This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

I have a load of greys on the right side above my ear

Same here. I'm not bothered about going grey but I wish it would come in a bit more evenly. My hair was receding at an alarming rate in my early thirties (tonnes of hair on the pillow every morning) but that's stopped at least for the moment. Again, I'm not bothered - there's a picture of my grandfather at my parent's wedding where he's rocking a swept back Jack Nicholson look.

I admire your strength and courage, AA. I'm just not ready yet :-/

it wasn't strength and courage so much as not wanting to look like this guy or this guy

people keep telling me how sexy salt and pepper hair is... but i feel like they're just being nice. because i'm old now.

nah, it's gobsmackingly sexy

Lol, well I've got quite some time left before it turns as ugly as that.

Though, admittedly, in my darkest hour I did google "dick advocaat hair". /shudders xp

the worst thing is how everyone thinks it's fine to openly remark and take the piss out of you

(not *you* lbi specifically)

if i were missing a leg or had giant sores all over my face nobody would say anything, but a few hairs drop out and it's game on

I'd never say stuff like that, but will cop to having had those thoughts abt bald people. I should've known it'd bite me in the buttocks.

me too, if i'm honest

40s eh

Aye

I'm able to console myself wrt my baldness by remembering that the alternative (ie, literally every other hair replacement option) is ten times as gross and unsightly.

That said, there is admittedly some appeal to the thought of procuring a hilariously-awful toupee.

Perhaps coupled with a gaudy, oversized sports jacket and a bow tie?

Yes, for those unsure, I am an idiot.

there’s also hats

which… can be wanky

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH GOING BALD.

I've got a buddy who went bald like, schzwoop, one year. And now he wears caps indoors and says things like "Ha! Like when I used to have hair!"

It's cool, man!

Baldness does seem to be one of the final frontiers of body-shaming - my boyfriend is mostly bald and it's amazing how people will just make jokes about his baldness to his face in social situations, even people he doesn't know. Not that it bothers him too much, he's thick-skinned, but people wouldn't do the same if he was obese or had a bad stutter or whatever

Thread got too real

i get to die with a full head of hair, everything else is up for grabs tho'

i get to die with a full ear of hair

In re hair, I grew up with dire warnings that my mom's father and brother had both gone completely bald in their 20s, and baldness comes through the mother's side, etc. As it turned out, I had plenty of hair well into my 30s, and since then it's been a long drawn-out matter of thinning on top and receding in front, but still more hair than not. Since I'd sort of made peace with the idea of going bald young, having thinning hair in my late 40s is nbd.

Yeah, I honestly have basically zero sensitivity about it at this point. When I had hair, it was dumb and unmanageable. No big loss.

My hair's been receding slowly for a good decade, but I'm not close to having to shave it yet. Had a smattering of grey for the same amount of time. Now getting to the point where there are too many grey hairs in my beard to tweezer them out individually, which i did for years, less out of vanity than out of the physical sense of satisfaction that removing one gave me. Have tweezered out a handful of grey pubes, a grey chesthair, and, most pathetically, plenty of grey nasal hair. GREY NASAL HAIR wtf.

(Orwell's quote is about being 50, btw; he died at 46 so just missed finding out.)

(Looking at Steve Bannon makes you think there's something in it.)

a mate of mine is undergoing chemo atm for lymphoma and when he first started it he’d had a marvelous rockabilly quiff of hair which rapidly all fell out. he went out clubbing one night not long after and some old goth tart laughed, patted his head and made fun of the baldness. i wish i’d been there when he’d retorted it was due to cancer to see her stupid face.

i hated having hair, my orinal hair was thick and too curly and determined to do anything with.
then in my late 20s i realised i was going to go thin on top.
so, one day i walked into a barbers got a blade #1 cut and went home.
was a sharp cold winters days and my head absolutely buzzed and felt tingly all the way home.
it felt absolutely brilliant.
i walked into our flat, and bh was not too happy, but realised there was no going back and so had to accept it.

There was recently an Orwell quote on that recipe thread where he described a random on a bus as "obscenely bald", while the ugly fucking lunger was spreading the pulmonary TB mycobacterium with every cough!

I was just having a few lols at a twitter thread on Adam Perkins, the discredited academic who wrote the vile garbage that inspired Toby Young's "Progressive Eugenics". The commentary soon goes from attacking his work to comments about him being an ugly, bald bastard and insinuations that he only became a eugenics stan because he couldn't get laid. probably true tbf!

https://youtu.be/Pb51aSiwUEA?t=34m33s

If I ever start to recede properly (49 and not yet, touch wood) I'm determined to rock the Steve Buscemi look for as long as I can:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Steve_Buscemi_2009_portrait.jpg/1200px-Steve_Buscemi_2009_portrait.jpg

oops sorry that's a bit big

i had salt and pepper hair as a teenager, maybe some of you will know what a Mallen streak is but i totally had one at 14. love2grey tbh

Know what a Mallen streak is because this was p much my granny's favourite ever book:

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330925465l/1495952.jpg

i've had the same hairstyle since i was 15, and it's the buscemi. i'm majorly receding, and also my hair is thinning out in the back. (i'm not sensitive at all about the receding hairline, but for some reason i am about the fact that it's thinning out in the back.)

My youngest brother (35) is sadly going as bald as me (as is my next younger brother, 37) but has opted for what I'd call 'the Brett Gelman' in lieu of shaving, which is a good look if you can pull it off. Which I don't think I can.

I've got hair, kept it all in there even after 12 rounds of chemo ten years ago.

But I don't have any chest hair, and at 44, I'm starting to think I may never hit puberty.

My dad has the Tony-Soporano-in-a-tank-top look down pat. My grandfather had those tufts of hair that came up through his undershirt like a cat. I have no idea what my mother's father looked like without a shirt, but I'll blame him anyway.

It's never bothered me. One time in New Orleans, I took off my shirt in the hotel room and one of my pals, a little guy with a nice, natural sweater vest, pointed at me and went What the fuck? I had just never thought about it before, and it was the first time it had been pointed out like that.

My pal is a cool dude, don't get me wrong. He's also bald as fuck now, hahaha.

But I don't have any chest hair, and at 44, I'm starting to think I may never hit puberty.

I have had a goatee since I was about 20, but couldn't grow a mustache to go with it until I was in my mid-30s. I never had much in the way of chest hair until about the same time, but now it's...not a full-on sweater-vest, but in '70s Burt Reynolds territory.

heh, I'm remembering my grandfather when he was in his late 60s. Maybe in another 20 years, one of these tiny little hairs will work its way up and out.

I've always had a fairly full chest of said hair. It, more than hair elsewhere, is what's going grey quickest. (Well likely my beard too but the world will never know, obviously.)

more than hair elsewhere

Gosh. That must be a lot of hair.

Lol

The main place I’ve gotten gray hair at all so far is my damn nostrils. Shock white, really. And thick, like fishing line :(

I just yank em

My beard's got a gray streak, but none in my head hair. My dad, in his late 70s, still isn't gray, so I may miss that one. I've been balding since I was 19 though, though oddly it hasn't really progressed thaaaat much since then.

beard is graying at the corners of my chin, hair has some gray in the temples but remains ample as ever, fair bit of gray chest hair

none of that is bothersome but i feel like the hair growing out of my damn ears has gone into overdrive

wookieproof

ha!

Apologies to any women present about the long "guy hair" digression; be thankful it's not All Prostates All the Time

I'm given to understand that women have their own set of age-related follicular issues, and I believe there's at least some overlap with the ones we get to enjoy. They're certainly welcome to join in the commiseration-fest!