As a young Kildare man wins his court case for a disastrous hair replacement, Kitty Holland combs through the problem, strand by strand
Young Kildare man Colm Malone, like many an Irish lad, was concerned with his appearance. In 1996, he was 24 and thinning a little on top. The quiff was the thing.
Malone was so obsessed with his hair that when he saw an ad for "strand-by-strand hair replacement" in a newspaper, he thought it was "everything \ wanted".
The Advanced Hair Studio, Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin, a franchise of the Australian company which also has branches in England, Belgium, South Africa and Hong Kong, promises on its website "no surgery, no pain and no scarring".
The "strand-by-strand" technique, it trumpets, "replaces your hair the way you lost it, strand by strand". So young Malone paid the deposit. "I borrowed €1,270 from my mother, lifted my life savings and sold my car to fund it," he told the Dublin Circuit Civil Court this week. He said the procedure was very painful.
"There wasn't a whole lot said but I couldn't believe I was getting a big mop of a wig stuck on top of my own hair." He said he drove around for hours before going home and then stayed in all weekend. When he went in to work the following Monday his colleagues laughed at him, telling him to get straight back to Dublin to have the "mop" removed. It was done the following day - but he received no refund.
Bevan Murray, general manager of Advanced Hair Studio Britain and Ireland, told The Irish Times he regretted Malone's experience but stressed he did not have the strand-by-strand procedure, but had a hair piece attached.
"He would have known that before the procedure started. No one is allowed to leave our premises without signing forms sayings they are happy with the results. We didn't have those documents for the court, for some reason." Malone told the court: "It's hard to describe how hurt and depressed I was".
But Tuesday was a good hair day. He was awarded €5,080 damages by Judge Elizabeth Dunne and, six years wiser, he'll probably be a little more wary of investing so much in thickening his top in the future.
And that's the kind of outcome people such as Ann Goldsmith, manager of Universal Hair Clinic on Dublin's South Great George's Street, are afraid of.
"I hate these kinds of cases because it gives all hair clinics a bad name," she says. The Universal, which this week is celebrating 40 years in business, was one of the the first hair clinics in the State.
Goldsmith has been combing and fluffing there for 37 years. She regards any kind of hair replacement surgery as a last resort - "prevention is better than cure" - and would always counsel clients to "halt excessive hair loss, strengthen it and maintain what they have in good condition".
There are different types and causes of baldness, including alopecia, telogen effluvium (abrupt generalised thinning), areata baldness (baldness in areas), trichotylomanea (where people compulsively pluck out their own hair, an addictive habit like nail-biting), chemotherapy and then plain, ordinary male pattern baldness.
Goldsmith describes as "very traumatic" the beginning of hair loss for many men and women. "I've had mature macho men and young lads in here crying their eyes out, suicidal because they're losing their hair."
An estimated two out of five men and one out of five women experience some degree of hereditary hair loss. Apart from the hereditary factor, the main causes of hair loss, she says, are stress and, to a lesser degree, poor diet and circulation.
Celine Murphy, senior stylist with David Marshall hair salons, also stresses a healthy diet, dietary supplements such as vitamin D and flax oil, as well as minimising stress as the keys to a healthy head of hair. "But if it's naturally in you to lose your hair, you are going to lose some of it." She believes "good grooming" means emphasising "looking good" rather than necessarily "looking young".
Goldsmith agrees. "I'd always say first to someone coming in, 'Let's see what we can do with what you've got'. I'd always say surgery should be a last resort."
If a client is still concerned about hair loss, surgery might be looked at, though in Murphy's view it is a step, "only for someone who is very, very unhappy with themselves".
There are three types of surgery: hair transplant, hair implants and "strand-by-strand".
Implants involve artificial hair strands being implanted in the scalp under local anaesthetic. According to the Advanced Hair Studio, "strand-by-strand" hair replacement is a "non-surgical skin graft". An artificial substance is used to coat the bald patches. Human hair is used then, knotted on to the odd strand of natural hair pulled through it.
Neither implants nor "strand-by-strand" are offered at Universal. Hair transplants are performed by a qualified plastic surgeon. Success depends on the client having reasonable growth at the back and sides, to provide "donor-patches".
Goldsmith estimates the clinic does between five and 10 transplants a week and says they cost between €500 and €3,000.
"We'd always say to someone to get full, reliable advice; think through exactly what they want and to think hard about it. Because this is surgery, these are people's lives, their health."