Never growing my hair long again.. a haircut story

[Wuffer]

I vow to never grow my hair long again. For most of my life i've had longer hair. Now i'm at NW3ish and i realized a thinning crown looks awful with long hair.. Not to mention the perceived diffused thinning that long hair tricks you into believing is there.

I'm sure a lot of you agree with me on this: Ever since I started balding, haircuts cause me a great deal of stress and worry. I have been putting it off for over a month, but told myself I would get one today no matter what. So after a stressful hours wait, I was finally summoned to the cushy chair of doom. I told the stylist I wanted the sides and the back trimmed up with #3 clippers and the top left long (but just tidied up). I guess to her, "long" meant 3/4 of an inch. Before I realized what she was doing, she had already cut the front of my head crazy short (she was standing infront of the mirror so I couldn't stop her in time).

I guess my fear was that I was afraid the short hair would reveal my perceived advanced state diffuse thinning and I would just have to shave my head anyways, or that I would finally see what a weirdly shaped head I had under all that long hair and so on..

But anyways, after the cut was complete, I noticed how thin my hair was NOT and how great it looks short. Also, I learned how my head isn't nearly as big as I thought it was, and am thinking that I would look pretty great with a shaved head if I am able to put a bit of muscle on.

With short hair, I still have a higher hairline and maybe NW2 or 2.5 temples, but by looking at me from the front, it's almost hard to tell I have any significant hair loss. I've realized my hairloss isn't that significant and maybe my obsession over the last couple months was playing tricks on me. The thinning crown is still visible, but i'm hopeful that Finasteride will take care of that in the coming year.

So the lesson to learn; long hair can seriously amplify your baldness. Short hair is definitely the better look, unless you still have enough coverage to pull off the long hair look. In fact, even if you have thick NW1 hair, most people can't pull off long hair. I think that look is harder to pull off than a shaved head!

 

[Thom]

Long was always my thing so I'm growing it out again. Girls loved it!

I just hope it will look as good as it used to. Now that I don't put any gel in it, it does look better.

 

[Wuffer]

Yeah, some guys can pull it off really well, but you need to have a good looking (youthful) face. But guys that pull it off can pull it off REALLY well!

Are you having good luck with treatments? I bet it would feel great to get such good results that allow you style your hair any way you want.

 

[Thom]

Yeah I've got the youthful face, one not angular enough to look good bald haha. I was always told I looked like Dicaprio or Jesse Spencer. I hated cutting it and I'm still in college so I want it long until I start my career. I'll enjoy it while I can have it!

Well it's hard to say because I started Rogaine, nizoral, and supplements like zinc and biotin a month ago but I think it's coming in better. Now that I'm growing it in I leave it to the side instead of doing the messy look I had with it short. It sure makes me forget I'm thinning! (unless I look at my crown) I go to the dermatologist in two weeks to hopefully get on finasteride! Whatever I don't grow back from finasteride I am planning to use Toppik to cover.

Congrats on your regrowth though! If you like the short haired look on yourself better than I'm glad you could keep it!

 

[Wuffer]

That's great! Hopefully you don't have issues getting a prescription for finasteride. I want to stat on Rogaine also, but it's impossible to get up here in Canada.

I really think finasteride is really the 'wonder drug' everybody needs to be on. I have been on it for only a week and obviously not yet experienced any growth (or side effects) but I really think it is key to maintaining your hair. It seems that everybody giving it bad reviews are the ones that are on a dozen different products at once and switching their regemin every other week because they are too impatient to see results. 9 in 10 people will see visible improvement; be it hair regrowth or thickening. The rest will keep what they have; if you don't, then you are either not consistently taking it, you are taking a placebo, or you have extremely aggressive male pattern baldness (the 1% minority).

I need a bit of thickening on my crown. I would be happy to maintain what I have now, but toppik is a great way to go also. I honestly want to be able to maintain my hair for the next 5-ish years until all the great looking new treatements on the horizon start coming out.

Whats all this about Zinc? What does it help with? I hear it's good for the sex drive, which would be a plus.. The girlfriend is hard to keep up with sometimes.

 

[Thom]

It's hard to get minoxidil in Canada but not finasteride?? That sucks! I wonder why they're harsher on minoxidil.

I agree with you about the people dropping their regimen after a bad shed...I think if they just stuck it out they wouldn't regret it. Perhaps they're inconsistent about taking it (skipping a day and such).

That's my plan too. I want to keep what I have until I'm in my mid-thirties or forties (I'm 24) and hopefully by that time they'll have figured out how to reverse male pattern baldness. I mean hell they discovered dark matter awhile back and this still perplexes them?? I honestly feel like the breakthrough will be in the next 10 years.

I can't tell you the specifics on zinc but that's one thing I read all over the net that can help hair growth. I think it helps for those with an iron deficiency. I was taking in 500 to 800 calories last year during school time so I think I shed a lot of hair due to malnutrition. Currently I am on biotin, zinc, fish oils, and hair essentials vitamins. I think the hair has become thicker....it actually is looking dark brown and I'm a blond! If anything I think it has accelerated my hair growth, if I wasn't growing it out I would be getting a haircut about now.

 

[cuebald]

When I shaved mine short I kept telling myself "it doesn't look so bad, it looks alright", but one day I had to drop the façade and admit the truth: it looked like sh*t. Short hair, like long hair, only works on some people (one of whom I am not). I have a rounded, not very masculine face that suited longer hair. Now with short NW4ish hair I just look like a deathly ill butch lesbian.

Problem is, with a NW4, long hair just looks comical. So short hair is the only choice.


Long hair on anything more than a NW3 is just a giant joke, really. Like the kind of person you would see on a comedy show portraying a "weirdo".

 

[Thom]

I have a rounded, not very masculine face that suited longer hair. Now with short NW4ish hair I just look like a deathly ill butch lesbian.

Haha! I know exactly what you mean. If I shaved my sideburns I would look like a lesbian myself. Girls like my hair short and long but I just don't feel like I'm myself without the long hair. I guess I'm a norwood 3 vertex yet the vertex is just thin to where you can see scalp but it's not bald yet so I think I can pull it off. I suspect the big 3 will make it all look good.