Questions, Now I’ve Shaved My Head
By: Aaron Netsky
Tags: Hair, Self, Charity, Christmas

I go into 2021 the same way I came into the world: looking like a Cabbage Patch Kid. On Christmas day, as blogged, I shaved my head bald after putting my longest hair into two braids and painstakingly removing them for Children With Hair Loss, the organization and the actual children. Ever since then, I’ve had questions. A lot of questions. Maybe a few answers. For the sake of organizing and making sense of the mystery of my new look, I decided to write them down, and also put them out into the world in case anyone can offer more insight. Here they are:

Q: Why did my beard shaving equipment fail to do the job?

A: As it was explained to me by the Malevolent Supernatural Force I live with, who ultimately had to take over some of the shaving duties to make sure it was done as thoroughly as possible, my head hair is softer than my beard hair, and without a beard’s resistance, the heavy instruments, like my non-electric trimmer, designed to shear my facial hair, were just pushing the softer hair around, flattening it before they could cut it. There was a lot of trial and error.

Q: When do I use shampoo again?

A: Right away, it turns out. I looked it up. Just a little bit, but there are tiny hairs, and there is a scalp, and it needs shampoo. So, I don’t get that break.

Q: Am I sick?

A: No, but that is what I think every time I see myself in the mirror, in large part, I would say, because that is what television and movies have taught me sick people look like. I also look paler, somehow. But that’s what the braids are for, to help kids not look like that, so in a way, it’s a reminder of why I did this. My head also looks smaller on my shoulders and my ears bigger on my head. I wanted to look like Voldemort, but my nose is too…there.

Q: How weird will it be to look at pictures of shaved-head me when I have hair again?

A: No idea, but this is one of the questions.

Q: What about when I have really long hair again?

A: Same thing, no answer. Will it be like looking at pictures of me when I was much younger? Maybe.

Q: Will I notice my hair growing or wake up one day, look in the mirror, and think, “Oh, it’s back”?

A: I typically have no memory of my hair “growing” after a haircut, I just find, a little less than a year later, that I can do a small ponytail again. But this time, my head will look very different week to week, month to month, possibly even day to day. Will it be like watching my beard grow? Which will grow faster? Time will tell.

Q: How much are electric razors?

A: I need a new one. The old one doesn’t register batteries properly, I had to apply different pressure to each one to make the thing work, and besides it’s a little rusty (I think the previous batteries were left in too long). Not gonna need it for a while, but any recommendations?

Q: Will the “phantom locks” thing go away?

A: I frequently worry about mussing up my curls if I put my had on a pillow the wrong way, and occasionally I reach up to scratch my head in a certain way I had become accustomed to scratching it based on my personal arrangement of hair. It’s another one of those things where the answer is probably just, “When the hair grows back,” but still.

Q: Could I light a match by striking it against the back of my head?

A: I don’t plan to find out, but people do it with beard stubble in movies so often, and my head stubble is in that scratching stage, so it is a question. When we briefly fostered a very young kitten, the Malevolent Supernatural Force I live with encouraged me to rub it on my beard stubble because it was reminiscent of the kitten’s mother’s tongue. Does anyone have any kittens that need “licking”?

Q: What is a hair splinter?

A: From Healthline: “A hair splinter, sometimes called a hair sliver, happens when a strand of hair pierces through the top layer of your skin. This may sound like a minor injury, but hair splinters can be very painful, especially if they become infected…….Hair splinters usually involve freshly cut hair, which is often very sharp. As a result, it’s easier for recently cut hair to penetrate your skin.”

From Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer: “Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!”

Q: Where should I put my hair brushes?

A: I have two, and I’m not going to need them for a long time. I feel like they should have some special, ceremonial, carved wooden box that goes up on a high shelf until they day they are brought back down for use once again, but I will probably put them into the next tissue box I empty and slide them into my underwear drawer. Perspective.

Q: What should I do with the hair in my hair brushes?

A: It’s the last hair that I brushed from my head in the weeks leading up to my first big shave, so I’m gonna keep it in the small clear plastic box this year’s Chanukah candles came in. In my underwear drawer. Probably not forever. Perspective.

Q: What should I do with my hair tie?

A: I was down to one, I only rarely actually wore it, when my hair was at its worst, and a few weeks before the big shave it broke and I tied it back together. I’ve thrown it away. Perspective.

Q: How well will I get to know my head?

A: I mean, obviously the shape is more defined to my eyes and hands, especially in the back, and my hands probably spend more time in the back these days because of the scratchiness, but it doesn’t feel like I’m finding out anything new about it. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Q: What will someone else look like with my hair?

A: I will probably never know, but the hope is that the answer is the way they want to look. I hope whoever gets it enjoys it.

Q: Will I ever shave my head again?

A: We’ll see. Even if the tools were fussy, the act of shaving my head was much easier than I would have predicted back when I used to cry if my hair was shortened the least little bit. Still, the goal of my biennial haircuts is to provide hair for wigs, which has to be a certain length, and I’ve grown accustomed to doing this around Christmas time. Christmas 2022, if the world is still here, will be my first second Christmas with hair grown from scratch for precisely two years, and if it is not long enough to donate, that might affect my willingness to shave my head in the future as long as human hair is still donatable (synthetic is on the rise). I could still donate a little later, but my schedule will no longer be an easy every two Christmases. My hair was significantly longer than the minimum requirement this time, so it might be long enough grown from scratch, but the longer the better with hair donations. So, we’ll see what happens, but I am glad I did it this time. I’m about to see myself in a wide selection of all new ways. I already have.