair is strongly heritable from your maternal grandfather, so I knew long ago that I was likely doomed as far as keeping my hair. I can't say that I like the fact that I am going bald, but I can say that it's not something that I put much thought into. When it gets to the point where I need to do something different I will. For now as my youngest son told me "Dad if you were Jewish nobody would know you were bald."
Gee, thanks son.
 

GHT

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,775
Location
New Forest
When I visit my barber these days, more is trimmed off my eyebrows than my head, in fact the barber runs the trimmers around the edge of my ears too. I draw the line on the hairs sticking out of my nose, I trim them at home. Maybe I could get a walk on part in a movie as a Yeti.

I shall have to leave this thread alone, this advert just popped up as I was posting:
google ad.png
 

Peacoat

*
Bartender
Messages
6,445
Location
South of Nashville
I still have enough of mine to not to have to worry about it, but don't some companies do hair transplant surgery? Evidently hair is taken from the back of the head and transplanted to the top. Not sure how it works, but I have seen pictures that look convincing, if true.
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
I still have enough of mine to not to have to worry about it, but don't some companies do hair transplant surgery? Evidently hair is taken from the back of the head and transplanted to the top. Not sure how it works, but I have seen pictures that look convincing, if true.

Like you, at least at 54, still have a full head of hair (and good projections based on all grandparents and parents - but who really knows), but I worked with a young guy many years ago who had gone bald early and who went through the transplant process. It wasn't cheap as he went to a really good NYC specialist, but as he said, if there is one thing I'm not going to go cheap on in my life, this is it.

He was completely open about it and, basically, it took (from memory) almost two years as he had several transplants and he had to wait many months in between, but the result was incredible. Unless you knew exactly what and how to look for it - and you were trying to find evidence - you'd have never guessed he had been bald. The doctor created an incredibly natural looking hairline and overall effect (no plugs, rows, etc. that we've all seen from cheap jobs).
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
When I visit my barber these days, more is trimmed off my eyebrows than my head, in fact the barber runs the trimmers around the edge of my ears too. I draw the line on the hairs sticking out of my nose, I trim them at home. Maybe I could get a walk on part in a movie as a Yeti.

I shall have to leave this thread alone, this advert just popped up as I was posting:
View attachment 147315

My little clippers get used at least a couple times a month to knock down the forests springing from my ears. It’s not just growing out of the ear canals, either. The outer edges are getting downright furry.

I recall old farmers and the like (blood relatives of mine, some of them) with hairy ears, but that’s going back half a century or more. So it must be that no-longer-young fellows of ethnicity similar to my own also give their clippers a workout every couple weeks or so.
 
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3fingers

One Too Many
Messages
1,797
Location
Illinois
^^ I believe that a fair percentage of the hair that has disappeared from the top has simply slipped down to sprout from my ears and nose. I have to check every day now to keep ahead of the sneaky little things.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,074
Location
London, UK
What do I do for thinning hair? When it's cold out, I wear a hat. When the sun is out, I wear a hat. The rest of the time I think back nostalgically to when the girls used to love to run their hands though my thick, wavy locks.

That was the surprising plus I discovered going for the full shave.... for every woman that loved how soft and fine my hair was in my early twenties, there now seem to be two with a thing for the bald look. Several of our female friends are especially hilarious when they're a bit tiddly - I end up being stroked like a cat a lot.

Probably helps to move in Rocky Horror circles, of course, where The Creator has always been flamboyantly bald... (So pleased I had the chance to thank him for that.)

They say your hair is strongly heritable from your maternal grandfather, so I knew long ago that I was likely doomed as far as keeping my hair.

Meh. My maternal grandfather died suddenly at seventy-two with a full head of thick hair. I went bald in my late twenties.

Like you, at least at 54, still have a full head of hair (and good projections based on all grandparents and parents - but who really knows), but I worked with a young guy many years ago who had gone bald early and who went through the transplant process. It wasn't cheap as he went to a really good NYC specialist, but as he said, if there is one thing I'm not going to go cheap on in my life, this is it.

He was completely open about it and, basically, it took (from memory) almost two years as he had several transplants and he had to wait many months in between, but the result was incredible. Unless you knew exactly what and how to look for it - and you were trying to find evidence - you'd have never guessed he had been bald. The doctor created an incredibly natural looking hairline and overall effect (no plugs, rows, etc. that we've all seen from cheap jobs).

It's certainly doable. It is expensive - about UK4,000 a pop - and you need several goes at it; basically, you still go bald at the same rate, the transplants can only replace what has already gone, so as the 'real' hair falls out, it needs replaced with the transplant stuff.

The other option is that some places will literally tattoo the head with the look of a number 1(!)

Idly looked into the transplant at one point myself, but TBH after about six months of shaving my head I wouldn't go back to having hair if I could choose it.
 

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