For centuries already, and particularly in our modern society, a full head of hear is one of the foremost symbols of beauty, youth, health, power, and influence. TV and magazine ads abound with people whose attractiveness is frequently associated with shiny, tick, and bouncy hair. In today’s world, good looks are inescapably linked to success while images of perfect individuals with amazing bodies and hair relentlessly and mercilessly bombard the consumer.

For this reason, thinning hair and baldness are often terrifying for men while for women, and young professionals, they can equal a slow death. Falling hair is also devastating for young and middle-aged people alike, meaning loneliness and endless teasing from teenagers and feelings of growing older and loosing sex-appeal for the adults. For many people experiencing hair loss, life becomes a huge challenge - most face every new day with the horror of looking in the mirror and thoughts that their masculinity or femininity is “substandard.”

Along with heredity, stress is probably one of the most common factors for hair loss. Many people, especially professional soldiers and other people with highly stressful jobs, have reported loosing a significant amount of hair as a result of a single stressful event. A young UK soldier serving in Iraq said that he lost all of his body hair after a close combat mission in 2005, and the man is bald and completely hairless to this day.