How do I know if my hairline is receding?

April 7, 2005 10:28 AM

My dad's dad had hair till he died in his 80s. My mom's dad was bald as a cue-ball by his 40s. Are there ways to know if your hairline is starting to recede before it's obvious?
posted by Edible Energy to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (36 answers total)

As I understand it, hair loss (or lack thereof) is mostly governed by your mother's side of the family. Beyond that, I have no idea.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:32 AM on April 7, 2005

I don't believe there's any evidence that hair loss depends on your mother's side of the family. As far as I know it's a myth that keeps being repeated.
posted by null terminated at 10:44 AM on April 7, 2005

Obvious to who? If you're like me -- and it seems you are (same exact background) -- it will become apparent to people around you and they will tell you before you are sure yourself. Unfortunately, they will probably be right.
posted by planetkyoto at 10:52 AM on April 7, 2005

You're screwed. Start looking for hats, edible. I've always heard it being on the mom's side of the family. If you have any uncles on that side, that's the best way to know.
posted by Arch Stanton at 10:55 AM on April 7, 2005

According to this, the genes involving hair loss are not sex-linked, so the baldness gene can come from either your father or your mother. I always thought you could look at your mother's father, and if he was bald, you would be bald. But apparently that's not the case. My maternal grandfather is quite bald, so this is a great relief to me!
posted by mfbridges at 11:12 AM on April 7, 2005

I saw hair in the drain in the shower for the first time today. Sigh...

I have a mole that is right on my current hairline. It is my milemarker so to speak. I guess you could put a small mark on your hairline (think ultrafine sharpie) every morning. So long as you put the mark directly over the old mark you could achive something like my mole. I just hope my mole isn't receeding as well :)
posted by tayknight at 11:42 AM on April 7, 2005 [1 favorite]

Nobody on my mothers side was bald (last 3 generations), my father is bald. I will soon be as bald as he. Draw your own conclusions.

PS. My dad has always said his bald patch is a solar panel for a sex machine. YMMV.
posted by DelusionsofGrandeur at 11:46 AM on April 7, 2005

A 2nd vote for "You're screwed". I have the same situation:
Paternal grandfather - 84 years old, full head of hair
Maternal grandfather - Not a whisp after age 40

I'm 25 and it's already obvious what's going on up there.
posted by knave at 11:48 AM on April 7, 2005

You are doomed.
posted by sourwookie at 11:49 AM on April 7, 2005

I guess you could go to one of those hair clinic places and they could do some sort of hair count with one of those jigamys that bring up the closeups on screen. Then return in 6 months or a year.
Or you could just take sourwookie's advice.
posted by peacay at 12:13 PM on April 7, 2005

If you'd like to try to keep your hair, the time to act would be now. Most hairloss treatments are pretty terrible at growing new hair, but aren't bad when it comes to keeping existing hair.
posted by 4easypayments at 12:21 PM on April 7, 2005

Guys, guys! Can we stop regarding baldness as some sort of affliction, please? I'm not bald, but I have a hairline so receded I make the Mekon look like a Welshman. And that's fine! Flaunt that chromedome!

As for the question: look out for increased hairage in your comb and in your plughole. Look at the top of your head, especially after showering... just how much pink/brown/skin can you see now? And so on. Lots of guys start going bald from the crown rather than the hairline, too, so don't forget to panic about that....

Seriously: stop worrying about it. Bald can look cool. It's only hair, for Christ's sake. It ain't like losing a limb.
posted by Decani at 12:25 PM on April 7, 2005

Also I must add: toupee. NO. No, no, no. Not ever. Do not even think about it. At all. It's cheaper to buy a T-shirt printed with "Yes, I am a sad, vain, self-deluding, fragile idiot and no, that is not a dead marmot on my head."
posted by Decani at 12:27 PM on April 7, 2005

There's always plugs. I never really notice baldness though and I know it wouldn't make a difference in how attractive I considered a guy. Is baldness to men what cellulite is to women (i.e. something to obsess over that the opposite sex doesn't really notice/care much about)?
posted by eatcherry at 12:44 PM on April 7, 2005

You are doomed. Visit the shaving thread for some ideas. I look good clean-headed, but not everybody does. Some folks just have misshapen heads. And Decani is right. When I started shaving my head due to massive baldness (over twelve years ago) the only white folks that did it were neo-Nazis. It was just starting to take hold among black athletes. Now every hipster doofus has a chin beard and a shaved head, and some of us even look good.
posted by fixedgear at 12:51 PM on April 7, 2005

There's always plugs. I never really notice baldness though and I know it wouldn't make a difference in how attractive I considered a guy.

You'd notice plugs, because then the guy would have Barbie hair.
posted by fixedgear at 12:52 PM on April 7, 2005

Another ten+ years head shaver here: Just start shaving your head now, then as it recedes naturally it will be less noticeable to you. That's how I started, and I've never looked back. Although, I can sympathize with fixedgear -- the early years were rough as no self respecting whiteboy would be hairless uptop unless he was a skin or, sadly, had cancer. I was mistaken for both (separately) many times. And, I still get the occasional suspicious look. Also, I noticed that if I raised my eyebrows my forehead skin would reveal the original hairline and I could track the distance between OG hairline and the current hairline. That's one way to know. YMMV.
posted by safetyfork at 1:49 PM on April 7, 2005

Is baldness to men what cellulite is to women (i.e. something to obsess over that the opposite sex doesn't really notice/care much about)?

Men in general don't care about fatty, lumpy thighs? I so want that to be true (but I feel awfully sure it isn't).
posted by redfoxtail at 1:51 PM on April 7, 2005

don't do plugs or a rug or a weave--i beg you.

I'm balding fast, and just trying to deal. I find keeping my hair reasonably undercontrol and kinda short helps. I noticed it first because of my widow's peak--it's pretty much stayed the same while either side has receded and receded. I've always heard it was the mother's side too, and for me and my brothers it's been true--we're balding like my grandpa did (and not our father, who went bald much younger).
posted by amberglow at 2:01 PM on April 7, 2005

oh, and i started also noticing ear hair coming in as the regular hair left--gross. : <
posted by amberglow at 2:20 PM on April 7, 2005

To the best of my knowledge every male up my paternal - not maternal - lineage going at least five generations back has had no gray hair until their 50s, and all of them have had a thick, full head of hair until death - regardless of the history of their maternal grandfathers.

I'm pretty convinced that baldness is genetic but isn't sex-linked.

Me in general don't care about fatty, lumpy thighs? I so want that to be true (but I feel awfully sure it isn't).
It isn't. Sorry.
posted by Ryvar at 2:37 PM on April 7, 2005

The gene is carried on the X chromosome. If you are a male you have XY. If you are a female XX. The gene is recessive.
I am a male (XY) I am going bald. My mom has hair, my dad has hair. I have the recessive gene for baldness on my X chromosome. I got the X chromosome from mom, mom only had the X or the other X to offer. I got the Y chromosome from dad, otherwise I would have been a girl (XX).
My mom is obviously (look at me) a carrier for the baldness trait because she is not bald and I am.
a bit extra; My wife is not bald. My wife and I have a daughter. My daughter got the "baldness" gene from me on the X chromosome I gave her. It is yet to be seen what my wife gave her. At the very least my daughter is a carrier for baldness.
posted by busboy789 at 3:28 PM on April 7, 2005

there's various degrees of balding, too. Just because your grandfather was a cueball doesn't mean you will be.

I never notice whether or not a guy is bald/ing unless he does the comb-over.

For me, and lots of other women I know, baldness is a non-issue, and makes no difference to how attractive/sexy we find a guy.

Except for the comb-over. That's a turn-off. Not because the guy's bald, but because it shows he's insecure.
posted by luneray at 4:02 PM on April 7, 2005

Men in general don't care about fatty, lumpy thighs? I so want that to be true (but I feel awfully sure it isn't).

nowhere near as much as women do. and certainly not in northern climes, when he typically doesn't find out until he's past the point of caring.

also, i don't worry about being bald as much as pauli worries about cellulite, but, to answer the question, the most obvious way for me to tell was by looking at photos of when i was younger. since it's gradual, i don't think you can see day-to-day changes. so it's either photos, or people who see you only rarely.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:12 PM on April 7, 2005

ooops. not that pauli has cellulite, of course.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:13 PM on April 7, 2005

Mine's slowly disappearing too.

Don'ts.

Don't get a wig
Don't grow it long
Don't do a combover
Don't get hair plug things


Do

Start exploring the wonderful world of hats.
Consider shaving. It's become quite common, and looks a world better than growing it long or having odd patches of hair.
Keep your remaining hair neat, avoiding the `mad scientist' look.
posted by tomble at 6:17 PM on April 7, 2005

Two out of four of my brothers have thinning/receding hair. Another brother is close enough to bald to call it that. Last brother's hair is fine. Bald runs on my mum's side. Don't know about whatshisname's side.

Knowing before it's obvious? Watch your brush and the shower drain.

And what lunaray said. It's a non-issue unless you do something icky like a comb-over or a toupe. And no, letting what's left grow long or growing a long beard does not make up for it. That's just sad.

Please note:
Kevin Spacey
Patrick Stewart
Michael Clark Duncan
Bruce Willis
Michael Jordan
Ving Rhames
Mitch Pileggi
Sean Connery

All without or mostly without hair. All "types" of guys. All hotter'n hell. Bald really is beautiful.
posted by deborah at 7:22 PM on April 7, 2005

redfoxtail: most guys I know (and I don't mean know in the biblical sense) don't even know what cellulite is, never mind what it looks like. ;)
posted by eatcherry at 9:07 PM on April 7, 2005

If you focus on your hairline, you could be missing the fact that your hair is all starting to fall out on top at about the same rate (like mine is). No receding hairline! All the hair on the top of my head is just going *poof*.
posted by the_W at 9:22 PM on April 7, 2005

Worrying about it won't help. When I was 20, my hair started to thin, and so I thought I'd be bald within a year. 10 years later and I've still got a full head of it (tho not for much longer). I've been dealing with it. Vanity is a crappy investment. We all get ugly eventually.
posted by recurve at 10:34 PM on April 7, 2005

Deborah, I agree with your list of successful bald actors except for Sean Connery. He's often had a full head of fake hair in his more recent movies, indicating that either he or the film industry are uncomfortable with his balding.
posted by randomstriker at 1:21 AM on April 8, 2005

One of my enormously tall friends (around 6'8") takes something (Rogaine? Propecia?) to regrow hair on his bald spot. What I keep wondering is "Who the hell can even see it?" Is he preparing for that moment that he runs into Shaq?

As for me, it seems to be working out pretty well up there, but I did get my very first old man bushy eyebrow hair a while back. It eventually fell out on it's own, but I know it'll be back some day, with friends...

Also, Propecia's site says it's determined by more than one gene, and it comes from both parents. Too bad, because that myth was one of the few fun opportunities to use the word "matrilineal."
posted by NortonDC at 2:32 AM on April 8, 2005

Men in general don't care about fatty, lumpy thighs?
nowhere near as much as women do.

oh let's not do the generalizations. Some women care about baldness, some women care about their own fatty thighs, some lesbians care about other women's fatty thighs, some men care about girlfriend's fatty thighs, some men care about baldness, some gay men care about other men's baldness... yetc.

All in all, if there are really no good solutions for a physical deficit you partake of, it's a million times better to find a way to personally get over it than to become self-obsessed. Things that are traditionally not considered super hot, like being short, bald, overweight, wrinkly & all the rest, are a)extremely common - most human beings are looking for other human beings, not weird perfect sex robots - and b)completely overshadowed by one's approach to them. If you have a shallow, vain, egocentric response to the process of aging, you really only end up accentuating that you're losing what turned out to be your only real asset. If you take the changes in stride and truly become the older, less gorgeous, but more centered, empathetic, self-aware person, most people won't spend that much time fussing over physical imperfections.
posted by mdn at 9:50 AM on April 8, 2005

Deborah, I agree with your list of successful bald actors except for Sean Connery. He's often had a full head of fake hair in his more recent movies, indicating that either he or the film industry are uncomfortable with his balding.

True, that. But he does go about in public without fake hair.
posted by deborah at 9:57 AM on April 8, 2005

most human beings are looking for other human beings, not weird perfect sex robots

Very true. Although I probably wouldn't kick one out of bed. Blimey.
posted by Decani at 4:56 PM on April 10, 2005

I think this is one of those things that you just kind of know... no one can tell you whether you're screwed or not, just look at your own hairline.

If you're over 25 and you still don't see any sign of hairline retreat, then you're probably good. Most guys I know who have pattern baldness started going bald in their late teens or early 20's.

I cast my (female) vote here with "not a big deal." Anyone who judges you based on your lack of hair sucks, anyway.
posted by salad spork at 11:00 AM on April 13, 2005