Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [33]
Apply a little powder to the light-catching cranial bone as needed to dull the shine. Translucent powder is invisible, but makes a big difference in reducing the glare on top of the head.
Normally the hair would form a flattering frame around the face. With no hair on top, you should maximize the hair you have as much as possible. Keep the sideburns longish, slightly covering the tops of the ears. Bring your hair down to the collar in the back if it is curly, the look suits you, and you feel comfortable with it. Keep the rest of your hair slightly long as well.
Never try to bring a long lock of hair across the bald spot in the back of your head, across the top of a bald head, or across a receding hairline in the front. The errant lock rarely stays in place and requires constant and conspicuous attention. This attempted method of covering baldness usually fools no one and makes you look vain and fussy about your appearance.
I recently watched in amazement while a psychiatrist who was about to address a group of his peers carefully wound what must have been an eight-inch-long lock of hair around and over his very bald head and attempt to hold the arrangement together with hairspray. His elaborate effort to look more youthful just ended up looking vain.
Lowering the part does not work well, either, because it throws the symmetry of the face off balance and destroys the harmonious proportions of the hair.
Never use hairspray directly on your skin. It contains lacquer and seals the pores so that makeup or powder will not adhere. It also “reads” very shiny under available natural sunlight or artificial studio lights. To control a few stubborn hairs, spray the hairspray on your fingers and apply lightly to the hair only.
Avoid sunburn on the forehead as much as you can. A sunburned head distracts the eye away from your face. Use a high-numbered PABA sunscreen (fifteen or above) for protection against burning and skin cancer. Wear a hat when out on a boat, riding in a convertible, golfing, or whatever.
Are you tempted to get hair transplants? Unfortunately, they can often be detected. Also, hair transplants are hard to keep secret, especially after you have reached a certain degree of prominence in the public eye. Once they find out about it, the press and public seem to remember for a very long time that you have had hair transplants.
Some hairpieces are fairly successful when done by an expert who blends them carefully with your own hair. One style is woven into your hair, and you never take it off. The whole thing flips up so that you can take a shower. This type has to be redone about every six months as the hair grows.
Many actors and famous people wear hairpieces and everyone knows it. To everyone’s delight, NBC News weatherman Willard Scott occasionally takes his hairpiece off on the air. The audience loves him for it.
Full-head wigs, on the other hand, almost always look artificial. Your own hair has gradations of color that wigs often do not imitate successfully. For example, nature gives you a little gray at the temples. The gray gives a salt-and-pepper effect here and there that looks natural. Wigs tend to carry one color combination throughout. It is also difficult to conceal the net base and the hairline.
Being bald is not a disadvantage. All of your other gifts, skills, and personality make you what you are—not what’s on or not on your head.
Dandruff
You should never arrive for a business meeting, a meeting with clients, or a public appearance with dandruff on the shoulders of your