How old?

[MDas88]

How old were you when you first shaved your head bald?
What was the reason?
What were the reactions from family/friends etc?

Ive shaved mine 4 times now, im 21. Been cutting it short for a while now and thought the next step will be razor! With me, got a bit of a receding hairline, although family think im paranoid about it. Although to touch, there is nothing, smooth as, it still looks like ive got hair so with my family and friends, none of them actually reallised i'd haved it bald until i told them.

[slyatlast]

Hmmm - I was 52.  Old enough to realize I should have done it much sooner.

My ex saw it for the first time this past weekend (been sly for 10 months).  Her reaction was very negative but since she's my EX-wife, ask me if I care.  lol

[J.J.]

How old were you when you first shaved your head bald?
What was the reason?
What were the reactions from family/friends etc?

The very first time I shaved my head slick, it was freshman year of college, and I was 18.  I went from long hair (at least 4 inches on the back & sides) to totally bald in one fell swoop.  Took the bare clippers and did the reverse mohawk down the middle, so there was no turning back.  It was 1983, the height of the Big Hair 80's with most guys emulating Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls, not Kojak.  But I wanted to try it, so I did. 

My friends and my whole family freaked out when they saw me bald.  They were convinced I joined a cult, or I was depressed, or I was crazy.   Of course, I wasn't any of those things....LOL. 

The reaction was so intensely negative that I started growing it back right away, and didn't try shaving it totally bald again until 1995. 

[Rusty Shackleford]

I was 24 and it was 1998.

I preferred short buzzcuts but they are a pain because they are actually high maintenance if you have anything other than a simple buzzcut where everything is the same length.  I'd get a flattop with a fade (I really liked the nearly bald sides and back) but within a week all I had was a short haircut due to how fast it grew out.

Bald heads looked awesome and I really liked how they seemed so easy to maintain and obviously didn't grow out.  BUT I was too nervous.  I started buzzing my hair shorter and shorter (and gave myself flattops with stubble sides) and finally got to the point where I shaved it off smooth.  My parents didn't even notice I shaved for a couple days because I had been buzzing it so short!

I grew it out because I felt self-conscience about it like everyone was staring and pointing, and then that week a friend at work was killed in a car accident.  Spending mental energy on something as trivial as my hair during THAT just seemed, trivial, and the only way to stop it was to let it grow out.  So I did.

Over the next year I kept it at about a half inch, then I decided to give myself flattops with bare-blade clipper sides using a brand-new professional set of clippers.  Likewise that got old and I tought "heck, why not just shave it?" so I did.  This time around it wasn't really a big deal shaving it off like it was that very first time a year earlier.  I'd shave it over the weekends and then let the top grow during the week.  Stupid huh?    Then it occurred to me in early August that if I liked being bald so much why not just keep it that way permanently?  It really was this revelation as if I always thought of my shaved head as a temporary hairstyle, and once I decided to keep it that way it was like a weight was taken off my shoulders!

Of course my mom doesn't like it.  Does any mother like it?  She hates facial hair too.  My dad didn't really care but thought it was an odd choice.  He was from the 60s and thought all guys, given the chance to do what they wanted to do, would walk around with a big ugly mop with hair on their heads that would even cover the ears.  It's annoying that my sister and her kids always get into some big discussion on it as if my head was growing feathers or something. 

Now it's nearly 10 years later and I'm still diggin' it!   

[PHANTZM]

I was 17, and freshly enlisted into the U.S. Army. I had long hair , and decided that if they were gonna cut it off that I didn't want any hair. So left the barber and dug out my razor and took it all off. Was like that off and on for the 4.5 years I was in.

When I got out I let it grow out some (well quite a bit) then had my wife braid it and chop it off (the braid was about 22-23" long). Took it down to the scalp right after. Been short since with some shaving here and there. Odds are it will remain this way since hair maintenance is so easy in the morning now.

~Gary

[Sooner Steve]

I was 43 - I had MPB and a hairpiece for 23 years - Family thought it was the greatest thing ever.  I agree.

[justinlane]

I was 16 or 17 the first time I shaved my head, twice in one summer, about 4 weeks apart.  Next time was 2 weeks ago, at the age of 24.

[bem75]

2 weeks before my 34th birthday in 2009.  Reactions have been very very positive.  I wish that I had done it a lot sooner.

As a note, I just convinced my dad to shave his head.  He is 63 and he looks great as an SBG!

[PeripheralxMvmnt]

i was 19, and it was right around the time my ex broke up with me. got tired of being upset about not having a full head of hair, so i got rid of what was left. best decision i ever made.

[D.A.L.U.I.]

I was sixty-one when I first shaved the dying mop.  It had been in decline for 30+ years (my best friend from college recently said I had really been losing it since we got out of school!), but I held on to it, applying expensive "thickening" shampoos and conditioners, carefully brushing it, and locking it in place with massive amounts of hairspray.  At one point in my early fifties, at my wife's suggestion, I used Rogaine, with disasterous effects--a severe rash and crusting that ultimately required medical attention.  Looking back, I should have shaved it off about five years before that.  I first had a hole in the back of my head, and a receding hairline, so my combover was from the top to the right side, leaving the left side as part of the part in my hair.  Ultimately I faced the fact that I had two hairlines, one from the two spots of growth in front and then a strip behind that.  All through this time the top was thinning--pathetic.

One day, in April, 2007, I was getting dressed and while putting on my tie, I realized I could see the window behind me through my hair--clearly showing my scalp!  I got my wife's make-up mirror to get a good look--not pretty.  I knew it had to come off--but I also knew my wife was totally against it.  Two friends of ours were "sly" and I had mentioned that it looked like a good solution, both looked a lot better once they ditched the dying mop.  She went ballistic--totally.  So I struggled w/ the fact that it had to come off and her opposition.

 I dithered about, started searching on the web, found sites that suggested shorter was the answer for thinning hair.  Finally on September 7 (I think it's interesting I remember that date so well), for no apparent immediate cause, I stopped at the barber at lunch and said, "Buzz it!"  First he did a 4, and then a 3--and that's how I left.  People at work that afternoon really liked it.  Wife that night--literally screaming--"You've lost your dignity, you look life a freak, why are you doing this to me!"  On and on--just a total melt down.  But, I liked it.

Had to go to see my Dad who was sick.  This was in the West, and all my relatives there liked it--one uncle said "You're bald, just like your Dad and me!"  His sons, both have total heads of hair--they don't have foreheads, they have threeheads!  My aunt's oldest on the other hand--bald and sly.  And he said take it off, and gave me his extra clipper.
 
Back at home, I buzzed it to a 1, and wow, it felt great.  But, in any kind of light at all, it was clear I had advanced mpb, and it was only a matter of time til there wouldn't be anything to buzz but the sides and back--and I dreaded the Bozo ring--another story.
 
Finally, on Friday, 10/12/07, I got ready to go to the gym, but I stopped downstairs and 0 buzzed it.  My wife had gone to work when I got back, so out w/ the Fusion and gel, and off w/ the hair.  Wife nearly had a total and complete breakdown--crying, screaming, cursing, you name it--I could have had her committed if we'd been anyplace else but New Orleans. 
Almost everyone else liked it even better than the buzz--and some of my wife's best friends among them.  One came up to me at a party, Halloween I think it was, and said, "Please don't tell Jenny, she said she'd kill me if I told you, but I think it looks great, sexy, just fantastic!"  Several others said the same--to wife's face--and that set her off again.  She's quieted down lately, but she really, really doesn't like it--but it seems she is resigned to living w/ it.  She's never, not once, touched my dome.

Probably more than you asked for, but that's it.  And, of course, I still like it- -wouldn't have it anyother way --except maybe a costume for Mardi Gras--it is New Orleans, after all.

[sluggo]

I had a flat top for years and years (no MPB here)... I'd shave from time to time for the heck of it but I started being sly at 41 and don't plan on going back, EVER!

[DuffRyder17]

21, lost my girl and was losing my hair so i decided to make some changes.

[Razor X]

I was 33 the first time I took the razor to my scalp.  And like most guys, I wish I'd done it sooner.

[cincydavid]

It was like 3 weeks ago, and I was- and still am- 24.

[justinlane]

cincydavid, we are about neck and neck, I will be 3 weeks on Monday.