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Propecia — who needs it when you have red peppers

Words are wonderful things. “Men stop at nothing to stamp out male pattern baldness.” would be the full version. There’s nothing men will not do to. . . Men, it seems, are so desperate when the first signs of hair loss grow too obvious to ignore in the drain for the shower, they will go to any lengths to protect what is left. This makes our society really strange. Lose a little hair and it lights a bomb under the usually lazy couch potato who must do what? Ah, now there you have it. Just what are the “somethings” men do when “nothing” will stop them from losing more hair? Well, panic is not wearing a baseball cap to hide the problem. Covering the head while trying to look cool in the singles bar is advertising the problem. So, in the true frat-house tradition, men turn to urban myths for the solutions to their problem.

Let’s start off this role-call of honor with the red pepper. Now you may think this humble spice is for eating. Can we have chili without peppers? But there’s another side to this vegetable. Trying rubbing it on your head and feel what happens. “Feel”? Well, it depends on which variety of pepper you try. If you go for the chili hot (and which college student does not enjoy the challenge of eating spicy food?), it burns when it comes into contact with the skin. As a warning, never let it get in your eyes. The pain will make hair loss seem irrelevant. The urban myth claims this burning, the polite way of describing a violent allergic reaction, will stimulate your head into action. Your immune system is kicked into life, histamine appears to fight the invading pepper and, wonder of wonders, your hair will start to grow again.

Or, then there’s the all-purpose cure we all know and love as aloe vera. From the practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine to the modern manufacturers of hair shampoo, the story is the same. Rub it on, even in diluted form, and it will cure whatever is wrong with you. For hair loss, it kills off any fungal infections and stimulates the follicles into life. Well, if there’s a little perfume in the mixture, your head may smell good. It probably does have moisturizing qualities so your skin will feel good, but there’s no evidence for any claimed hair-loss benefits.

Finally, you can go for a variation on the cover-it-up approach borrowed from women and cancer patients. Well, you did say you were desperate. For centuries, women have been tattooing in their eyebrows. Some regret plucking. Others have hair too fair to show up. Either way, you can draw permanently beautiful lines on the skin. Cancer patients losing their hair during radio- or chemotherapy have also been camouflaging the loss.

So there you have it. Torture yourself with red peppers, rub some great-smelling vegetable on your head or endure the pain of tattooing. Or you could just give in and take Propecia. It may not be exotic. It may not cause you pain. But Propecia works.