To grow or not to grow, that is the question,
Whether it is nobler on the head to suffer
the shame and sorrow of outrageous baldness
or to take arms against the fate of hair loss
and by opposing, end it? To treat, to shave?
No more; yet by a shave to say we end
the heart-ache and the thousand natural threats
that hair is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished. To shave, to treat,
to treat, perchance to heal: aye there’s the rub;
for in that flask of tonic what hope is left
when we have shaken out the final drop of lotion,
must give us pause. There’s the respect
that makes calamity of so long mane;
for who would bear the ridicule of all,
the comrade’s smirk, the hair’d men’s pride,
the pangs of jealousy and shame and laughter,
the insolence of youngsters and the face
that’s mirrored every morn’ at wake,
when he himself might his solution find
in hairy implants? Who would hide his head
to grunt and sweat under a hairy wig,
but that the dread of favored ladies’s scorn,
the unreturn’ed love we hunker after
makes us submit to every kind of treatment
cosmetic science promised to discover
and marketing doth advertise to man.
Thus baldness does make targets of us all,
And as the natural look of manhood
Is subject to the cruel influence of steroids
and Samson’s fate a menace to our sex,
With this regard, our hopes now turn to implants
As tonics lose the name of Action.


About the Author
Beauty industry veteran Karl Lintner is president of KAL'IDEES Beauty Ideas S.A.S., based in Paris. More infol: karl.lintner@kalidees.com