Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
27th June 2009


Is it global warming? Swine flu? The economic dumpster? I can’t put my finger on the exact cause but suddenly everyone’s going bald – I mean men (perhaps women are going bald too but they have products for that sort of thing). The Reserve Bank can add another curve to its graph – call it the follicle forecast – and it’s all downhill.

Perhaps it’s just my age. I’ve crested 50 and the view down the other side is grim. Where once there was a sea of waving hair to the horizon there are now only thinning pates and receding temples.

As far as my own pelt is concerned I’d begun to feel smug. On my head grey was winning over bald. A sudden recession 20 years ago (around the time my kids were born) inexplicably halted, apart from a couple of episodes of glacial creep, leaving my hair to gradually turn salt-and-pepper.

Let’s face it, grey is preferable to bald, so the sudden onset of hair loss around me demanded a swift response.

Enter Dr Kurt Wolff Inc. and the Baldness Calculator. I discovered the Baldness Calculator when I was cruising my favourite hair loss websites. It’s amazing, and free! In just a couple of minutes (less if you’re already bald) the calculator will work out your slaphead probability and how long you’ve got before you can throw the hairbrush in the bottom drawer.

It does this with the amazing power of Q&A. How old are you? How many hairs do you lose each day? (with handy formulae for novices). How bald are you already? (graphic aids to assist). Was your dad a baldy? Was your mum? How often do you stand on your head? On someone else’s head?

With only a little fiddling the calculator declared that I am unlikely to ever lose my hair, with the caution that thanks to my father’s 8 bald brothers I may experience “large genetic hair loss episodes” at unexpected moments.

But there’s more! The Baldness Calculator offers advice. It recommended I use a patented caffeine shampoo, “to provide hair roots with active caffeine”! And a general caution: “at the onset of balding never, NEVER, resort to a comb-over!” Now that’s good advice, isn’t it. I mean, a comb-over is like a massive neon sign on your head – “this guy’s going bald!” In our climate a comb-over becomes hazardous. I’ve seen guys in an Ashburton nor’wester with comb-overs looking like an America’s Cup yacht that’s blown a spinnaker.

Have you noticed how in our society going bald is worse than being bald. Going bald is about as attractive as a moulting cockerel. It looks sleazy when your head starts to resemble an old sofa. But a head that is completely bald captures the spirit of the times - a sort of Bruce Willis sheen of confidence.

That’s why some young men, at the first sign of hair loss, take to the razor and sport a completely bald head. Apart from the occasional chilblain it is a remarkably sane response.

A 30-something acquaintance who maintains his scalp like a skating rink claims other virtues for this practice. He reasons that bald men are more intelligent and points to evolution for proof. The advance from ape to human has been a trade-off between brains and body hair – the smarter we became the less shaggy we looked. It stands to reason, according to my friend, that the ultimate being – Superman – will be completely bald.

Most women disagree. They’ll tell you we can shave our heads but we’ll always be hairy cavemen in other regions.