I’m going to let you in on a little secret: bald men dread the holiday season. They might not outwardly show it, but inside them squeaks a tiny voice of festive terror.
I’m speaking from personal experience here. This Christmas will be the third since I finally summoned the courage to scrape the embarrassingly threadbare fluff from the top of my scalp and announce myself to the world as bald. For the most part, I’m fine with it. But I swear to God, nothing gets the cortisol pumping like knowing that someone is going to buy you a gift.
The potential for disaster is just too high. All it takes is for someone to slightly misjudge your sensitivity to baldness and the whole thing is ruined. Let me make this as clear as I can. Please don’t buy me a joke bald present.
I don’t want to receive a novelty toothless comb, or a Covid mask bearing the legend “No Hair Don’t Care.” I don’t buy you presents drawing attention to things that make you feel self-conscious, do I?
I wouldn’t dream of buying you a T-shirt telling everyone that you have a crippling porn addiction, or a hat emblazoned with the phrase “Gee, Look At The State Of That Mole On My Face.” So, again, don’t buy me a scalp polisher.
That mug? The one that sits absurdly high in the Google listings for “Bald Gift,” and reads “BALDY WANKER” with an arrow pointing up at the drinker? Don’t buy it for me. Don’t buy it for anyone. What are you, a psychopath?
Fortunately, much better gifts do exist for the bald man in your life. Many of them came to my attention through the secret product-recommendation whisper network that exists within the bald community.
“Please don’t buy me a joke bald present.”
For instance, when I let slip to my old (bald) personal trainer that I was still hacking away at my hair with a beard trimmer, he quietly tutted and sent me a link to the Remington QuickCut hair clipper, as someone had previously done to him. The QuickCut has been a game changer; roughly the size of a small grapefruit, it lets you shave your entire head in less time than it takes to run a bath. Just make sure you keep it charged, so it won’t run out of juice halfway through. Nobody wants to go outside with a half-shaved head, after all.
Speaking of grooming, unless they’ve been blessed with a miraculously matte scalp, the bald man in your life will always be looking to reduce shine somehow. The best solution to this that I’ve found so far has been BLD BRO Daily, a mattifying moisturizer with SPF protection.
Or perhaps you should concentrate on their beard. These days, a bald man needs to be incredibly sure of himself to remain clean-shaven and deny himself the balance and support offered by facial hair. Your bald man probably has a beard. And if he has a beard, especially during the cold winter months, he needs beard oil. My current favorite is a brand I picked up in Helsinki a few years ago, Risu Baltic Blue. It smells of wood and the sea, which is exactly what you want on a dark Nordic morning.
I’d usually be loath to suggest a hat as a gift, because it’s so easy to get wrong. A gift hat is a judgment call about everything from head shape to personality type, and few can nail it. Fortunately, everyone looks good in a beanie, and there’s no finer beanie on earth than Uniqlo’s cashmere range. They’re unbelievably soft, they scrunch up in a coat pocket, and they hold their shape for years. The bad news is that I already have three of them. The better news is that they come in eight colors, so I’m not even close to completing the set.
Or, you know, you could buy us a gift that doesn’t manage to suggest that you see baldness as our one defining trait. That is an option too, you know, you absolute monster.
Stuart Heritage is a Writer at Large for AIR MAIL. He is the author of Bald: How I Slowly Learned to Not Hate Having No Hair (And You Can Too)
