Summary As we all know, SMV is composed of Looks, Money, and Status. Baldness affects looks, and this thread is to help out the TRP brothers suffering from baldness. I will outline the steps I took to improve my looks, from simple and free to a $19,000 hair transplant. Now that I have more hair, I am getting results with younger and better looking women.

I began showing signs of balding at age 21. Now as a 37 yo formerly half bald man, I am creating this thread to show younger men what their options are. The earlier you start the better.

The Alpha Disclaimer Now wait - some of you will say: "Going bald doesn't matter if you are alpha! All kinds of bald dudes get mad pussy. You just need to be jacked and confident!" Well you may be correct, but I think there is one important distinction to be made: Being fully shaved/bald is one thing. But being a guy who is going bald, or in the middle stages, is the worst possible looking thing. Its much better to be fully shaved bald than half bald with a receding hairline and shiny forehead. But there is a third option - taking control and doing something about it.

The Disclaimer Disclaimer I am not a doctor. Do your research and talk to a doctor before doing anything listed in this thread.

Body My background: I am 37, 6ft, make $150,000/yr, have a killer prestigious job, and have had a slim muscular build since high school when I started lifting in the gym. I own nice things and dress well and travel when I feel like it. Sounds like instant alpha right? Nope. I had been going bald since age 21.

Between ages 21 – 31, I slept with an average of one girl every couple of years due mainly to having a lower SMV due to my baldness. I didn’t act like a beta. I would approach, approach, approach, and get shot down in bars and online a hundred times for each success. Any time I went to a dive bar and tried to hit on a girl younger than me, they’d look at my hairline and it was instant shutdown. Dating sites were the worst, zero responses at all from any woman even slightly attractive, although plenty of older women and single moms would reach out to me.

At age 32, I started making six figures and really upped my appearance, clothes, car, etc, which allowed me to sleep with an average of 4 to 5 girls a year. In other words, betabux was my path to success in the sexual market place. However, the women were usually my age or older, and obviously hitting the wall and settling down to a nice leisurely lifestyle of draining beta wallets. I always met them in high end bars and lounges, where my expensive shoes and watch demonstrated to them I was worthy of renting their vaginas.

At age 35, after years of research, I finally reversed my appearance and got a hair transplant for $19,000 by one of the top 5 doctors in the world. Since then I’ve seen a significant improvement in my SMV: I am now dating women 25 to 29 on average (five to ten years younger), even a 20 yo recently, and they are sometimes approaching me, which is new.

A hair transplant isn’t right choice for everyone. There are many options if you are losing your hair depending on where you are in the balding process and how much money you have. I’m not going to highlight them all, but I’ll share what I have personally used successfully. Lets start with the basics:

BALDING 101

The Norwood Scale is a graphical depiction of the various stages of baldness. Here is a good link, or just google Norwood Scale:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seven-male-pattern-baldness-stages-satyam-hair-transplant

Throughout my 20s I was a NW4 or NW5a on the Norwood scale.

There are other factors to consider: hair density and hair caliber.

  • Hair Density - density is how many hair follicles you have per square inch or centimeter. They say 80 - 100 follicles per square cm is normal on a non-balding male. After you lose about half of your density, you begin seeing scalp and appearing bald. Each follicle, btw, can have 1, 2, 3, or 4 hairs; the 1s and 2s are common in your hairline above your forehead, the 3s and 4s are prevalent in the crown (top-back) of your head.

  • Hair Caliber - the thickness of each individual hair varies by person and generally by race. Thicker hairs contribute to your appearance of having a fuller head of hair. This is important if you have a transplant: for a given number of transplanted hairs, a person with thicker caliber hair will have a better or "fuller" looking result. Example: I am a white male and I have "fine" hair, or thin, which my doctor measured to be 40 to 45 microns on average. Sucks to be me. 50 to 60 microns is average. Hispanics tend to have thicker hair. Caucasians are in the middle. Asians tend to have the thinnest and thus they have the hardest time combatting baldness. You've noticed this on Asian guys with short hair: sometimes you can see his scalp straight through his hair, even if he's not bald at all.

  • Hair Color - to a lesser degree, the color of your hair matters if you are going bald. The darker the hair, the more the contrast between your balding hair and your shiny white scalp. Therefore, those with lighter hair (red, light brown, blonde) tend to have a slightly easier time concealing with cosmetics and correcting with hair transplants.

OPTIONS

Below are solutions, or steps you can take.

I STYLING

  • Shorter hair. A lot of men shave their heads, but that isn’t always necessary. Maintaining a 1 or 2-number buzz or short styled haircut can look a lot better for some men versus being shaved completely bald. What you don’t want to be, however, is the long hair dork trying to do an ugly comb over.

  • Dry hair. Don’t style your balding head with a lot of gel. Or, use gel but fluff your hair once it dries. Dry hair appears more voluminous and hides your scalp better than wet hair or gelled hair which clumps together and reveals the scalp below.

II COSMETICS

  • Concealers. There are many, but my favorite out there is Couvre. It easily gained me a year or two’s worth of “hair” and made me look a lot less bald. It is basically makeup for your scalp. Apply a dab of hair colored Couvre to a sponge then spread it on your scalp in the thinned out areas. Now your scalp will appear to be the same color as your hair, and not as much light will reflect off your head, so you’ll look like you have more hair. The downside is it rinses off if wet (aka be careful at the beach or gym), and after you sleep all night you’ll need to reapply. Its only about $20 for a bottle on Amazon which can last about 6 months.

  • Shampoos and Conditioners. Experiment with “volumizing” products. Some of them actually work and will marginally improve your hair’s quality and appearance. I don’t have a specific one to suggest, because I am still experimenting, now with natural and organic types.

III DRUGS/TREATMENTS

  • Nizoral etc. Some people use shampoos with active ingredients that are supposed to clear out the follicles similar to Rogaine. I’ve never had success with them, and they irritated my scalp.

  • Rogaine Foam. AKA Minoxodil, this will regrow your hair in your crown area. Its cheap (about $15 per month or less), but it must be applied twice a day and once you stop you’ll begin to lose your hair again. But worth it, and has little to no side effects other than possibly dry scalp. Don’t screw around with liquid form of Rogaine, its messy and drippy and hard to apply and you’ll give up. Foam is easy.

  • Propecia AKA finasteride (generic). This prescription (USA) pill will suppress DHT production which is what kills your hair follicles if you are susceptible to baldness. Propecia (1mg) is $60-$80/month, but generic finasteride (5mg) is about $3 per month – so go generic and buy a pill cutter and cut it into fourths. Most docs have no problem prescribing finasteride instead of propecia for hairloss if you explain the costs involved – and many are already taking it themselves. Propecia essentially puts your hairloss into slow motion, and possibly even regrows hair for some patients. What you are doing is buying time, and becoming bald hopefully much later in life instead of when you are young and your SMV is so fragile.

The huge caveat, of course, is that Propecia may cause sexual side effects aka erectile dysfunction. This immediately and severely happened to me when I was 25 when I first started using it. So I stopped. Biggest mistake ever. The ED never went away (yes, the side effects were permanent for me – limp dick persists even to this day, however the complete loss of libido did go back to normal after a month or so of quitting the drug. Because of these side effects, I didn’t use Propecia from age 25 to 30 – and I lost a ton of hair during this time. At 30, IDGAF any more and went back to Propecia. By then, I could afford Cialis and was man enough to admit to my doctor I wanted to try it, and Cialis mostly fixes the ED problem for me (I wish there was a cheap generic Cialis btw). My only regret is not getting back on Propecia sooner.

  • Note about Cialis: most docs can throw you a free 30-count “trial pack” of Cialis which is $200-$250 value at the Pharmacy. Some docs will even give you samples each year or two during your physical when they renew your prescription. Additionally, the Cialis company sometimes offers a free voucher for a 30-day supply once a year on their website which is sometimes valid for existing patients.

  • Second note about Cialis: don't be a cheap prick if you are having ED problems. Most guys won't blink if they have to pay $7 for a drink for a chick, but they'll say an $8 pill to have great sex is "too expensive". WTF are you buying chicks drinks then?

IV SURGICAL OPTIONS

The primary surgical option is a hair transplant (HT) which moves DHT resistant hair follicles from the side and back of your head and inserts them into the balding area on top of your head. Once transplanted, these hairs will never fall out again due to male pattern baldness. Back in the day (1980s) people got "plugs" like a doll and they looked horrible. Modern transplants are more consistent and look more natural, but it is highly dependent on the skill of the surgeon. There are plenty of surgeons out there with consistently horrible results (avoid Bosley and the other 3AM advertisers). But there are also surgeons with consistently great results. The big downside is the surgeries are expensive (budget $5k - $20k), last 1 - 2 days in the operating room, and you will look horrible for the first few weeks post-op, and then ugly for the first 4 months while all your hair falls out and then resets and the new hair grows in. Unless you have a job where you can wear a hat or work from home, everyone will notice you had a hair transplant during the recovery phase.

I will discuss only the two mainstream HT processes I am familiar with: Strip and FUE.

  • Strip procedure - a long roughly rectangular section of scalp is cut out of your head from above your ear, back down and around your head, and back up to the other ear. That long section of hair is cut into thousands of individual follicles (follicular units aka FUs) which are then reinserted individually back into the front/top of your hair in the bald areas. The long strip of missing scalp is sutured/stapled back together, which results in a long linear (hopefully thin) scar around half your head.

Strip Benefits: Its significant cheaper than FUE, and more surgeons can do this well because its less labor intensive. Its cheaper and more can be done in one day. Its also high yield. Many surgeons can harvest 4,000+ FUs from the strip and then insert them all in one day. Overall, many observers argue the best Strip surgeons have better results than the best FUE surgeons.

Strip Downsides: Recovery is longer and much more painful. Your scar could be bad - best case will be pencil thin line, but it could turn into a horrible jagged stretched mess. You will have a scar and you will need to wear your hair a #3 cut or longer. You will look horrible for several months until your hair regrows and covers the scar, and you'll always have to style around the scar.

  • Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE): a surgeon shaves your head and uses a small punch (ex: 0.7mm) to jab your head, twist the punch, and extract a sheathe of skin which contains a FU. That FU is dropped into a solution. He does this a few thousand times on the sides/back of your head where the DHT resistant follicles are. He then stabs you a few thousand times in the top/front bald areas of your head, and re-inserts these FUs into the holes.

FUE Benefits: Recovery is faster. No scar. You can wear your hair short, usually down to a #1 or #2 cut. There is no 10 inch long scar like the Strip procedure. There are usually, however, thousands of tiny (less than 1mm) white dot scars depending upon your healing characteristics, so shaving bald is usually avoided by the patient.

FUE Downsides. Labor intensive and expensive. The surgeon has to do thousands of extractions by hand and thousands of insertions by hand, which is tiring and expensive. Most surgeons can or only will do 1000 to 1500 FUs per day, and some will do two days in a row. This means smaller sessions. You will get less FUs transplanted in two days of FUE than one day of Strip, which means a smaller and more expensive transformation for the patient. If my descriptions weren't clear, or you want to gross yourself out, look these procedures up on Youtube. You'll also find some inspirational before & after videos there.

Caveat about HT’s: most HT surgeons are complete shit. Their results are horrible, and their patients are unhappy and look even worse off than when they began. A HT is the most serious option you can explore. Do your research. I researched for five years while saving. I did onsite visits with multiple doctors of both Strip and FUE. If a doctor has a shitty site with a limited selection of patient results photos, that is a obvious red flag. Doctors will sue patients, websites, and forums to protect their interests and silence negative reports and publicity. Don’t choose this path lightly, as there is no going back. But when it works, it can work wonders.

Personally, I did a FUE procedure with 3800 grafts/FUs. I chose one of the top 5 FUE surgeons in the world, who was in Europe. He did 3800 FUs in a two 12-hour sessions. His cost was about $17000 which included a hotel stay but not airfare. I spent another $2k on airfare, which included first class travel on the way back (the extra space and privilege will be worth it when you are recovering). He guarantees an 85% result - meaning at least 85% of the transplanted follicles will grow, or he will fix it at no cost. Guarantees are unsual in this industry. Bad surgeons have much lower yields - like only 50% of the FUs survive and grow. I estimate I had a 90%+ result, and am very happy. I went from a NW4/5a to a NW1/2 appearance. The change has been dramatic for me.

Research and Research

I strongly recommend if you are interested in a transplant that you find 2 or 3 hair transplant forums on the internet and read for the next six months to a year before making any decisions. You need to become an expert on the topic. Also understand that each web forum has biases that are sometimes obvious and sometimes concealed. Many forums have been sued by doctors and permit no discussion of the litigating doctors at all. Some forums suppress bad reviews of their preferred doctors by locking the threads or even deleting them so you'll never see the bad review. If you find a forum that only says good things about certain surgeons or attacks a patient for saying something negative, be suspicious. Other forums have sponsors they openly advertise and sponsors they never admit. Only through researching multiple sources will give you a shot at sorting out the good surgeons from the bad.

Conclusion

A quick note to the doubters or the brainwashed “believe in yourself & lift and your looks won’t matter crowd”: bullshit. Muscles are only one part of looks. Yes you will feel and look better if you’re hitting the gym. I know, I'm more fit than most. But there are a huge number of other factors that contribute to your looks: height, facial geometry, hair, eye color, clothing and style, etc. Some of those you control and some you don’t. Muscles you can control. Hair, on the other hand, like height, is something you’re born with – except you can exercise some control over male pattern baldness using the steps above, but a lot of men don’t know that or don’t know where to start. I am 6ft and started lifting when I was 17 and was muscular and had a six pack or was within a couple percent of a six pack for most of my adult life. Despite that, I slept with an average of one girl every 2-3 years until much later in my early 30s once I had those abs AND money (betabux). Now that I have a hairline, it is SO MUCH EASIER.

Tl;dr

I fixed my balding through a hair transplant and my SMV immediately increased. Any balding man should seriously consider immediately starting Rogaine and Finasteride to preserve what hair they have, and someday consider a hair transplant if they need it and can afford to go to one of the best surgeons in the world.

-Edits for formatting.