In the Hair Replacement Industry, ?Sincerity Goes a Long Way?
In the Hair Replacement Industry, ?Sincerity Goes a Long Way?
Introducing White Cliffs Hair Studio, the best thing to come from England since … the Beatles?
His face was the picture of earnestness and sincerity as we spoke in the parking lot of the nondescript studio located just outside of Indianapolis. “This company has given me back my life. It has delivered me from years of feeling hopeless.”
The young man I’m speaking to is Jeremy, a 22-year-old graduate student at the University of Indiana and the company he’s speaking of isn’t a corporate headhunter or a shrink or an employer. He’s speaking of an Indianapolis hair replacement studio that, according to Jeremy, “has given me back the confidence to enjoy my life without looking ten years older than I am.”
Jeremy is a handsome man with a baby face and a serious manner. He has already explained that he’s “bald” but upon close inspection, there is no proof whatsoever that he has lost one single strand of hair from his head. The sun is shining and I can see the color and natural highlights as well as the density and what appears to be hair growing – emerging – from his scalp.
“Touch it,” challenges Jeremy. “Run your fingers through my hair.”
I’m shy to do this in a parking lot, but I do. I explore his head with my fingertips searching for some sign that this kid is putting me on. I feel no creases or bumps aside from the normal features of his scalp and head. I examine his hairline. I see hairs growing everywhere. I look closer.
“All of the hair on top isn’t mine,” he says. “The hair on the sides and back is mine.” Then the talk turns serious. “When I began losing my hair at age 17, I wanted to die. I didn’t believe I would ever find anyone to love me and I hid in a hat for five years before I found White Cliffs on the Internet. They had just opened here in Indianapolis. They are a British company but now they’re here. To me, they are the coolest thing to come from England since the Beatles.”
Jeremy tells me he is performing a poetry reading on campus this very night, an “open mic” affair. He tells me that his restored hair allows him to focus because he isn’t worried about what other people are thinking. “This is the best money I’ll ever spend,” he says before driving off.
Inside I’m now visiting with Paul Sandor, the owner and operator of White Cliffs’ Indianapolis hair replacement studio. We’re looking through Jeremy’s file and I’m examining the photos Paul took of Jeremy when he first came in for a consultation.
“Can you believe it’s the same person?” Sandor asks. “Look at that hair.”
I reply in the negative but I hadn’t even focused on the differences of the hair. I’m looking at the eyes, the face. I’m trying to reconcile the sad, hopeless and lifeless face of the young man in the photos to the handsome, colorful, intense and full-of-life face of the person I was just speaking to in the parking lot 30 minutes before.
Then I allow myself to take in the entire photo and I see a young, premature balding man with a scant amount of hair on the top and a recession pattern that goes back clear to the crown.
“That’s quite a transformation,” I finally say to Sandor, who is standing back smiling broadly.
“That’s what we do here,” he replies, still beaming. “We change lives for the better.”
“What does a ‘transformation’ like this cost?” I asked, bracing myself.
He directed me to again look at the photos and to reflect on Jeremy’s current look and outlook. I did. “So the question, then, isn’t ‘what is the cost’” he said, “as much as it is ‘what is the value’ of the transformation.”
I wanted to press him for a straight answer but instead I heard myself saying, “Well, if I take what Jeremy told me at face value, and I examine these photos and add that to what I understand about human nature, I might conclude that the value is priceless.”
“Exactly,” he said, patting my shoulder with as much enthusiasm as if I had just recited the winning question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. “Now you understand what White Cliffs is all about”.
White Cliffs Hair Studio originated in London in 2003 and began as a single studio called Hair Loss Centre. The premise of the founding partners was to found a company dedicated to hair loss sufferers by hair loss sufferers.
According to the company profile on their website, the two principals were both hair loss sufferers who had tried every hair loss treatment method under the sun including laser treatments, topical remedies, surgery and nonsurgical treatment methods.
After years of research and many, many thousands of dollars later, they had realized that