I’ll be the first to say that I never imagined I’d write a blog post like this. Actually, scratch that. This is in fact my FIRST true blog post ever, so I’m not sure I thought I’d write a post about anything.

But then, I never thought I would have hair again, and that it would totally change how I feel about a lot of things. So this seems as good a time and topic as any I could imagine.

I’m a bald guy — technically. And up until recently, I had been rocking my baldness in all its glory for almost 23 years. I was bald when my kids were born. I was bald when I moved cities and made new friends. And I was bald when I started my business and landed my clients. Just about everyone in my life has known me as a bald guy. I’m told I have “a nice head for it”.

And truthfully, I never really thought much about my lack of hair over the years. From time to time, I’d see an ad for some spray-on hair, or hear tales of miracle hair transplants in Turkey. Or, I’d see the occasional ad for hair systems and be mildly inspired. But, having grown up in the 80’s, and hitting my bald streak in the 90’s, the idea of a toupée was just laughable.

If TV had taught me anything, adult men with toupées always have their hair blown off by a strong wind. And it’s always in front of an audience. There was no way my cooler, younger self would ever have allowed “future me” to suffer that.

Believe me, I had every reason to consider wigging-up.

Let the Hair Loss Begin.

By the start of middle school, I had a fairly advanced widow’s peak going. And that was before I started using harsh hairsprays and bleaches as frequently and destructively as possible.

It was the 80’s, so like many teens, I would peroxide my bangs in chunks, and douse my head in French Connection hairspray while the hairdryer was blowing. Worse, I would follow that up by violently pulling my superglued hair with a brush to get that frizzy, destroyed look.

Given the bushels left behind in the brush every day, I probably should have realized that I actually was destroying my hair. Or at very least it was falling out of its own accord. But, I didn’t. As far as I knew, hair just kept growing back.

I’d like to say that I’d smartened up by the time I hit my 20’s, but the 1990’s may have been just as bad for my hairline as its predecessor. The rave days were all about oversized pants, platform shoes, and piercings — and for me, the start of a canary-white Caesar cut.

On one hand, I looked as cool as hell. But on the other, my bangs were hiding the vast, empty fields around my temples, caused in part by the bleach required to keep up the style.

By the time I was 30, my widow’s peak had become island surrounded by wisps barely capable of hiding my numerous bald spaces.

I was left with only one logical option: shave it off.

Is that a Skinhead? Nope. Just an Average Dad.

Going skin-bald was pretty cool at first. It made me feel edgy. Different. There weren’t many 30 year olds around me who were totally bald. So I felt unique in my own way — like it was my choice to be bald. But over time, as my peers got older and they were forced to make the same ‘choice’ I had, I eventually became just another bald 45+ dad in a sea of them.

Now at this point, I still didn’t often think about my lack of hair with any negativity. Not consciously, anyway. I mean, I missed having hair, but I was told by the women in my life that they thought I was handsome, and I’d repeatedly seen the likes of Patrick Stewart and Stanley Tucci make it to “Sexiest Man” status. Besides, with no viable or affordable options to grow new hair, it made more sense to just accept it than to beat myself up about it.

That is, until 6 months ago. After 22 years going completely shaved, the algorithms that run our lives served me a video that changed my perception of toupées entirely — not least of which was the fact that they are no longer perceivable at all.

Hooray for Hollywood.

There, on my screen, I watched a tired-looking, 75 year old bald man become a comparably spry 60 year old in minutes, just by putting on a hair system. And he did it himself.

There was no visible hairline, and the colour and style totally blended in. You would never know it was a hair system, and clearly it made him feel like a million bucks.

Besides that, it was totally secure on his head: no wind was going to take this guy’s confidence away.

I watched the video over and over, and went hunting for more. Surely it had to be a trick. But it wasn’t. I soon found a dozen more videos featuring similarly incredible transformations — not just of hairlines, but of people.

I watched men of all ages hiding under wispy combovers and overgrown beards go from less-than-average to downright sexy, almost instantly.

Unlike the toupées of the past, this was clearly next-level stuff. All I could think was that it’s what they use in Hollywood. Surely not all actors are as blessed as George Clooney. Some, even many, must be bald. And now someone had figured out how to bring this new hair magic to the rest of us. To me.

All of a sudden, I went from not caring a lick about my bald head, to realizing just how much I missed having hair, and that I could have it. Or at least, that it would be worth looking into. Even just to try it out.

And that’s when I found MESH…