Christopher [00:00:09]:
I think it's a natural part of who I am, but I'm always aware. Let's be clear, I'm very image conscious, and I know that that's probably not the thing I should be saying. I worked in the entertainment field for a long time, too, and so I know that it's the inappropriate way to say, but, like, I worked with wigs and stuff like that. There were such things as wig lines, and you don't want that hard line. And if you do it, be what we used to call clocked. Like you could see it.

Kevin Rolston [00:00:57]:
Welcome to Hairpod, the podcast where you get to hear real people talk about their hair journeys. Hair loss happens to people at different times and for different reasons, so each story is just as unique as the next.

Kevin Rolston [00:01:09]:
Im your host, Kevin Ralston.

Kevin Rolston [00:01:10]:
And each week I get to interview people from different walks of life who have all been through hair loss in some form or fashion and have found a way to get their confidence and their hair back. Our guest today is Christopher Ersner. He knows firsthand just how important it is to like what you see in the mirror. And he makes his living helping his own clients do just that. Christopher works in the beauty industry, manufacturing fragrances, makeup, and skincare to help people look and feel their best. But before he became the knowledgeable professional that he is now, he was just a kid at the end of high school starting to notice his own hair loss.

Christopher [00:01:52]:
I would say probably like high school, right? So, like towards the end of, like senior year, maybe even day junior, but you don't really notice it until the somebody points it out.

Kevin Rolston [00:02:02]:
And what was that first moment for you? Because I remember my very first moment where I realized I was losing my hair. Was there kind of a signature moment where you said, oh, wait, that doesn't look right.

Christopher [00:02:12]:
I'd probably say probably more mid twenties. I'd say like 25, 26 years old. That was more of a issue for me because, you know, you can stand in front of the mirror, but you don't actually see what everybody else sees. Yeah, kind of. Same way with, like, losing weight. I always find that by seeing pictures of yourself is really when you get to analyze it in a different way than when you're standing in front of a mirror. And so I think I can't remember a specific moment, but I'm almost certain it would have been probably in a picture.

Kevin Rolston [00:02:40]:
Okay, so it started to creep in.

Kevin Rolston [00:02:42]:
You started to realize in your mid twenties, maybe around the age of 26, that you had some issues. Where were you then? What did you first consider that you were going to do about your hair loss and how you're going to deal with it.

Christopher [00:02:55]:
Honestly, I did not really have any ideas of what to do. Of course, you're in a much different financial position in your mid twenties than you are at 40. And technology has made things a little bit better in terms of spreading the message. And if there was, I didn't see it. Anything that would have suggested or even algorithms me into putting me into a category of being able to see what options were there. I mean, of course, you always heard about, like, hair plugs. You also, like, heard a lot of people, you know, with, like, the toupees, and there was always, like, this joke that was associated with it in movies or in shows or something like that. So I don't think that that was ever something that I would have even suggested for myself because, of course, the last thing you want to be is the joke.

Kevin Rolston [00:03:43]:
Yeah, well, especially with you're in a field of, you know, your image is everything, and you talk about the hair plugs and. Yeah, my perception, you know, growing up with the hair plugs was it. Would we call it Barbie doll hair, you know, where you would have what would look like big old chunks of hair just coming out of holes in your head?

Christopher [00:04:00]:
And it was so obvious, so specific. Yeah, yeah, right.

Kevin Rolston [00:04:03]:
And everybody seemed to know that you had something done to your hair except for you. You were the one that you thought you were, you know, pulling the wool over the world's eyes and they could completely see through it. And that's a really tough thing when you're saying, okay, I don't want to be a joke. I don't want to go down that path. So where do you even start?

Kevin Rolston [00:04:21]:
When you realized in your mid twenties.

Kevin Rolston [00:04:23]:
That you're starting to lose some hair and you needed a solution, the solutions that you thought you knew didn't sound very attractive to you at the time. So where did you even go to start off? And what was the first hair loss treatment you ever did?

Christopher [00:04:35]:
Oh, geez, I would say probably Bosley, like, back in the day, like, they have you convinced that you put this solution on your head and it's like, miraculous. Like it's gonna be like, was it miracle growth? And it doesn't, especially in the business that, you know, I'm in with when it comes to beauty and creating shampoos and stuff are meant to wash off, right? So they don't really have a chance to penetrate. But you're not really thinking that unless you understand the science. And of course, back then that was not something that I even understood, but, yeah, like, so I think the first thing I did was, like, I didn't want to be that guy that was like, bozo, honestly, where it was just like, hair. And then, you know, so I just shaved it off and then I got rid of wearing hats. Yeah.

Kevin Rolston [00:05:18]:
Okay, so you had. You went with no hair at all, then you decided to take the whole thing off?

Christopher [00:05:23]:
Yeah, absolutely. I figured that if I wasn't gonna be able to do it right or look right, I was just gonna just kind of get rid of it. And so I own probably every single coach hat that they've ever made, and I just kind of went along with that. Yeah.

Kevin Rolston [00:05:38]:
How do you think that made you feel? Because I was almost there. That was the last step before I walked into hair club and got my system was I thought I was going to shave the whole thing. But then I started to realize, to me, I look 15 to 20 years older when I don't have hair. How do you feel like you looked without hair?

Christopher [00:05:56]:
Same. I mean, of course, you. You keep it together with the hat, right? So you want to try to, you know, keep it cool and fun with the hat, but there's only so much like you could do, like, you know, like my sister's wedding. Like, I'm not going to wear a hat, you know, walking her down the aisle, but, like, I'm not gonna lie, I would have totally done so if she would have let me. I'm not go. I sincerely would have done it. She wasn't for that, huh? No, she wasn't about that life. But, you know, you do what you gotta do.

Kevin Rolston [00:06:25]:
It's interesting just how something like not.

Christopher [00:06:27]:
Being able to wear a hat to.

Kevin Rolston [00:06:28]:
A wedding can lead us to bigger questions about how we want to be seen by others, and how we can make our vision into a reality. Historically, its been socially acceptable, even expected for women to explore ways to change or to enhance their looks, while men dont have as many socially acceptable options. Its not just about a hat or a hairline, but about how society views men and their relationship with their appearance. So I asked Christopher for his perspective on this.

Christopher [00:07:04]:
Men do not have that space in the beauty world, to have the ability to say, I don't like this, and I'd like to change it without having some type of, like, Joan Rivers complex, like, you know, with, like, the plastic surgery. Well, maybe she went a little too far, but that's what she did for herself. We should let people alone. Men are just. And even she gets let off the hook and let it, you know, you got Kenny Rogers situation where it's like, oh, my God, it's a little too much, and then you get talked about forever. And your legacy is, you know, to be an aunt, you know what I mean? So you kind of have to be cognizant of that. But I think that it's getting better, obviously, social media, and there's so many forms of social media now that you really can't get away from the algorithm. And so at some point you're going to come across it if it's something that you're looking for.

Kevin Rolston [00:07:53]:
Yeah, tell me a little bit about.

Kevin Rolston [00:07:54]:
Because, you know, I think that is.

Kevin Rolston [00:07:55]:
A big hang up for a lot of guys. It seems like in our society it's much more acceptable, or at least it was, that women would go out and seek beauty type treatments, but, man, we just, we take whatever life gives us and we don't really do that kind of stuff. And you talk about your own struggles.

Kevin Rolston [00:08:11]:
With that because I think it is.

Kevin Rolston [00:08:13]:
You have to come to a place where you get comfortable. And now I have no problem talking about anything that I've done with hair club. Very open about it, but it probably was something that either happened in society or my age. What do you think it was for you? Is it something that you get more comfortable with as you get older?

Kevin Rolston [00:08:32]:
Or do you think the societal perceptions.

Kevin Rolston [00:08:35]:
About men and hair loss and the treatments that they have are different?

Christopher [00:08:38]:
I don't think that the society has changed on hair loss in regards to, like, the sexual capability or compatibility, really, of what men are to women. Right. So, like, it's just so I think that's part of the issues that men have is, like, I want to be, you know, attractive and I want people attracted to me, and then, you know, we make the world go around. Right. But in terms of, like, society changing their ideas about that, it really hasn't changed because at least from my perspective, you have, you know, our parents and then their parents, men were just, they kind of have the world on a string, right? And women were meant or supposed to be, like, very well kept, and you got to wait for your husband to come home. So you have that very chauvinistic kind of attitude that they don't realize was chauvinistic until years later. But those things have changed since the women's movement in the seventies. And then the eighties were just one big party.

Christopher [00:09:38]:
And then the nineties is, I think, what people started understanding. Like, I'd like to look a certain way and given the room to do so. And then you got to two thousands where things are just not the same anymore. And then pre COVID, or what is it post COVID now? I think that the world completely changed in a different way. And people are just like, you know what? I'm just going to live life the way I want to live. And if that. That means that I have to admit to one or two things. I am going to seek help for hair loss, or I'm not.

Christopher [00:10:11]:
It's one or the other. I gotta be me. And I think that more younger men are certainly happier with the options than I think that we were when we were kids, for sure.

Kevin Rolston [00:10:22]:
Yeah, no doubt. I think you touched on something brilliant, and it probably really has been. Since COVID there's been a new focus on your mental health and just how important and how you really have to prioritize that, speak to your own mental health, you know, when you have hair and when you don't. Because I can tell you, for me, with confidence in the way that I feel when I have my unit with hair club, I feel so much better with hair than I do without. How would you speak to your own mental health and how you are with them without hair?

Christopher [00:10:53]:
Same. I would probably, uh, agree with you almost 100% on that. Absolutely. It's the one thing I will not compromise on. If everything failed around me, it would be one of those things that I would absolutely get a second job for, because it has everything to do with my self confidence. It's the. When I can look in the mirror and feel good about myself, when I'm out and about, I can feel good of myself. But I will say, in the beginning, it was kind of tough, right? It was like this weird transition of, like, of having to learn how to style again and.

Kevin Rolston [00:11:23]:
Yeah, right.

Christopher [00:11:23]:
Those were like. It was a little bit more difficult than I would have had given it credit for, for sure. But, you know, and that's still kind of fun. I still really enjoy doing that because I don't take it for granted.

Kevin Rolston [00:11:39]:
For Christopher, having the right hair loss.

Kevin Rolston [00:11:41]:
Solution is definitely a must.

Kevin Rolston [00:11:43]:
It just goes to show you that the transformation people experience when they get their hair back is more than just physical. A mental shift happens when people feel like their appearance matches the vision they have for how they want other people to see them. But getting to that point can sometimes take a little trial and error. So I want to know more about the journey Christopher took to find his solution. With hair club.

Christopher [00:12:10]:
I was doing PRP treatments.

Kevin Rolston [00:12:13]:
Tell me about the PRP for people that don't know what is the PRP?

Christopher [00:12:17]:
It's hell on earth. I think that's what it stands for. Awful. I don't know what it actually stands for, but it's a fairly new procedure that they came out with a few years ago. And what they essentially, the science behind it is stem cell regrowth. And so they would pull blood, and then they would get stem cells, and then they would inject it into your skull, essentially. And that was hor. It was horrifying.

Christopher [00:12:47]:
I would rather be bald. That's how bad, really, it was just pain.

Kevin Rolston [00:12:52]:
It was time. It was cost. It was all the above.

Christopher [00:12:54]:
Well, it's very expensive, but people forget how many nerve endings you have in your head, and there isn't a lot of fatty tissue between your skull and the skin. So it was awful. That's all I could say. I think it was. That was like, okay, well, obviously I'm on this. Like, I'm clearly trying to find something. Yeah. And so, Erp just wasn't work.

Christopher [00:13:18]:
It just was not doing it for me. I mean, I'm sure if I had kept up on it, it may have, but I wasn't willing to try to figure it out. So I think. I honestly. I think I just started googling. Honest to God. Yeah. And it's what came up.

Christopher [00:13:33]:
And then, you know, obviously, like, Facebook and all the rest of them kind of figure out what you're up to in terms of the Google algorithm and stuff. And so then you started seeing, like, the ads. And honestly, it was one of the very first things that I wanted to know. Like, okay, I've seen this before because I had seen it, and not specifically with hair club, but just, you know, online or whatever. And I think that what I wanted to know, my first question was always about money. Let's be clear. Like, I'm in business, so, like, it's always about what that bottom line looks like. And honestly, I didn't know, like, how often is it swapped out? Like, I didn't know any of that.

Christopher [00:14:08]:
In fact, I figured, you know, why not just sew it in, you know, like, what are you gonna do, right?

Kevin Rolston [00:14:12]:
It's permanent. Yeah. Mm hmm.

Christopher [00:14:13]:
Yeah. And so I think that's how it came about. And then I just made an appointment.

Kevin Rolston [00:14:23]:
Years later, Christopher is still rocking his hair system. Now, I've had my system for about six years now, and it's just become a part of me. It's not even something I ever think about now.

Kevin Rolston [00:14:33]:
And I couldn't imagine looking at the.

Kevin Rolston [00:14:34]:
Mirror without it, it would not be good. So I was interested to hear whether his experience was anything like mine.

Christopher [00:14:43]:
I think it's a natural part of who I am, but I'm always aware. Let's be clear. I'm very image conscious, and I know that that's probably not the thing I should be saying.

Kevin Rolston [00:14:52]:
No, I want honesty.

Christopher [00:14:54]:
I worked in the entertainment field for a long time, too, and so I know that it's the inappropriate, appropriate way to say, but, like, I worked with wigs and stuff like that, and so, like, there were such things as wig lines, and you don't want that hard line. And if you do, it could be what we used to call clocks. Like, you could see it, you know? And so I think that was always and is and is always going to be one of the things that I will watch out for. But, like, I don't know if I'm the normal person, right. In that regard, I think that I would say 99.99% of people would never know.

Kevin Rolston [00:15:31]:
How often do you tell people that you do have a hair system and how do you deal with that? Are you still self conscious about it?

Christopher [00:15:38]:
I don't know if I'm self conscious. Well, you know, I take that back. I think that's. Yeah, for sure. I certainly self conscious about it. Why is that? Because I would rather not have to. Right. So, like, I would rather have my own, like, head of hair.

Christopher [00:15:52]:
I'm bitter at my mother still for being in a family with bald head guys. Like, what can I say? But, like, you know, of course I would love to have, like, my own. However, that's not what's up. And so I do tell people, but I don't tell people. Be like, hey, by the way, I'm not going to. And unless it be was to become a question because I was photographed a lot before, and there's videos online of me without hair. Like, I had to be, you know, honest with it. I've had, like, some work done to my face, for example.

Christopher [00:16:24]:
Right? So I've had, like, botox and fillers and the whole nine yards. And I would have women that would come see me and they would say, well, you look extraordinary and this and that. And I immediately with squash that. Because what I did want people to think that this was natural. Okay? So, like, I didn't want to be this, like, weird standard of, like, this is the magazine and you have to look like that. And so I wanted to be clear. Like, this is what makes me happy. I only do it for myself.

Christopher [00:16:49]:
But just know that all this took work, you know, like, I didn't wake up like this, you know? And so I feel the same way when it came to guys. So it's weird because I would see a lot of husbands with wives, right. And the beauty with makeup and so on and so forth. And it also gave me a great opportunity to talk to men about that. And men are so self conscious way more than I think they're ever going to be given credit for. And when you have somebody that's going to be, like, super chill and just honest, I think it breaks down a lot of walls with men, and then they'd be willing to open up a little bit more. Because I would almost guarantee you, if you ask ten men that were bald or balding, if they would like to have their hair back, I would say that all ten men would want it back. Right, right.

Christopher [00:17:38]:
I haven't met one that was like, oh, yay, bald. Like, can't be bald. I think there's a lot of men that are like, okay, I'm okay with this, and this is the way it is, but if they were given the option, it would not be. Yeah.

Kevin Rolston [00:17:50]:
And to your point, I think it's hard for men to find a safe space to have that conversation. And so it's probably refreshing when they get to talk to somebody like you who's so open about it, because, I don't know, a lot of guys that are at the bar sitting there having a beer, and they're talking about how they feel about their hair, and they feel like they can really say much about it. And so I think the guys are kind of hung out there. And that's why I'm hoping that conversations with people like you are going to open people's eyes, and people can find a safe space to hear some conversation about, you know, what it's like having hair and how their friends react to it. How did your friends and family react to it? Was it all positive or did you get teasing? Did you get any kind of issues with anybody?

Christopher [00:18:25]:
Nobody teases me. It would not work. Yeah, no, it was all positive. It was very positive. And truth be told is your friends and family, they could be weirded out by it at first, but because of the. What we've seen in the media, you know, growing up, you know, it's all that mindset. But ultimately what it really boils down to is, are you happy? It's cool. And then it's not an issue.

Kevin Rolston [00:18:54]:
Christer's message is a powerful one because it comes from a place of empathy in his line of work, he often creates space for men and women to be vulnerable about their insecurities because he understands what it feels like to want to change your life for the better, even if there's a cultural stigma that stands in the way.

Kevin Rolston [00:19:13]:
I really appreciate the way that he acknowledges that it's not always easy for.

Kevin Rolston [00:19:17]:
Men to find people to talk to about their appearance, and it can seem like there aren't many options out there. Hopefully, thanks to people like Christopher and conversations like this one, more men and women will feel empowered to reach out to somebody who can help them onto a path towards better confidence and self esteem. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hairpod. Check us out on hairpod on Instagram or search hairpod on Facebook to continue the conversation. If you know somebody who could benefit from hearing this episode, we'd love it if you'd share it with them. And if you're enjoying the show, consider leaving us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. We also have a website and you can check it out by going to podcast dot hairclub.com. We are here to build people up and share real stories so people experiencing hair loss feel a little bit less alone.

Kevin Rolston [00:20:08]:
And when you share, review and subscribe, it helps us do just that. So thanks.

Kevin Rolston [00:20:13]:
Until next time.