COMB-OVERS
Arcs of flapping hairs balanced on the shiny domes of balding men. Long a symbol of geekdom; a hairdo that meant you were old, unhip, or both.
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People wondered about the life choices made by the man who favored this hairstyle: Did he actually grow one side of his hair long in order to facilitate that look? Did his scalp get sticky when he lacquered the hairs with Aqua Net?
The main question, however, was simply, "Does he really think he's fooling anyone?"
Sadly, comb-overs often developed without the wearer realizing it. It was a hairdo that could evolve over time-there you were combing and parting your hair every day, combing and parting, combing and parting, and then one morning you realize that your widow's peak is running away from your eyebrows, and the hairs that are slipping through the comb's teeth are coming from the side of your head, not the top. Yes, you could just cut it and go with the horseshoe look, but is it rude to expose your shiny pate to the world? Maybe you could just soften the look a little by covering it with just a couple hairs…
Some people actually cultivated their comb-overs, viewing them as hairstyles as good as any other. In 1975, Eric Oakley penned the cleverly titled book A Method of Disguising Your Male Baldness Using Your Own Hair from the Sides which offered a detailed analysis of the best ways to construct a comb-over. "We now have a great alternative that can be adapted as we get older," he wrote, going onto describe the comb-over as "the only practical and masculine way to disguise male baldness." The book answers many a comb-over-wearer's most pressing questions. What happens if the hair at the sides recedes even further? "Simply lower your parting." What if it rains? "You will need to use a hat."
In 1977, an Orlando, Florida, father and son went one step further and actually patented a comb-over process that involved covering the bald spot with flaps of hair from both the sides and the back of the head. It was neat, required no synthetic products, and lacked the admission of vanity that hair plugs or a toupee implied. For many years, it was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's preferred hairdo. Homer Simpson all but trademarked the look. Donald Trump has constructed his with such skill that experts worldwide have tried (and failed) to figure out on which side the hair originates.
Of course, ridding oneself of head hair completely was always an option, but going totally hair-free was a major statement-a look that could best be pulled off if you had a singular presence and lofty goals: to fight crime while sucking lollipops; to leave the kitchen floors glistening; to adopt Little Orphan Annie. It wasn't a look for John over in accounting.
But when swarms of baby boomers started experiencing hair loss in the 1980s, head shaving started to seem like a viable solution. The comb-over began to look extra fusty-as did any kind of bald spot that didn't take over the entire head.
"I'm a former comb-over wearer," says Howard Brauner, founder of Bald Guyz, a company that makes scalp-care products for bald men. "I did the comb-over for twelve years. I thought it looked like I had hair. I'd use two different hair sprays. It'd take half an hour. But then one day in the heat, the products melted and my hair fell flat and I realized how ridiculous it was. I went to the barber and said 'take it all off.' Being bald is clean. It's sexy."
Even non-balding men have appropriated the look, often referring to themselves as BBC, or "Bald by Choice." These premature head-shavers aren't just swimming with the tide-they are going faster than it; with the comb-over bobbing sadly in their wake, it will only become increasingly difficult to differentiate between geeks and Siamese kings.
