Juha Seppänen's hair began to thin at the age of 18. Eventually, he started using hair systems, and you would never tell.
“Hi! I'm Juha, and a year ago I started using hair systems”.
A video of a younger man without, something you rarely see on social media, flashes at the camera. The hair is shaved from the scalp so that it is only left on the back of the head and above the ears. After preparing his scalp, Juha places his toupee on his head.
A year ago, Juha Seppänen, 29, decided to upload a video to his Tiktok account, introducing himself, step by step attaching his hair system. To date, the video has garnered nearly 250,000 views and hundreds of admirable comments.
That's awesome. But perhaps the best part is how much people have added to the posts. The men have posted pictures of their own heads and shared what baldness has done to their self-esteem, Juha says.
From the end result of the video or the look conveyed by Juha’s video, one would never believe that Juha’s hair began to thin at the age of 18.
Until then, hair was an important part of Juha’s identity: it was easy for him to brighten up his own appearance quickly and express himself through his hair. "I was able to dye my hair, cut it and style it to my liking".
You can watch Juha's video on using the hair system below.
Baldness is hereditary. When it started for Juha, he was not immediately ready to accept his thinning hair. Instead, he tried her best to cover up the situation: he sprayed brown dry shampoo on his hair, gathered his hair to one side as thickly as possible, and sprayed hairspray on top. He even ordered a thickening base spray from a foreign online store when the product was not available in Finland.
"It was a pretty messy job. After a while, I said there was no point in this. That even if the hair looks pretty good from afar, at close range they all look just awful."
Juha says that he has also tried all possible shampoos, vitamins, and supplements that thicken the hair - to no avail. At the same time, he noticed how they were all marketed to women, decorated with pictures of women, and placed on a women’s cosmetics shelf.
The men were only offered obscure internet ads that were far from reliable.
Eventually, Juha decided to shave his head bald.
”I remember sending a message to my friend that wanted to help, now I went bald. He never believed that this day would come. I have a nice shaped head. I've always been told that. That I have a really nice face."
“I don’t think everything has to be fair. It is not fair for some to become bald. It doesn't have to be accepted, but it can still work well. ”
The majority of Finns become bald
Baldness is very common: about 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women suffer from it.
Still, male pattern baldness is rarely talked about.
Baldness is caused by male hormones and androgens. Hair becomes thinner when the hair follicles react differently to androgens. Androgens are also rooted in the medical name for baldness, androgenetic alopecia.
In women, hair loss usually begins in middle age, and hair often is distributed more evenly around the head. In men, hair can begin to thin at the age of twenty. The hairline fades back and the hair loss is concentrated on the temples and scalp. Usually, the hair is retained below the temples and nape.
At first, it was difficult to accept my own baldness, Juha ponders. It didn’t help that people wanted to talk about his baldness, indeed rubbing it in.
"You touch your own head and wonder how smooth your head was."
"Of course it's smooth! I had shaved it", Juha laughs.
He found hats and caps. He hid his head under them and began to avoid places where the hat should be taken off.
Juha frowns.
"You know, I don't think everything has to be fair", he says.
"It's not fair that some people get bald. It doesn’t have to be accepted, but it can still live well with it. I was fine with it until I realized I hadn't been in a public place more than twice in ten years without a hat."
In a confused hair system market
By 2020, Juha had been bald for more than ten years.
Before, he had covered up his missing hair, now he wanted hair for himself, but didn’t know how. Juha googled his options. He had always been interested in wigs. Abroad, wigs are much more common, he points out. Many of the “new hairstyles ” in celebrity titles are really a wig.
There are only a handful of wig vendors to consider in Finland. The prices are not cheap.
Finnish hair systems cost more than 600 euros, but there is no difference in their duration to foreign ones. "I realized that the Finnish handicraft comes with a higher price tag".
Juha continued to compare companies and exchanged messages with them. Finding the right type of hair system was surprisingly difficult.
Get your own hair system, like Juha, at Lordhair today!
"Lordhair.com actively answered my questions. In the end, I ended up ordering something from them and hoping for the best", Juha grins.
When the hair system arrived, Juha traveled from Helsinki to Tampere. There, his cousin, who works as a barber-hairdresser, cut her hair system to fit his head and style.
"I didn't quite cry, but I never thought this would have such a big impact. It's like I had hair again."
Juha decided to send thanks to the hair system company as well. The company got so excited about Juha's before-after pictures that it wanted Juha to be a company model. Juha would send the company before-after pictures of different hairstyles against the hair systems.
Now there are fifteen of them on the site, Juha laughs.
Toupee for everyday life, in all situations
Juha usually uses one hair system without a break for a week to two weeks. He then removes the hair system and washes and shaves his scalp. The hair system is washed with cold water.
There are two types of men's toupees, silicone (PU thin skin) and lace, and their lifespan varies from one and a half to three months.
You can play sports, swim and even sauna with the hair system, Juha says. However, it must be remembered that any hairdryer will also shorten its lifespan.
And this is really not as easy as it looks. However, I have a piece of material on my head that has been implanted with hair. Then it costs 250 to 400 euros every three months, he ponders.
I think the hair system can never replace my own hair, and it's never my hair. It’s also a good thing: If I ever get bored, I can just shave my head back bald.
The best thing about the hair system is the variety and readiness. Each of Juha's hair systems is always cut to a slightly different pattern. He even has them in different colors.
The right cut is important because the hair system, like ordinary hair, does not grow or settle in size.
“I think the hair system can never replace my own hair, and it’s never my hair. It's also a good thing: If I get bored sometimes, I can just shave my head back bald. ”
Never for hair transplantation
With the toupee, Juha started filming videos on social media. The number of comments and reactions also increased with the popularity of his videos.
"I keep getting messages and comments about whether I have considered going to Turkey. That’s when I wondered if I would travel to another country to see doctors who don’t speak my native language at all. And then I would trust them to take the hair off my neck, plant the hair in my head and send me flashing back home?"
Juha's idea of a hair transplant abroad is awful. He’s seen videos of the procedure, and it's not for him.
Juha has also googled hair transplants. He knows the price of the procedure alone, without travel expenses is a lot, Juha ponders.
"It feels that people's way of thinking about hair transplants is quite distorted. It’s thought of as an easy gimmick, but I don’t think it’s really that. There is a great risk that you will have to go to the hair transplant again", Juha ponders.
There are also many more serious risks associated with hair transplantation, such as rejection reactions, scarring, and inflammation.
Most of Juha's commenters are positive, but there are also critics. "It's right there at the top level of vanity. But I think of it as being useless for its own sake. Bald, it looked the same every day! It got pretty boring."
The above interview was translated from Finnish from
https://www.is.fi/menaiset/tyyli/art-2000008639973.html
Juha's favorite hair system bases are the following:
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