John Travolta Hair Loss

[NARMAK]

So we all know Travolta had awesome hair. I mean Grease and Saturday Night Fever cemented him. However, i was just watching the start of Phenomenon which released in in 1996. His hair still looks natural but online it seems his hair began thinning in the 80s, so was he using a top notch hair system all that time? 

Finasteride released in 1997 with FDA approval, does anybody think maybe Travolta didn't get on it? Because in many ways it doesn't appear he had aggressive hair loss and i feel like if he was on the medication, he naturally should have kept more of his hair and been able to get an amazing hair transplant eventually. 

Heck, look at Elon Musk as an example from how bald he looked to where he is today. 

So is it a case of not using Finasteride, aggressive hair loss despite using it and never going for a hair transplant? 

[Mike10]

Yep, the vast majority of men has MPB but only a small minority will take Propecia. That is just a reality.

[Al - Moderator]

1 hour ago, NARMAK said:

Finasteride released in 1997 with FDA approval, does anybody think maybe Travolta didn't get on it? Because in many ways it doesn't appear he had aggressive hair loss and i feel like if he was on the medication, he naturally should have kept more of his hair and been able to get an amazing hair transplant eventually. 

I took it for 11 years. I lost hair anyway, so I stopped. It doesn't work for everyone.

 

1 hour ago, NARMAK said:

Heck, look at Elon Musk as an example from how bald he looked to where he is today. 

He had a hair transplant. That's completely different than someone using finasteride.

 

Also, just because people can do something doesn't mean they want to. We can look at all sorts of men who we think would look better if they took finasteride, had a hair transplant, or styled their hair differently, etc. But it's their life. They can do what they want. I personally would never want purple or green hair and think it's stupid looking, but some people want their hair those colors.

 

[NARMAK]

9 minutes ago, BeHappy said:

I took it for 11 years. I lost hair anyway, so I stopped. It doesn't work for everyone.

 

He had a hair transplant. That's completely different than someone using finasteride.

 

Also, just because people can do something doesn't mean they want to. We can look at all sorts of men who we think would look better if they took finasteride, had a hair transplant, or styled their hair differently, etc. But it's their life. They can do what they want. I personally would never want purple or green hair and think it's stupid looking, but some people want their hair those colors.

 

Well, that's the thing with Finasteride, not everyone responds the same. Some will continue to lose hair and potentially without having taken it for those 11 years you did, hair may have been lost even sooner. 

You are right, it's a choice and I used Elon Musk as an example of a person who on the surface had significantly worse hair loss than Travolta but via hair transplant looks pretty solid. Whilst i know Travolta opted for a hair system instead, i was just curious whether had he taken Finasteride in 1997 whether he'd have maintained more hair and been eligible for a hair transplant. 

Of course, not everybody is a responder but his hair loss didn't seem aggressive. 

[NARMAK]

1 hour ago, Mike10 said:

Yep, the vast majority of men has MPB but only a small minority will take Propecia. That is just a reality.

That's very true, and it honestly does make you wonder if perhaps the primary reason very much is some of the fear mongering over side affects on a considerably disproportionate level. 

For example, any regular Joes when you mention Finasteride to them, they instantly go towards sexual side affects yet in terms of complete and absolutely crippling ED, the percentage is probably less than 2%. 

I have to count among the very uneducated people until just over a year ago i re-did my research from actual scientific studies. However, and i know this sounds bad but in a certain light, the more bald men that are out there, there's somewhat less competition for dating etc. 

Hair systems are being more accepted but having your own native full head of hair is still considered the most desirable. 

The fact is, if you could click your fingers and give everybody their perfect Norwood 0 (mature hairline) they'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if they still chose to rock a bald style, the fact they could grow it out would be a no brainer. I think that's why a lot of guys get a hair system. It's actually a bigger market than hair transplants. 

Even a friend recently got a partial frontal hair system. I've tried my best to also educate him on hair loss, medication etc. but ultimately a person does choose what they want to do about their situation and they have to live with that choice as mentioned above. Even if it's different to what we choose. 

[Al - Moderator]

Yeah I get what you are saying, but as far as John Travolta, he was born in 1954, so he was already 43 in 1997 when finasteride came out and he still had a decent amount of hair at that time, so he probably wasn't rushing to get on it as soon as it hit the market. I agree it's interesting to wonder how he (or anyone) would have done if he was on finasteride for years because ultimately that's the real question. Do results you get in the first few years last 20 or 30 years. That's an important question that is hard to answer because if you're using it you really don't know how much hair the drug is holding on to vs how much your thinning may have naturally slowed.

 

As for hair transplants there just wasn't anything good around in those days. You have to get into at least the early 2000s before enough Drs are doing folicular unit transplants. Sure there were a few Drs doing it a bit before then like Hasson and Wong, but there was no internet in those days like there is today. You couldn't look up hair transplants and find Drs and results. The only ways to find a Dr was to either see an add in the newspaper or magazine, watch an infomercial, or look in your city's phone book, so traveling for surgery wasn't really a thing. You were pretty much confined to whoever was local, so it was just luck if you had someone good near you.

 

For myself I just look at todays hair transplants being done on NW 6 guys and I wish I would have been born 30 years later because I would have been able to get an almost full head of hair with a decent looking hairline rather than the pluggyness I had for years and without all the scars I have.

[NARMAK]

17 minutes ago, BeHappy said:

Yeah I get what you are saying, but as far as John Travolta, he was born in 1954, so he was already 43 in 1997 when finasteride came out and he still had a decent amount of hair at that time, so he probably wasn't rushing to get on it as soon as it hit the market. I agree it's interesting to wonder how he (or anyone) would have done if he was on finasteride for years because ultimately that's the real question. Do results you get in the first few years last 20 or 30 years. That's an important question that is hard to answer because if you're using it you really don't know how much hair the drug is holding on to vs how much your thinning may have naturally slowed.

 

As for hair transplants there just wasn't anything good around in those days. You have to get into at least the early 2000s before enough Drs are doing folicular unit transplants. Sure there were a few Drs doing it a bit before then like Hasson and Wong, but there was no internet in those days like there is today. You couldn't look up hair transplants and find Drs and results. The only ways to find a Dr was to either see an add in the newspaper or magazine, watch an infomercial, or look in your city's phone book, so traveling for surgery wasn't really a thing. You were pretty much confined to whoever was local, so it was just luck if you had someone good near you.

 

For myself I just look at todays hair transplants being done on NW 6 guys and I wish I would have been born 30 years later because I would have been able to get an almost full head of hair with a decent looking hairline rather than the pluggyness I had for years and without all the scars I have.

Yeah, i get what you're saying, he maintained really well at that age, which is why i was curious if he had hopped on it how he would have fared. 

Armen (MazAB) for example has family i believe that were Norwood 5+ but he pretty much hopped on Propecia/Finasteride as soon as it came out nearly and now at like 50 he maintained so amazingly well to a Norwood 3 that he was finally feeling FUE was at a point like you say that gives you that solid result. We also have SMP options to try and mask any scars. 

Ultimately its a "What if?" i guess on had Travolta hopped on medication but if he was using a hair system in 1996 when he had Phenomenon come out, that hair looks really solid. Bit of Hollywood magic and money going a long way. 

Medication efficacy on a generational basis hasn't been studied at all yet, which is why i feel like we will get one hopefully at some point to compare but before then, i'd rather we have a brand new treatment. Propecia and Minoxodil were basically both accidents and then tweaked with lower dosage to go to market. Hopefully we have a significant amount of new treatments within the next 20 years because if something came along better than Finasteride or Dutasteride and wasn't really cost prohibitive, i'd jump to it in a heartbeat. Whilst my side affects have been pretty well managed, i would rather have my body try and return to full DHT function for some of the other benefits but as is, i'm very happy to continue on it indefinitely and try keep my hair. 

[Mike10]

4 hours ago, NARMAK said:

That's very true, and it honestly does make you wonder if perhaps the primary reason very much is some of the fear mongering over side affects on a considerably disproportionate level. 

For example, any regular Joes when you mention Finasteride to them, they instantly go towards sexual side affects yet in terms of complete and absolutely crippling ED, the percentage is probably less than 2%. 

I have to count among the very uneducated people until just over a year ago i re-did my research from actual scientific studies. However, and i know this sounds bad but in a certain light, the more bald men that are out there, there's somewhat less competition for dating etc. 

Hair systems are being more accepted but having your own native full head of hair is still considered the most desirable. 

The fact is, if you could click your fingers and give everybody their perfect Norwood 0 (mature hairline) they'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if they still chose to rock a bald style, the fact they could grow it out would be a no brainer. I think that's why a lot of guys get a hair system. It's actually a bigger market than hair transplants. 

Even a friend recently got a partial frontal hair system. I've tried my best to also educate him on hair loss, medication etc. but ultimately a person does choose what they want to do about their situation and they have to live with that choice as mentioned above. Even if it's different to what we choose. 

Most men just do not feel comfortable to be on oral medication for a lifetime, they are concerned about the long terms consquences. At the end of the day it is a personal choice.  

 

 

[NARMAK]

1 hour ago, Mike10 said:

Most men just do not feel comfortable to be on oral medication for a lifetime, they are concerned about the long terms consquences. At the end of the day it is a personal choice.  

 

 

I think to say most men don't take it for those reasons isn't something you can quantify, even if you say only X amount of prescriptions of Finasteride etc. are done yearly on a global basis. 

The truth is, that a large amount of men do take it specifically for hair loss, some are possibly not knowledgeable about it and some choose not to take it. Whilst some perhaps, a small minority stop due to side affects. 

Nobody is forced to take it for their lifetime either, only for as long as they care to keep the hair they can. 

[ciaus]

Yea he had great hair. As much as actors and people like that in the limelight need to obsess about their looks, I think hair transplants still had too bad of a reputation back in the 80s and 90s for him to do anything. He was probably already well into the routine of hair systems/pieces, which work best in the earlier years of your loss. He was probably crossing his fingers his loss wouldn't ever get that bad, or not worrying enough about it because the fake hair was doing a good enough job at the time, to seriously consider finasteride. And looking at some of his later pictures its pretty clear that if he ever did take finasteride, it was a temporary thing he gave up on out of laziness or he didn't respond well. But I would lean more towards he never bothered with finasteride. There's a long history of hair pieces in hollywood and he went down that road thinking he'd be another example of it.  Man he fell far.

 

 

 

[Mike10]

19 hours ago, NARMAK said:

I think to say most men don't take it for those reasons isn't something you can quantify, even if you say only X amount of prescriptions of Finasteride etc. are done yearly on a global basis. 

The truth is, that a large amount of men do take it specifically for hair loss, some are possibly not knowledgeable about it and some choose not to take it. Whilst some perhaps, a small minority stop due to side affects. 

Nobody is forced to take it for their lifetime either, only for as long as they care to keep the hair they can. 

No the vast majority of men with MPB do not take Propecia. That is a fact.

[NARMAK]

Just now, Mike10 said:

No the vast majority of men with MPB do not take Propecia. That is a fact.

Of course males with MPB globally are in the majority that don't take Finasteride. 

I was specifically referring to the Finasteride/Dutasteride prescriptions. Most take it for hair loss, not enlarged prostates.

Of course the majority of the men in the world aren't on Finasteride. That's just probably basic maths and we don't really need to quantify that to know it's true but the total worldwide prescription figures we can see for Finasteride would show its in the millions whereas there's billions of men.

I was also saying you cannot say the exact reason why majority of men aren't on Finasteride. That's near impossible to study but likely due to costs, lack of knowledge and so on. 

Either way, i guess those who know about it can choose their own option to take it or not. That's personal choice as you said. 

Besides, more bald people usually means less competition in a world swinging towards heightened male beauty standards.

[sukh123]

8 minutes ago, NARMAK said:

Of course males with MPB globally are in the majority that don't take Finasteride. 

I was specifically referring to the Finasteride/Dutasteride prescriptions. Most take it for hair loss, not enlarged prostates.

Of course the majority of the men in the world aren't on Finasteride. That's just probably basic maths and we don't really need to quantify that to know it's true but the total worldwide prescription figures we can see for Finasteride would show its in the millions whereas there's billions of men.

I was also saying you cannot say the exact reason why majority of men aren't on Finasteride. That's near impossible to study but likely due to costs, lack of knowledge and so on. 

Either way, i guess those who know about it can choose their own option to take it or not. That's personal choice as you said. 

Besides, more bald people usually means less competition in a world swinging towards heightened male beauty standards.

“Besides, more bald people usually means less competition in a world swinging towards heightened male beauty standards”. That’s  kind of a discriminatory thing to say , in essence your saying a guy who’s bald is less attractive option for someone .

[Mike10]

15 minutes ago, NARMAK said:

Of course males with MPB globally are in the majority that don't take Finasteride. 

I was specifically referring to the Finasteride/Dutasteride prescriptions. Most take it for hair loss, not enlarged prostates.

Of course the majority of the men in the world aren't on Finasteride. That's just probably basic maths and we don't really need to quantify that to know it's true but the total worldwide prescription figures we can see for Finasteride would show its in the millions whereas there's billions of men.

I was also saying you cannot say the exact reason why majority of men aren't on Finasteride. That's near impossible to study but likely due to costs, lack of knowledge and so on. 

Either way, i guess those who know about it can choose their own option to take it or not. That's personal choice as you said. 

Besides, more bald people usually means less competition in a world swinging towards heightened male beauty standards.

seems like a fair statement

[NARMAK]

4 minutes ago, sukh123 said:

“Besides, more bald people usually means less competition in a world swinging towards heightened male beauty standards”. That’s  kind of a discriminatory thing to say , in essence your saying a guy who’s bald is less attractive option for someone .

Everybody looks better with hair. Some lucky few just pull off being bald really well. Which is why people constantly cite Dwayne Johnson or Statham etc. 

Imo a bald guy is considered less attractive than if he had hair. Just go look around at all the stuff out there on the Internet and even results online of people before and after hair transplants or with hair systems. Some look a decade or more younger. 

To claim hair and a full head of it isn't part of beauty standards is being in denial. 

[sukh123]

4 minutes ago, NARMAK said:

Everybody looks better with hair. Some lucky few just pull off being bald really well. Which is why people constantly cite Dwayne Johnson or Statham etc. 

Imo a bald guy is considered less attractive than if he had hair. Just go look around at all the stuff out there on the Internet and even results online of people before and after hair transplants or with hair systems. Some look a decade or more younger. 

To claim hair and a full head of it isn't part of beauty standards is being in denial. 

Yes but it’s not right to say if your bald means your less competition to someone with hair , you can have a full set of hair and have a ugly face don’t mean your going to be taking out supermodels out everyday.

Edited July 4, 2022 by sukh123

[Mike10]

I would agree that men with hair are generally more attractive but there are exceptions. however, hair is only component of the overall picture of attractiveness and women generally attach less importance to it than men

[NARMAK]

1 minute ago, sukh123 said:

Yes but it’s not right to say if your bald means your less competition to someone with hair , you can have a full set of hair and have a ugly face don’t mean your going to be taking out supermodels out everyday.

Let's stick with average people shall we. Supermodels, actors, singers and all those have other factors involved to do with wealth and status. 

Sticking to an average person, i'm not saying anybody else is "ugly" without hair, merely that with a full head of hair and the styling options that brings, we can look younger and more attractive. 

Again, the vast majority of men who are able to pull off a bald look are in the minority.