It first occured to me that I might be losing my hair when I visited a barber in the village I would soon be moving to. He was proper old school, with the striped pole outside, nicotine-stained walls, fifties black-and-white prints in the windows, a white coat, and a direct manner of speaking that only someone of his generation and stage in life could be comfortable with.

“You‘re losing your hair on top. I’m just pointing that out. I take it you’re already aware?”

His opening sentence was a little shocking, because it hadn’t occurred to me at all. I was just over forty, neither of my brothers were bald or balding (at the time), and my dad had a dense, cropped head of hair like one of those flock-haired Action Man figures.

He apologised when he realised, but proceeded to point to his own head and tell me with a grin that my future could be bald! I left twenty minutes later with a neat but very average haircut, feeling a little uncomfortable about what he had said. I told my wife but she reassured me she hadn’t noticed anything.

Hating the Mirror

That was in 2011. I forgot all about that encounter until the following year when I was on holiday in Florence, Italy. The hotel we were staying in had a bathroom mirror with direct frontal lighting that was very unforgiving. I had just showered, and was about to dry my hair and apply my usual styling wax when I realised I could clearly see my scalp through the hair high up on my forehead.

I remember the feeling of shock, and how I called my wife in for her opinion. She was very diplomatic, and said she couldn’t see anything different, but I suspected this was a turning point for me. I tried to tell myself it was just the harsh lighting, but from that day on I noticed my scalp all the time, even in the bathroom mirror at home when the sun was shining through.

The Camera Never Lies

A year later I was really into photography and making lots of self portraits as part of a 365 photo project. I kept seeing my thinning and receding hairline in the pictures, and became so self-conscious about it I used to manipulate the images in Photoshop. It looked a lot better in the processed versions, but that didn’t solve the problem in real life.

I was starting to get fit and lose lots of weight around that time, and decided to experiment with different hairstyles in an attempt to disguise my hair loss. The first one I tried was a fin-style cut that had a sharp parting on both sides. That worked quite well for a while, until I became hyper-aware of my receding temples. Then I switched to a Mad Men style haircut with a shaved parting on one side, and my hair swept over and back, held in place with lots of Brylcreem. It was a seriously cool haircut that inspired me to change my overall personal style, and I was pretty confident for a few months.

A Losing Battle

By 2014 I was using a daily caffeine shampoo, various thickening serums, and even tried hair thickening sprays. They were truly awful products, deploying a fine coloured powder to my hair that used to come off on shirt collars, towels, and pillows. I gave up with those when one day I noticed work colleagues glancing at my hair as they talked to me, trying to conceal their grins.

It was time to try another new haircut. After some research I decided to go for a George Clooney style French crop, which was a great success, and worked for about four or five years. My barber did an amazing job of keeping longer sections at the front that I could comb forwards into a decent fringe. For a while, all I had to worry about was rain or wind messing it up and literally blowing my cover, but eventually, every time I saw myself in a photo, I realised that even the French crop was starting to fail me.

Too Scared to Buzz

In 2019 I spent a lot of time reading online articles about hair loss, learning about the Norwood scale (mine was stage 3 or early stage 3 vertex), medications, hair transplants, micro pigmentation, buzzcuts, shaving, you name it. I really wanted to try a buzzcut, and had even discussed it with my barber who discouraged me, but went on to say he had sported a number one himself a few times over the years and liked it. Other people I knew had also tried buzzcuts, and looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, I was in a senior client-facing role in a global consulting firm, working on client sites four days a week. To suddenly rock up with a buzzcut would have been off-putting for the people I worked with. They would have grown used to it, but I was pretty new to the company and worried it might look unprofessional. Basically, I was too scared to do it because of what other people might think or say.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

On Sunday 22nd of March 2020, just before the UK announced it was going into lockdown, I buzzed all the hair off my head, knowing that I wouldn’t be seen for months, and had plenty of time to grow my hair back if I didn’t like it.

Three and a half years on, I still love being bald, and my journey continues.