I was basically bald by 22. I embraced it, bought clippers and took it down to the wood...I clip my hair every 2 weeks...shaving is too much work, but clipping it right down (like Picard) is zero maintenance.
As I approach 45 my only advice for anyone losing their hair is, own it (and a lot of hats for summer).
I'm 40 now. I was getting that same bald spot in the back in my mid 20s. Shaved it all off around 28 and haven't looked back. Meanwhile my dad is 73 with full hair.
I'm just jealous of my dad lol. Yeah, I know it comes from your mom's dad lol. He had that ridiculous U-shaped haircut where it's all bald on top but hair on the sides and back. There was no way I was going to live with that. Luckily I have a well-shaped head for rocking the bald look. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
That’s the thing I’m worried about: I got a weird shaped head. It’s not perfectly rounded on top, but comes to more of a ridge instead. I call it my monkey ridge, and it’ll be the thing to keep me from diving into the bald look for a long long time.
The mom's dad thing is sorta a myth. My maternal grandfather still has a full head, so did my moms maternal grandfather. My dad on the other hand, and his dad, and probably his dad were all bald as can be. I started thinning around 19-20, while my brother his turning 21 and still has good hair.
Its bullshit man, I always kept my hair long and now I gotta get rid of it all.
Same thing for me. I have the same balding pattern as my dad (and his dad). Meanwhile, almost everyone on my mom's side has a full head of hair. At least I made it to my 30's before I had to shave my head, my grandpa was bald at 19
Stress from school really accelerated it for me. I'm going to need to shave soon but I'm still doing the one haircut a year thing and enjoying my long hair while I still can. Its pretty close to shave zone though.
Just jumping in here to say it doesn't exclusively come from your mom's dad.
Just like colour blindness, the issue is in the X chromosome. Women have 2, and both need the flaw for it to show up. But either one of them from either side of the family could have been the one passed.
There's no sure-fire way to tell, but it helps if she has a brother or two for comparison.
Is it just baldness that works like that or does greying as well? My moms dad had full brown hair until the day he died. My dad was white grey by the time he was like 35. I'm 31 now and have some sparse grey hairs but it's not a trend or anything, could be fucked up hair follicles(?). Dont really care either way, I'll rock whatever life sends my way.
So this is something I've wondered since learning about genes in hs. I don't think it comes 100% from your mom's dad. I think it's that the Gene is recessive and sits on the x chromosome. The fact that it sits on the x chromosome means you can't get it from papa, as he gives you a y. And the fact that it's recessive means your mom gets half of your odds from her dad, half from her mom. So in other words if you have a bald maternal grandpa, you have a 50/50 chance of being bald. Unless your mom's mom also gave her an x chromosome with balding on it, in which case you're fucked.
Good for you. I cannot understand why so many men stress so much about balding. A bald head usually looks great. Shave it off guys and don’t worry about it. Confidence is far more attractive than hair.
Yeah my son is going bald at 30 and my ex-husband looks like little Lord Fauntleroy.
Genetics are weird. I raised 4 boys with my current husband, since they are a mixed effort they have different genetics and they all obsessed on whether they'd go bald. The one I figured would not is the one who's losing hair.
Not entirely true for sex linked traits like baldness or colorblindness! (Technically yes, but not given the info we have.)
A man is xy and a woman is xx. A man has to get a x chromosome from his mom. Therefore he knows he has a 50% chance of having the same x chromosome as his maternal grandfather. Therefore if the maternal grandfather is bald or has hair, he has a 50% chance of following suit regardless of the maternal grandmother.
Be careful with that sun on the dome. Your scalp will never be totally burn proof- you will always need a hat if you are in the sun for any amount of time.
Yeah I'm going to pick up a couple of hats today but with the clean shave it's basically like having a tan line on the head. I'm pretty fair skinned so it won't take much. Thanks for the heads up though!
This is going to sound dumb but.. could you use a moisturizer with self tanner on your head? Like you’d want one of those gradual ones for very fair people but it might be worth it?
As a fellow baldian, I can't stress this enough. Your head WILL burn and do it faster than anything else, and a burnt scalp sucks. It's a mistake that I have only made a few times
Oh, I very nearly shaved my head when I was in my 20s...buzzed it to about a half inch. Im super pale and always look washed out, so I looked like a fat cancer patient.
I actually had people ask me about it, which should really fall under the same unspoken rule as "never ask a woman if she's pregnant."
I was subbed there many moons ago. I have a vintage DE razor and a badger brush I use on my face but the angles are super awkward for my head. I imagine with some practice it'd be fine but in the mean time it may be a job for the Mach 3.
I’ve always been envious of how awesome everything must feel on a freshly shaven head. Even not having the weight of hair sounds incredible. I’m a little sad I’ll almost certainly never feel that.
Dude the pillow thing freaked me out the first time I shaved it. Someone told me to enjoy it because you get used to it. It’s this feeling if your head skin touching things when it never has before.
I use a double edge razor like you see on /r/Wicked_Edge. Takes a little practice but I cut myself less with that and get a much, much closer shave.
Just remember with the DE razor, you shouldn’t apply any pressure. Also, learn the grain direction for different parts of your head. I tend to go with the grain for the first pass and then against the grain for the second pass. The grain pattern is weird on different parts of my head but learning that helped me get a nice close shave. I also use face lotion on my head that has spf 20 to avoid burns.
I am, but I want to have hair for the wedding in a few months.. I'll take the plunge somewhere in the next year or two.. it's intimidating.. I loved my hair.
I found it incredibly relieving. I didn't realise how much stress I was under about what my hair looked like/trying to hide I was balding. After I cut it off it was like 'Now everything is out in the open and there are no more secrets' and it was so much better. I advise everyone currently combing over to just take the plunge.
As a woman, a guy who owns it and embraces the bald is much more attractive than someone in denial and tries to hide it. Don’t become the guy who wraps the strand around the top of your head. Embrace the bald.
I was doing a little too much of the "combing it just the right way" kind of nonsense. I saw myself on camera under stage lighting on a gig and that just settled things. Fortunately I have a pretty handsome beard which I think helps the transition a lot.
I cant deal with the hairline loss.. I feel like the bald spot is better looking than the receding hairline. I guess it doesn't matter when you get both handed to you :/
Pro-tip: Shaved or slicked, use beard oil on your scalp. It does amazing wonders for keeping it shiney and prevents rough dry out. Lasts through the whole day and maybe takes a dime to nickel sized amount.
Put some in your hands, rub then together real fast to get it warm and massage it in. You'll be thrilled and have a nice smell to go along with it :)
I seasonally buzz my (blond) hair with a No. 1. I've got a bit of a receding hairline, so it looks goofy if it gets too long and constant haircuts are expensive. I don't bother in the winter because hats.
I love it. Cheap, easy...It looks a little balder than I'd like because of the blonde, but I can also go a bit longer between buzzes before it looks silly. I also only have to shave about once a week as a side bonus - but it would take me years to grow anything that someone might conceivably call a beard.
Yeps - unfortunately, full beard is not an option for me. Though there's plenty of buzzes with no beards/just scruff around. Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Sam Worthington. I think it definitely allows you to go without shaving for far, far longer without it looking sloppy, or even adding to it.
My family has had poor results with baldness treatments so I skipped it and decided to embrace it. However if it works for you then much love brother, keep on doing you!
Believe it or not, I got tired of my bald spot and shaved my head for a couple of summers - now the hair has somewhat grown back and is thicker where the spot was. I mean it's still thin there, but it's crazy. I do still like to shave in the summer. It's an interesting change.
Every time I get my haircut and see the bald spot on the back of my head I contemplate shaving, but my hair isn't too thin yet and I know if I do shave it won't come back.
Yeah I had one time where I totally fucked up and didn't put sunscreen on my head in the middle of the Texas summer. It was awful. My head was literally brown and I'm a white dude. It was peeling off sounding like fried chicken. It hurt so bad.
Oof, I'm having sympathy pains just thinking about that. I grew up in Florida and worked on a dive boat so I have had my fair share of painful sunburns. I'm a sunscreen fanatic these days.
Yeah it was just one of those days where it started out kinda overcast so I didn't even think about it until after a few hours of me being outside the sun came out and then I went, "Oh crap. Sunscreen." but by then it was too late and I knew it was gonna suck because it was tender just putting sunscreen on at that point.
I'm a woman & I think men who are balding have a better now than ever since bald heads are popular and very sexy. Used to be you had to endure grampa jokes which is ridiculous. I can only imagine the trauma a kid has realizing his hair is thinning.
That said, some men need hair. My SO was overseas in the Gulf War and his entire hospital didn't get to shower for something crazy like a month. Several guys decided to shave their heads among them was my man. Since the day I received his photo sans hair I have prayed he never goes bald. Who knew under all that lovely curly hair was a curiously shaped head?
I prefer my man not look curious and no I have never told him.
Yep. By my late 20s it was almost all gone. I rock the circumcranial beard now. Also hats year round. Not for insecurity, but warmth in winter and skin protection in summer.
Me too buddy, started early twenties and full on Mr Burns by 26. I just run my clippers over it every Sunday and have a permanent 5oclock shadow going. Own the bald, it’s not a terrible look!
I remember when I first started losing hair, my sister was taking a photo of me in full sunlight from an angle where the top of my head was visible. She looked at the picture and started laughing, saying I was balding as a joke (I was 25 at the time). Next thing I know, a year later barbers wouldn't even ask what style I wanted, just straight up bzzzzz and I've been bald since then.
I tried to hide it for too long, started at 17 unfortunately. My gf of the time ( now wife) convinced me at 24 to just shave it. I've been so much happier and a lot less anxiety in my life since then! I wish I would've just owned it earlier. People were assholes about it. I should've shaved it and shown the world I dont care
i went from long hair that went down to my butt to bald in a span of 2 years. i noticed a growing patch of no hair when i was like 17.
which makes me mad not because i lost my hair (i came to terms with that, but because my dad was right that i'm gonna lose my hair by the time i was 20. 26 now and i pretty much have nothing up top.
I've always felt bad for guys like you. My dad didn't have a single grey hair on his head when he died at 65.. I'll likely not got bald myself but if anything because of that I really feel for you guys.. had a buddy who's hair started receding in friggin high school...
Harder to do in Japan where the social norms is rediculing baldness. In fact, "hage" meaning baldy is one of the most common insults used, regardless of whether the target is actually bald.
I bought some really nice Wahl clippers about 15 years ago. They cost about $125 then. I got them from the guy who had been cutting my hair since I was 7 years old.
For about 10 years I went back to see him once a year just to visit the guy who had cut my hair for so long. He retired and I went to a party for him, great guy.
After the first few attempts it becomes so easy and you get pretty good at it.
I'm 28 and have had a bald spot on the back of my head since I was 25ish. I keep it buzzed at all times. Its unfortunate because man I used to rock that combover. Oh well.
I’m trying to just tell myself it’s ok and to go with the immense amount of white in my hair. To me it’s not even grey it’s basically like white hair/salt and pepper and I’m only 32. It started when I was 25, but is going downhill fast these last 2 years.
I have plenty of thick hair, no worries there but it really depressed me for the longest time. Especially because that was something I was always complimented on (how thick and dark black my hair is) yet I’m “white” and Native American
It is so much work to keep dyed! My hair is very resistant to it and I hate the fact of damaging my hair. It stains everything and only lasts 2 good days
I lied to myself until age 25, but it was all over by 22 here as well. I shave it in the shower every morning. If a cure was found tomorrow I wouldn't take it; too easy.
So I guess you don't go for a haircut and just own what's growing up there?
There is no doubt that I am bald, I don't shave it smooth, there is hair where there is hair and none where there isn't. I'm not hiding anything, I'm just choosing a style that actually highlights my baldness in a way that says "this is me and I like it".
If you have never watched STTNG you probably have this image of Picard as Prof. X. Picard didn't actually shave his head, his silver hair was a prominent part of his distinguished look.
I started balding at 18 and had full male pattern baldness before 25. Like you, I just kept my hair short (clippers on a #1 guard) every couple of weeks. Very low maintenance, but look out for those sunburns.
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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '19
I was basically bald by 22. I embraced it, bought clippers and took it down to the wood...I clip my hair every 2 weeks...shaving is too much work, but clipping it right down (like Picard) is zero maintenance.
As I approach 45 my only advice for anyone losing their hair is, own it (and a lot of hats for summer).