My father, Michael, who was a sociologist among other things, was once asked by a drug company to do some market research into a pill it was developing that could change skin colour from black to white. The company hoped it might go some way to tackling racial prejudice. After Michael interviewed some prospective customers in south London, he concluded there wouldn’t be much demand. The problem, they told him, was that it would leave their features unchanged so they’d end up looking like albinos – and there was no reason to think they’d experience any less racism. On balance, they’d prefer to remain as they were.
As a bald man, I’ve always felt the same way about hair transplants. Admittedly, it’s a slightly insensitive comparison – bald men plainly suffer far more discrimination than black men – but the same principle applies. It’s bleedin’ obvious when someone’s had the operation. I don’t just mean they’re bald one minute, then, after a three-day trip to Turkey, return with their head covered in bandages, only to emerge a few weeks later with a thin layer of hair. I mean the results of the procedure invariably look a bit weird – more like a grid composed of large red dots than hair follicles. ‘Plugs’ is a better word than ‘transplant’ because the dots look like tiny flowerpots that someone has tried to plant a few hairs in, and not always successfully. A trichologist once described the effect to me as resembling ‘autumn leaves scattered on an empty carpark’.
There’s something unmanly about constantly fussing over your hair
Unfortunately, my sons don’t see it that way. Aged 21, 19 and 18, they are all, to a greater or lesser extent, losing their hair. Now, I have long seen early-onset male pattern baldness as an advantage in that you don’t have much time to develop an attachment to your flowing locks – hair today, gone tomorrow. By my late twenties I was reconciled to my fate and haven’t worried about it since, saving a fortune on barbers and shampoo. But my sons are less sanguine about their imminent loss and are all talking seriously of making the trip to Istanbul.
I’ve tried telling them that a transplant will fool no one, but they claim the technology has come on in leaps and bounds and point to various celebrity role models: Wayne Rooney, Robbie Williams, Antonio Conte. Yes, I concede, they may look OK, but they can afford the best hair clinics in the world. You’ll only be able to pay for the follicle equivalent of a snake oil salesman. And what happens as your hairline continues to recede, leaving a barren patch between your plugs and your natural hair? Are you going to keep going back year after year?
Even if, by some miracle, you don’t look like pincushions, I say, aren’t you embarrassed to go through a lengthy and painful surgical procedure for purely cosmetic reasons? That’s rich coming from a man on Mounjaro, they retort. But that has medical benefits, I splutter. There’s growing evidence that tirzepatide reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.
‘What about your teeth? Didn’t you get them whitened?’ ‘That was for a magazine article.’ ‘Maybe the first time. What about the second? Come on, Dad. You’ve spent as much money on improving your appearance as we’ll spend on hair transplants.’
But all those things are reversible, I point out. If I lose too much weight or my teeth are too dazzling, I can just do nothing for a few months and everything will return to normal. A disastrous hair transplant, by contrast, is like getting some ghastly tattoo in cursive script – which, incidentally, I’m also trying to talk them out of.
And why do they think having hair will make them more attractive to the opposite sex? Haven’t they heard that women find bald men sexy? What about Jason Statham? What about your dear old dad? He did all right, didn’t he? To this, they claim that Caroline is an outlier and mention the number of good-looking women on dating apps who say they aren’t interested in men without hair. ‘We’re already short-arses thanks to you,’ they say. ‘This is the one genetic legacy we can do something about.’
Finally, I appeal to their masculine pride. There’s something unmanly about constantly fussing over your hair. Think of how much free-er you’ll be if you just shave it off and have done with it? It’s a way of advertising to the world that you’re not some vainglorious popinjay, but a real man bursting with testosterone. Say it loud: I’m bald and I’m proud.
This argument is considered so weak that it’s met with head-shaking and chuckles. I’m afraid there’s no keeping them from those snake oil salesmen. And who knows? If the operations are a success, I might just join them.
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