If you get a decent lace one, you get a look which is pretty much like having your hair back. You're not really conscious of the feel of it once it's on. There is a bit of maintenance (maybe an hour a week or so), and the continuing expense of buying hair. The pieces last 4-6 months. You can get a good one for around US$200-250 and you need to pay for cut-ins on top of that.
Once it is glued on you need to give the glue time to cure - ideally 24 hours - with no heavy sweating or bathing. After that you can work out, swim etc with no problem.
The big issue is the public attitude to men wearing prosthetic hair, and how you respond to that attitude. The popular line in the media is that men should just live with baldness. Wearing a hairpiece is seen as vain and a bit sad. That makes many guys self-conscious about wearing one in case they are found out and mocked.
If we could discount those factors - public disapproval and the resulting self-consciousness - a hairpiece is definitely worth it to the guys on this forum, who are obviously all bothered by their baldness. It's relatively cheap, reliable, painless, reversible and you look like you never lost your hair (or even better). So whether it is worth it for you is really all about how you handle those 2 factors.
A few comments on that subject: (1) one question you may have is - can I keep it a secret? The answer is largely yes. The good pieces are pretty much undetectable to the sight. But you should assume that you will need and want to tell a long-term partner. (2) Although the media stigmatise hairpieces for men to the point where it is a cheap joke, on a one-to-one level people's reaction is more nuanced than that. I have told a few people about my hair over the years and their reaction has not been mockery - the people who matter understand that you were bothered by hairloss and you have chosen this method of dealing with it, and they respect that, particularly if it looks good (which it does). (3) my sense is that public attitudes to male grooming are changing. It has become a lot more acceptable for men to care about their appearance, and even extreme results like pec implants are now in the public domain. We are not yet at the point where getting a hairpiece is treated like getting veneers, but we are moving in that direction. In another 5 years maybe.
Noah
