I've been through the Hair Club experience. I want to provide an insider's viewpoint so you can make an informed decision.

Here's the short version:

For $1500, Hair Club for Men will order a human-hair toupee worth about $250 and glue it to your head. They will then charge you $65 every four to six weeks to unglue it, cut your hair, and glue it back on again.

Got your own story?  Visit the Hair Club Sucks forum.

Now the long version, if you're still interested.  (Prices may have changed since I had my experience ... but I doubt they've gone down.)

When you visit Hair Club for your first consultation, you'll see posters on the wall depicting guys with natural-looking hairlines. In some of the photos, the guys will even be lifting the front of their hair with a comb to prove that a Hair Club system is "undetectable."

The guys in the photo, by the way, are wearing the NST or "Non-Surgical Transplant" model. I never even asked how much it was, because the standard version is $1495, and that's expensive enough. Much later, I found out that "NST" is just a lace-front toupee. Keep reading and we'll get to that part.

You'll see a video in which smiling men with lots of hair are skiing, swimming, lifting weights, and even getting a haircut. They all look as if they've got their youthful hair back. They're happy as hell. The video explains how Hair Club takes real human hair that matches your own and attaches it to a lightweight, high-tech "matrix," which is then applied to the balding portion of your scalp.

At this point, you will want to believe that a Hair Club "system" is almost like having your hair back. You'll imagine yourself jumping into the shower, shampooing your hair, giving it a quick blow dry, and you're done.

The Hair Club representative will then make you an offer: join today, and it's just $1495 for the initiation, and the "hair" is free. If you don't join today, then later on you'll have to pay the same $1495, PLUS another $1200 for the hair. In a near-panic, you agree to join NOW. (And you are somewhat disappointed to realize there's no secret Hair Club handshake or anything like that.)

You sign a contract. Among other things, the contract says you can change your mind before your system is applied, or just after it's applied -- as long as you haven't left the premesis. In other words, as long as you haven't had time to experience the discomfort that sets in later. (More on that to follow.) If you do change your mind before leaving the premesis, you get back 50 percent of your investment.

The contract also states that you acknowledge that the system may require a frontal adhesive. And you're thinking, Duh? Of course it does -- the whole thing uses an adhesive, doesn't it? More on that to follow, too.

They measure your head for the high-tech "matrix." They take a clip of your hair to match color and texture. They warn you not to get a haircut between now and when the "system" arrives in another eight weeks or so -- it takes that long to create it, strand by strand ... so they tell you. Finally, they put a bit of "medical adhesive" on your ear to make sure you're not allergic to it. "Medical adhesive" means "glue that sticks to your hair and skin."

Finally, two months later, someone calls to say your system has arrived, and you need to come in for a color check. So you go back to the office, and someone holds up a bunch of little hair samples next to your hair. You're wondering why they don't just bring in the "system" and hold it next to your head. The answer is that you might look at it and say, "Hey ... that's just a toupee. Give me a refund."

Now you make another appointment to have the system applied. In my case, that was another two weeks -- they said they were booked. I think they need the time to dye the piece if the color isn't just right.

The big day arrives. Badly in need of a haircut, you show up at the office. The stylist wets down your hair, gets the "system" out of a box, and applies two-sided tape to the inside perimeter. She applies medical adhesive (glue) to the tape. Then she puts another kind of tape at the front of the "system."

That's the first bomb. Remember that line in the contract about how the front of the system may require an adhesive? Well, the "adhesive" is double-sided tape. And guess what? It's only good for a few days at most, probably less if your head perspires.

Every few days, you have to apply a liquid "blend" to the front of your hairline to loosen the tape, peel back the front of the piece, apply more "blend" to the tape, and let it loosen more. Then you peel off the old tape. Then you clean the system and your head with rubbing alcohol -- if you don't, the piece won't stay down, even with new tape. Finally, you get out the bag of pre-cut tape strips and apply a new one to the system, as close to the edge as you dare, and press it down onto your forehead.

Is this what you imagined? Is this like having your old hair back? Hardly. But you still WANT hair, so you swallow and say I guess I can do that. Oh, and about that shampoo-and-go fantasy? Think again. The second bomb: You're about to start spending a major portion of every morning fussing with your hair.

Remember, the piece ISN'T natural, growing hair -- it's dead, and eventually the hairs will become brittle and start breaking. It's only expected to last six to 12 months, if you do everything right. "Everything right" means using not one, not two, not three, but FOUR bottles of hair-care products every time you shower: shampoo, conditioner, detangling rinse, and "reconstructor," whatever that means. You must shampoo gently in one direction (i.e., no mussing your hair, no digging in with your fingers) for fear of breaking the hair.

But you STILL want hair, so you say okay, I can do that too.

The stylist "applies" the system. That means she glues the inside perimeter of the piece to your hair. Not to your scalp, you understand -- to your existing hair. (At the front, of course, it's held down by the double-sided tape.) Then she lets it all dry. Finally, she wets it all down, and cuts your hair and the piece at the same time.

In the neon lighting of their styling room, the hair color looks like a great match. (Later, out in the sunlight, I realized the Hair Club hair was a bit too reddish to be an exact match for my ash-brown natural hair.)

But whether the color matches or not, the hairline wouldn't fool a blind man. A natural hairline isn't solid ... go look at someone who still has one. Natural hairlines start with a few wisps and then, within the next quarter-inch or so, become full and thick. My Hair Club piece was a solid, thick mass at the hairline. I'm 40 years old, and nobody would believe I still have this hairline ... hell, I didn't have a hairline that thick when I was still a hormone-addled teenager.

So when I went back the next day (they want you to come in for re-style within 48 hours), I had the stylist re-cut the hair with the bangs down. At that point, it looked passable; i.e., it looked like it could be my hair. But I was thinking, If I have to wear bangs, why didn't I just buy a good toupee? The punchline is, I did ... I just didn't know it yet.

Over the course of the next two days, I started to hate the "system." First, the four-bottle hair-care routine takes forever. Suddenly, it was taking me longer to fuss with my hair than my fiancée spends on hers. And because of all the various and sundry liquids you have to dump on your head, it takes forever for your hair to dry -- unless you use a blow-dryer, but of course (as they warn you) a blow-dryer will reduce the lifespan of your "system."

Second, when my front adhesive became loose on the third day, I found it extremely difficult to effectively apply double-sided tape to a peeled-back piece on top of my own head. The tape kept sticking to my fingers, tearing, or turning back on itself. Finally, my fiancée had to do it for me.

Third, the glue (excuse me ... Hair Club calls it "polyfuse") they globbed into my hair started to itch ... and then itch more ... and then burn and itch. The top of my head also began to itch from not being thoroughly washed. But guess what? You can't scratch your head -- the system is too thick for that. Want to recreate the feeling for free? Put something on your head that will make it itch -- a little rubber cement ought to do it -- and then wear your thickest baseball cap. Now try to scratch your head through the cap.

By the fourth night, I couldn't stand it. The itch was keeping me awake. Every time I turned my head on my pillow, the piece pulled at my real hair. At 2:00 AM, I got up, put "blend" on the front and peeled it back. Then I doused "blend" on the polyfuse points and loosened, doused more, loosened more. Almost 20 minutes later, I'd finally managed to get the damned thing off.

My hair was full of glue. I couldn't get it out. "Blend" didn't do it. Nail-polish remover didn't do it. But I was free of the piece, and my head felt like an escaped prisoner.

I used the rest of the blend to remove the tape from the inside perimeter of the piece. When I removed the last bit of tape, I discovered it had been covering up a logo. The logo read: "The Natural ... by Amy." Who's Amy? Where's the Hair Club logo?

Hair Club sold me a toupee and glued it to my head. And I was out $1500, too late for a refund.

That's the Hair Club experience per se. Now for the rest of the story:

Hair Club was closed the morning after I removed the piece. They wouldn't open again for two more days. Meanwhile, I had glue in my hair that I couldn't get out. I surfed the Internet, looking for information about toupees, adhesives, etc.

My search led me to www.thecamouflageclub.com, a site for anyone interested in hair-replacement systems and products. I called the owner, a super-nice guy named Rick. When he found out I live in L.A., he gave me the name and number for Wilshire Wigs and told me they could sell me a solvent that would remove the glue.

He also told me he's a fellow Hair Club survivor, and told me HCM has a high "freak out factor" -- guys who, like me, get up in the middle of the night and yank the damned system off their heads, or at the very least, show up at Hair Club the next day and demand that they remove it.

He still wears a toupee, but uses a daily adhesive and removes the piece at night. The daily adhesive, he told me, won't come off in wind, rain, a pool -- in other words, you can still ski just like those guys in the Hair Club video. But you're not, pardon the pun, stuck with it for six weeks at a time.

I explained that as an actor, I'm really only interested in wearing a piece for auditions, and any jobs I book while wearing it. He suggested that in my case, I could use tape on the front, and clips in the back. No glue required, and it still won't come off in a high wind.

At Wilshire Wigs, I looked at several toupees and confirmed my suspicion that Hair Club had in fact sold me a piece, period. The pieces I looked at were human hair attached to a thin net that's exactly the same as that high-tech "matrix." If you want the hair-pulled-back look, the stylist said, you get a lace-front toupee. The lace is flesh-colored, very sheer, very thin -- in other words, almost invisible -- which is why they can let the hairline build over a quarter-inch or so ... like a real hairline. Hmmm ... doesn't that sound rather a lot like HCM's "Non-Surgical Transplant"?

I asked how much the toupees cost. The regular model, about $250. The lace front, about $300, a little more for a special style. The stylist measured my head, took a hair sample, and told me to come back in two days and she'd have a piece ready for me. Get that? Two days ... not eight weeks. The piece she chose and styled for me looks better, more realistic, than the $1500 Hair Club job. Best of all, there's no glue required. She positioned three small hair clips inside the piece. I simply clip those to my real hair, then use the double-sided tape up front ... and since the piece isn't glued to my head, I can apply the tape before putting the whole thing on my head.

$1500 on the left.

$300 on the right.

There's the full Hair Club story. If you really want hair on your head 24/7 and are willing to put up with the itch, the multi-step morning routine and (according to Rick), the dirty-head smell that becomes stronger and stronger during the weeks between your Hair Club haircuts, then fine, go to Hair Club and pay $1500 for a $300 toupee.  Sy Sperling will love you for it.

Otherwise, accept that you're a balding man, go get a really good toupee, take it off at night, and save yourself a ton of money and a lot of time and fuss and discomfort.

You have been warned.

Got your own story?  Visit the Hair Club Sucks forum.

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Links

www.baldrus.com

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