"Anna," Count Vronsky says, "Your Hair is Shedding All Over the Seats of My Maserati."

What's a woman to do when her hair starts falling out?

Photo by Abigail Keenan on Unsplash

             I ordered a five-pack of pet-hair-removal rollers from Amazon the other day and the thing is I have no pets.  I am my own golden retriever. The creature shedding white hair all over the house is me.  I am actually surprised, as Amazon knows everything about everyone, that ads for hair loss items didn’t pop up when I ordered.

            People who bought this product also bought: Rogaine Minoxidil, Luv Me Care Biotin Hair Growth Serum, Restore Professional Laser Hair Growth Cap, and Bissell Featherweight Stick Bagless Vacuum with Crevice Tool to pick up hair, which this very moment is drifting like tumbleweed, across your floor.  You’ve also got some on your sweater. Black’s the worst for white hair, isn’t it? Too bad you live in New York.

              I asked my primary-care doctor about my hair loss when the shedding started two years ago, when I was 73.  My doctor was 65, with a gleaming bald head, which I’m sure did not affect his judgment.  

                “Age,” he said, cheerfully. “All my women patients are complaining about it.”

                 “Not COVID?” I ask. “Stress? My mother was dying when it started.”

                   “Age,” the doctor said.

                    I know about age-related female bald spots. There is a time in a woman’s life, usually about when you qualify for Medicare, you start to notice them. You’re crossing Fifth Avenue, a stiff breeze blows the hair of a woman in front of you, and you see it, this terrifying pink patch of naked scalp. It’s like a terrible car crash, you want to look away, but you can’t. The poor woman is oblivious, but everybody else is staring; the halal-food-cart guy, the yoga girls with their spectacular behinds, the crazy guy dragging four shopping carts loaded with trash, who uses 14^th Street as a toilet.

                  “That’s really sad,” the crazy guy says. “That woman is otherwise so impeccably groomed. That bald patch is such an affront to her dignity.”

                     What an older babe does, at this point, is make the Pink Patch Pact with a close friend:

                    Swear to me: If you ever see a pink patch on the back of my head, you will tell me.

                   This is not unrelated to the Chin Hair Pact women make. But with chin hair, there is an easy solution. If someone alerts you to a coarse, dark hair on your chin, say at your kid’s wedding as you’re about to walk him down the aisle, you wish your kid luck, rush home and yank that sucker out.

                    Sally Hansen Wax Strips for Face and Bikini are also effective though I suspect, if you’re over 90, they might remove hunks of flesh.  I also own the Finishing Touch Flawless Facial Hair Remover for Women, a small electric razor in an ivory case. It looks a lot like a Rocket Pocket vibrator, which is a definite plus. It’s much better that a guy thinks an item is a sex toy rather than a hair removal tool. Unless he’s feeling amorous.

                     Hair loss is a much tougher problem.  

                     I spot my own pink patch one morning after washing my hair: The hair on my left temple is so sparse it looks like a Rudy Giuliani comb over. I admit I do not take it well. You know the scene in “Saving Private Ryan” where the priest comes to give Mother Ryan the news about the first three kids? Come to think of it, Mrs. Ryan handled it with more dignity. The patch also made me face the fact that for the last few months strands of hair had been visible throughout my apartment; clinging to my clothes, sticking to the upholstery, rustling around my ankles like wheat rippling across the plains --- 

                   Oh, wait! I am about to be embraced by the Muse.

                   Idea: ‘Oklahoma!’ revival: Laurey is sitting on her porch as copious strands of her hair drift onto her understated gingham dress.  Curly is singing: “There’s a whole lot of hair on your shoulder / It’s a sign that you’re frankly much older…”  But Laurey is so much more interesting than the horse who’s been Curly’s sole companion for three months that they do it up against the corn crib, anyway.

                   Where was I? Oh, right, my bald spot. Off I go to my dermatologist. She has beautiful thick hair, which suggests she knows what she’s doing in that department, though being forty years younger may also be a factor.   

                     The dermatologist says some shedding is normal and that aging and heredity do contribute to hair loss. But I also have seborrheic dermatitis, which is likely a factor. My comb over spot is not doomed for baldness; the hair follicles are not dead, they can be stimulated.

                     She prescribes Ketoconazole shampoo ($34) and her practice’s own hair growth solution, which contains Finasteride and Minoxidil. ($90).  I go home to await the growth of hair so long and lush that I can flip it in the faces of annoying millennials.

                        Boomer this, you pod-impacted little shit. Then tell me how that first home purchase is coming along.

                        The products work – in one spot.  In a few months, hair is growing in in comb-over country. Meanwhile, hair is thin on the crown of my head and it’s still falling out. The dermatologist orders blood work. (Normal). She tries Fluocinonide ($98), which seems to stimulate the growth of hair on my chin as well as my head.  Then, Nutrafoil Hair Growth Supplements ($79), which give me such terrible gas I stop after two days. Then, Kérastase hair oil ($52), massaged directly on the scalp, which makes me shed hair that is shiny and sticky.

                         The dermatologist’s hair, meanwhile, continues to be fabulous. It’s also gotten very long.

                         “Extensions,” she says, when I compliment her.

                          Oh. Damn.

                         For my shedding head she suggests Minoxidil pills ($16). They are more effective than topical solutions, though there can be side effects.  She also tells me about Platelet Rich Plasma treatment, or PRP, in which the patient’s own platelet blood cells are injected into her scalp, stimulating hair growth. It’s a little painful, the dermatologist says. It’s also expensive: $1500 for one treatment; $3600 for a package of three. 

                  “I’d say it was a last resort,” she says. “I wouldn’t really recommend it for you. It works better on young people.”  

                Oh, no! Here comes my muse again and I haven’t even had time to shower:

               Idea:  A contemporary re-telling of ‘Anna Karenina.’ “Anna,” Count Vronksy says. “Your white hair has been shedding all over the black seats of my Maserati. It’s a pain to get off, I stand here all day with Scotch heavy duty shipping tape, which is not a cool look. And I’ve seen your Wiki page and you’re not forty-three. You’re sixty.”  Distraught, Anna leaps out of the car and throws herself in front of an oncoming train at the Union Square station.

            “Granny Leaps Under Wheels of R Train”, reads the headline in the New York Post.