How can you enjoy being bald?
Writer Stuart Heritage realised his hair was thinning when he was in his early 30s.
Like many men, he was determined to keep his hair and his own words, he did “everything” he could to stop going bald.
“You think you can get away with it by brushing it into a side parting and that becomes a comb over,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“Then suddenly, there’s a gust of wind and your hair’s flapping about - it’s horrible.
“You look like a bin lid that’s sort of gone wrong.”
Back of a man's head.Overall, he describes his efforts as “just very embarrassing” and unsuccessful.
He is now completely bald and describes himself as comfortable with having no hair.
“Going bald is much, much, much worse than being bald,” he said.
“That’s my grand thesis.”
Despite this, Mr Heritage acknowledges that life as a bald man is not always plain sailing.
“There have been lots of studies about the effect going bald has on men,” he said.
“It has quite a profound effect on how they view themselves; they see it as if they have lost their youth, they’ve lost their romantic potential in a lot of cases.
“There was a study in Germany, 24-years-ago, where they sent out lots of identical CVs to employers with photographs attached.
“Some had pictures of bald attached to them, some had pictures of men with regular hair.
“Overwhelmingly, the men with hair were invited in for interview more than the balding men.”
Solution
To help other men with what he describes as “the worst journey in the world”, Mr Heritage has written a book, Bald: How I Slowly Learned to Not Hate Having No Hair (And You Can Too).
“From a personal point of view, you feel quite liberated,” Mr Heritage said.
“Like you’ve let go of a burden; it’s nice, it’s freeing.
“Practically, it’s great as well; I can go swimming with my kids and I don’t have to mess around with my hair, worrying that my hair looks nice.
“I hated going to the hairdresser - now I don’t have to.
“My shampoo bill has gone down dramatically as well.”
By the age of 35, two thirds of men will experience some amount of hair loss and that figure rises to 85% by the time they reach 50.
Main image: A bald man. Photo by Karolina Grabowska.
