The dream of (full) hair

It comes as a shock when the first light spots in the hair become visible when you look in the mirror in the morning. Receding hairline, a balding back of the head, the beginning of a balding – horrible, especially for young men whose hair is at least as much a part of their own self-image as it is for their female counterparts. On average, a person has between 80,000 and 150,000 single hair, the number varying according to hair colour. While the loss of up to 200 hairs a day is considered normal in dermatology, almost 30 per cent of all men suffer from excessive hair loss by the age of 30. The result: gradually the dense mop of hair turns into sparse strands that fall out completely over time.

At the age of 16, Dani also had to realise that when it came to hair, he had inherited his family's genes on his father's side and everything pointed to a new "look" with a half bald head. A no-go for the young Luxembourger with southern roots, who still remembers the time vividly: "As a good Italian, of course, the hairstyle has to be on point, and especially in the middle of puberty, such extreme hair loss is not something you wish for." In the beginning, Dani tried to cover the areas where the scalp started to show through with gel styling, but this had undesirable side effects. "That's all well and good, but you also look like you have the Gasperich Cross on your head", says the now 31-year-old, who takes his initial attempts with humour.

From old-fashioned toupees to modern hairpieces

A permanent solution was needed, one that would mimic his original hairstyle as closely as possible. So Dani started scouring the internet and since the offer in Luxembourg is very limited to non-existent, he promptly came across the ads of numerous companies in Turkey advertising hair transplants. He sent photos of his hair situation to one of them and received a rather sobering reply: "They said it was definitely an option, but they wouldn't do it until I was 30, because hair loss doesn't stop at that age and I would risk having a lot of hair in some places and holes in others."

The prospect of walking around for years to come with an increasingly pronounced balding soured Dani, because he was actually ready to take the step that was to change his appearance and thus his life for the better. "So I started looking for other options and at some point, I wondered if there wasn't a modern version of traditional toupees that looked good." Dani found the answer at the Hamburg-based company Hairsystems Heydecke, which offers tailor-made hairpieces. The many videos on the company's YouTube channel finally convinced the Luxembourger, so he decided on the net with human hair braided in by hand.