As ever, Stuart Heritage provides the most reliably funny writing in the Guardian (Losing my hair made me miserable. Now I’m as bald as an egg, I couldn’t be happier, 16 April). However, unfortunately I think in this case Mr Heritage is still in denial of his true bald status, despite his conclusions. Let’s not beat about the bush here: I’m talking about compensatory facial hair syndrome (CFHS). Admittedly it’s mild compared with some upside-down heads – usually paired with a lumberjack shirt, a style of shirt that I can clearly see in Mr Heritage’s now redundant profile picture. I suspect he is in the first stages of CFHS.
How do I know? I too suffered from this debilitating affliction. I also suffer from compensatory thick-rimmed glasses syndrome (CTRGS). Now, I’ve kept CFHS in check by trimming my facial hair to grade 3, but I’m told there is nothing I can do about CTRGS.
Mr Heritage would do well to use his platform for public information to bring these further side-effects to the public’s attention. On numerous occasions I have tried to quietly live my life, only to have someone shout at me in the street “Oi, Gregg Wallace!”
Anthony Nash
Beckenham, London
• Welcome, Stuart! I’m so glad he’s finally made the transition to fully committed baldness, and written about the process so insightfully as well. My early 20s were among the most angst-ridden years of my life as I watched my hair slowly but inevitably abandon me. Like Stuart, when I finally shaved my head and accepted my fate, the sense of release was overwhelming. Now in my mid-30s, I have friends who are on to their second or third hair transplants, and the thought that they have been in bald purgatory all this time makes me really sad. The hair-growth industry has no permanent solutions to baldness: it can only prolong your misery.
Hugo Legge
London
• Stuart Heritage’s article exactly mirrors my experience, with one notable exception – I embraced the baldness at the earliest opportunity, when I was 26. I had the benefit of always having hated my dead-straight hair for as long as I could remember, so whipping it all off was an absolute pleasure. Now in my late 40s, I sit in the waiting area of the local barber while my two young sons have a trim and think: “God, I’m glad I’m not in that pneumatic chair, and I hope they won’t need to be at my age either.” My wife never knew me pre-egghead, and after sniggering at my hirsute university photos, she is glad that she didn’t.
Mike Wayne
Cranleigh, Surrey
• After two or three decades as a bald chap, I can confirm Stuart Heritage’s discovery that there are many advantages. One of the main ones is that you get to shed any residual worries over what other people think of your appearance – they really don’t care. Pretty much the only disadvantage is that you bang your head more often. Hair acts as an early-warning system. Without it, the first you realise that the shed door is a bit lower than you think is when you smack into it. But the occasional scab on the top of your head is a small price to pay in comparison with the vast savings to be made in having zero hair maintenance costs.
Paul Dixon
East Hagbourne, Oxfordshire
• As a now nearly completely hairless man with alopecia areata, I can attest to the following positivities of my condition: 1) I get out of the shower, I’m dry; 2) no more faffing about in hairdressers; 3) if you find a hair in your food, it’s not mine; 4) I swim faster; 5) my legs look good in a dress.
And there’s also the wonderful moment when I tell people I’ve got alopecia and you see them wondering whether to ask if it extends to the nether regions. Mostly they don’t ask, but when they do, I never tell!
Sam Heath
London
• I’ve been happily bald for more than 20 years. As is so often the case, a random comment changed everything for me. I was chatting anxiously with the hairdresser about my hair loss, and he said: “Don’t worry, you have a lovely shaped head.” This may or may not be the case, but I have lived hair-and worry-free ever since.
Simon Ashby
London
• May I remind Stuart Heritage that God made only a few perfect heads; the rest he covered with hair.
David Shannon
Ashton under Hill, Worcestershire
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