A Hairy Experience : Men Seek Information About Transplants and Other Remedies for Baldness

Sean Faro took a hair-raising ride the other night.

He traveled 20 miles from Sherman Oaks to Pasadena to join two dozen other nervous men at a hotel meeting room to talk about going bald.

The funny thing is, Faro has a full head of hair. And he was not the only one at the hair restoration seminar who looked that way.

A curly topped man sitting at Faro’s right definitely seemed out of place. So did a man in the back row whose blond locks cascaded over his shoulders. Next to him sat a man with stylishly tousled brown hair. In front of them was a man with a thick mop of black hair.

But that is the way it is in image-conscious Los Angeles. There are face lifts. Tummy tucks. Breast enlargements. And 60 hair replacement companies that promise they can fix heads.

Good thing, too. Lots of Los Angeles men figure that if the hair falls out, the social life falls off. Careers fade.

“My hair has changed,” said Faro, a 26-year-old actor with dark, wavy hair. “I keep looking at it every day. I’m losing it. I’m worried. I need to do something.”

The topic this night was hair transplantation--the surgical relocation of hair from the side or rear of the head to the top. Those in the room wondered if they could have it done without being scalped, either medically or financially.

To be certain, some had reason to be concerned. Hairlines were inching back from many foreheads. Scattered around the room were bald spots that even the most creative combing could not camouflage.

Several men hid beneath baseball caps. Despite the late hour, two men wore dark glasses. Several others came with women for moral support.

As latecomers drifted in, seminar organizers Brian Baker and John Peters passed around a red leather photo album. It was filled with before-and-after pictures of heads: bald ones on the left, grafted ones on the right.

At the back of the room, a photographer hired to take pictures of the seminar adjusted his gear. Nobody turned around to smile for the camera, though. And nobody laughed when the cameraman told Baker: “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

A 15-minute video was shown. It showed more before-and-after views and included a brief description of surgical processes used by the seminar’s sponsor, the Elliott-Thomas Medical Group.

Baker and Peters talked about male pattern baldness. They explained that heredity determines whether the testosterone hormone reacts negatively with hair follicles on the front and top of the head.

They discussed the difference between mono-grafts, micro-grafts and mini-grafts. Peters told of how grafting had covered up a bald spot of his own.

Then it was time for those in the audience to let their hair down.

Questions flew as the men discussed their anxieties and quizzed the pair about the cost, safety and success rate of hair transplants. They asked about toupees, chemical hair treatments and the differences between competing hair replacement companies.

Baker explained that grafts cost $28 each and range in size from a single follicle up to 15 strands of hair. But hundreds of grafts may be required to cover a large bald spot; a new head of hair can cost up to $20,000, he said.

Peters said transplanted hair is permanent, unless grafts are yanked loose by careless combing. If that happens, he said, “put it in a little baggie and put it in the freeze and we can save it.”

Baker said that Kojak-type heads probably cannot be surgically reforested. He used several other actors--one bald, the other balding--as examples.

“The most we could do for a Gavin MacLeod is to bring him back to a Bruce Willis,” he said.

The seminar ended with a pair of hair transplant clients stepping to the head of the class. Volunteers Doug and David gamely offered to let everyone run their fingers through their new hair.

Deron Pearson, a 27-year-old telecommunications engineer from Valencia, said he was impressed. The woman he was with, Julie Strech, seemed more skeptical.

“I know hair is a big issue with men. But it’s not important to me,” said Strech, 28, a Valencia secretary. She acknowledged that she had come to the seminar “expecting to sense a lot of quackery.”

Faro, a movie and television actor, lingered as others drifted out of the room. He explained that he is constantly “up against the ‘90210’ guys with James Dean coifs” when he competes for roles.

“Jack Nicholson is cool. If my hair was like his, it would be fine. But I don’t want to have to wait until I’m old and wrinkled to get those juicy roles,” he said.

“If I get a chunk of money, I’m here. I look at this as preventive medicine.”

That said, he headed home.