The hair wellness industry: 'Men said they would rather have a small penis than go bald'
Is the wave of new companies selling products for hair loss providing a much-needed service – or simply cashing in on men’s insecurities?
Simon UsborneSun 26 Jan 2020 10.00 EST
Spencer Stevenson, who has spent more than £30,000 on hair transplants.
Spencer Stevenson was blessed with thick hair as a young man. He was handsome, too, with blue eyes and a dimpled chin. “They used to call me the Hoff,” the 44-year-old property manager recalls, referring to the former Baywatch actor and 90s pinup David Hasselhoff.
Then, when he was 21, Stevenson’s hairline began to recede and it made him so anxious and depressed that he became a near-recluse. “It was a constant drain on my personality,” he says. When he shaved off his thinning hair, the celebrity comparisons became less flattering: “They called me Grant Mitchell.”
Stevenson’s experience led him to become a mentor for balding men. For 15 years he has run an advice website, spexhair.com. He also presents The Bald Truth, an online radio call-in show, alongside Spencer Kobren, founder of the American Hair Loss Association. Progress has been steady, if slow, but Stevenson has started to see a shift from the negative notion of hair “loss”. “Now all we hear about is hair wellness,” he says. You
Beyond the threat to his identity and self-esteem, Stevenson says the stigma of balding added to his suffering. With their clinical names and imagery of elderly men with comb-overs, treatments were about as appealing as piles cream. “It was all ads in the backs of magazines and there was nobody to turn to,” he says.
Now an industry built on fear, vanity and unspoken male vulnerability is undergoing a transformation. In rebranding hair loss as hair wellness as part of the broader rise of men’s wellness, treatments are being repackaged as aspirational products for millennials who are primed to talk about their problems.
Hilary Coles is cofounder of Hims, a startup that launched in San Francisco in 2017 and in the UK last year. “Hims puts together all the pieces of an incredible digital health experience,” says Coles in impeccable marketing speak. Its websitelooks like a store selling hipster houseplants or mid-century furniture.
In common with similar brands that have created the hair wellness market (in the US, where competition is much bigger, they include Keeps, Lemonaid and Nutrafol), Hims does not do much that is new. It has a bigger range in the US, but the UK site is a snazzy shop window for just two products, both of which have been around for years. One is sildenafil, AKA Viagra (Hims is taking on erectile dysfunction along with baldness). The other is finasteride, often branded as Propecia, a medication that inhibits the hormone that may lead to baldness in more than half of men over the age of 50.
Finasteride is not available on the NHS for hair loss. It does require a prescription, but many pharmacies can issue a private prescription via their own doctors, often after an online consultation to check if the medication is suitable (it can cause side-effects). There is also minoxidil, an over-the-counter medication commonly sold in the UK under the brand name Regaine, which stimulates blood supply to hair follicles.
Hims does not even provide its own finasteride pills. In the UK, it has partnered with Croydon-based Cedarwood Pharmacy to supply customers. Hims simply adds the packaging and its website. Following the example of Harry’s, the US shaving firm that turned razor blades into an aspirational subscription service (before it was bought last year by Wilkinson Sword for £1bn), Hims customers subscribe to receive a month’s supply of finasteride (28 pills for £30). The medicine comes in minimalist packaging with no mention of the word “bald”.
Coles, an MBA graduate from Canada, says work she did for a charity for injured soldiers schooled her in modern male mores. She says she became aware of the profound difference it made to men when they felt confident, in terms of their jobs and their roles as husbands and fathers. Along with Andrew Dudum, who has founded many startups, she launched Hims (which also sells women’s products under its Hers brand) to tap into the men’s wellness market.
Is the wave of new companies selling products for hair loss providing a much-needed service – or simply cashing in on men’s insecurities?
Simon UsborneSun 26 Jan 2020 10.00 EST
Spencer Stevenson, who has spent more than £30,000 on hair transplants.
Spencer Stevenson was blessed with thick hair as a young man. He was handsome, too, with blue eyes and a dimpled chin. “They used to call me the Hoff,” the 44-year-old property manager recalls, referring to the former Baywatch actor and 90s pinup David Hasselhoff.
Then, when he was 21, Stevenson’s hairline began to recede and it made him so anxious and depressed that he became a near-recluse. “It was a constant drain on my personality,” he says. When he shaved off his thinning hair, the celebrity comparisons became less flattering: “They called me Grant Mitchell.”
Stevenson’s experience led him to become a mentor for balding men. For 15 years he has run an advice website, spexhair.com. He also presents The Bald Truth, an online radio call-in show, alongside Spencer Kobren, founder of the American Hair Loss Association. Progress has been steady, if slow, but Stevenson has started to see a shift from the negative notion of hair “loss”. “Now all we hear about is hair wellness,” he says. You
Beyond the threat to his identity and self-esteem, Stevenson says the stigma of balding added to his suffering. With their clinical names and imagery of elderly men with comb-overs, treatments were about as appealing as piles cream. “It was all ads in the backs of magazines and there was nobody to turn to,” he says.
Now an industry built on fear, vanity and unspoken male vulnerability is undergoing a transformation. In rebranding hair loss as hair wellness as part of the broader rise of men’s wellness, treatments are being repackaged as aspirational products for millennials who are primed to talk about their problems.
Hilary Coles is cofounder of Hims, a startup that launched in San Francisco in 2017 and in the UK last year. “Hims puts together all the pieces of an incredible digital health experience,” says Coles in impeccable marketing speak. Its websitelooks like a store selling hipster houseplants or mid-century furniture.
In common with similar brands that have created the hair wellness market (in the US, where competition is much bigger, they include Keeps, Lemonaid and Nutrafol), Hims does not do much that is new. It has a bigger range in the US, but the UK site is a snazzy shop window for just two products, both of which have been around for years. One is sildenafil, AKA Viagra (Hims is taking on erectile dysfunction along with baldness). The other is finasteride, often branded as Propecia, a medication that inhibits the hormone that may lead to baldness in more than half of men over the age of 50.
Finasteride is not available on the NHS for hair loss. It does require a prescription, but many pharmacies can issue a private prescription via their own doctors, often after an online consultation to check if the medication is suitable (it can cause side-effects). There is also minoxidil, an over-the-counter medication commonly sold in the UK under the brand name Regaine, which stimulates blood supply to hair follicles.
Hims does not even provide its own finasteride pills. In the UK, it has partnered with Croydon-based Cedarwood Pharmacy to supply customers. Hims simply adds the packaging and its website. Following the example of Harry’s, the US shaving firm that turned razor blades into an aspirational subscription service (before it was bought last year by Wilkinson Sword for £1bn), Hims customers subscribe to receive a month’s supply of finasteride (28 pills for £30). The medicine comes in minimalist packaging with no mention of the word “bald”.
Coles, an MBA graduate from Canada, says work she did for a charity for injured soldiers schooled her in modern male mores. She says she became aware of the profound difference it made to men when they felt confident, in terms of their jobs and their roles as husbands and fathers. Along with Andrew Dudum, who has founded many startups, she launched Hims (which also sells women’s products under its Hers brand) to tap into the men’s wellness market.
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