The Bald Truth
Americans turn to weaves, rugs, plugs, and drugs to alleviate hair loss, creating a $1.5 billion industry
Magic carpet. Many who turn to hairpieces (the term toupee has fallen out of favor because it connotes the ill-fitting rugs of yesteryear) face similar concerns over whether their attempts at concealment will be noticeable. A movie star like Sean Connery can wear a hairpiece one day and go without it the next because no one expects actors to maintain a consistent appearance. But most men live in a world that expects them to look more or less the same from day to day and are reluctant to show up at the office sporting an obviously phony "natural look."
A different approach to this problem was pioneered by Sy Sperling, founder of the Hair Club for Men, which weaves a hairpiece into existing hairs with the aid of an adhesive polymer. The customer has to come back every six weeks or so to have the indigenous hairs cut back and the piece reattached to snug up the fit. Each visit costs about $65. In addition, the entire "hair system" has to be replaced every few years, at a cost of anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500. The company knows that once a customer starts wearing a system, he is likely to be a "member" for life, whether he realizes it at the time or not. This helps explain why HCM is currently experimenting with a promotion to offer a free hair system to new customers. It also explains why the company, which Sperling plans to take public within the next few years, expects to earn $60 million in revenues this year.
Almost none of the weaves, wigs, or "systems" sold in the United States are made in this hemisphere. The vast majority of the replacements are made from real hair, most of which comes from India, Russia, and China. Western European hair is considered especially valuable, since its consistency tends to be similar to that of hair from America's white majority. For the distinguished graying look, yak and angora hairs are the fiber of choice, since white human hair tends to fade to yellow. The hairs themselves are sewn into ultrafine mesh bases in an intricate process that requires the knotting of thousands of individual hairs just to produce one wearable product. Most of the work is performed at factories in developing Asian nations like the Philippines and Thailand.
Those who buy wigs consider wearing hair from someone--or something--else preferable to baldness, but most would clearly rather grow more of their own hair. Since pharmaceutical means to that end, like Rogaine, are disappointing for most men, many have turned to a mechanical solution: the $800 million-a-year hair-transplant industry, which has been experiencing explosive growth in recent years. According to the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, 244,500 hair transplants were performed in the United States last year. That's more than four times the 57,700 done in 1990.
In a transplant, a physician removes hair follicles from the back of the head and uses them to fill in bald areas of the scalp. A patient is constrained in the number of transplants he can get by the size of his "donor area"--the horseshoe-shaped area of hair that remains on almost every bald man's head. The trouble with transplants is that, like the other available treatments for hair loss, they represent an imperfect solution. Hair follicles can be moved from the sides and back of the scalp to the top, but there's no reason to think a post-transplant hairline will stop receding. If a 30-year-old with some loss around the temples gets a transplant, for example, and his hair then continues its retreat, he will likely be left with two rather conspicuous tufts surrounded by exposed scalp. At that point, there is little he can do but pour out more cash, either for a decent hairpiece or for additional transplants. Such patients can actually spend as much as $50,000 over a lifetime for a succession of surgeries.
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