Locking up bald business
Entrepreneurs are pushing the notion that it's cool. Figuratively, as well.
MIAMI - It used to take Howard Brauner a half-hour, a special comb, and two hairsprays every morning to carefully plaster a sheet of hair from one side of his head over his bald dome.
"I did it for 12 years," he recalls. "I couldn't walk in the wind. I couldn't wear a hat in the winter."
Until one ultra humid day in South Florida in 1993, when the comb-over - and Brauner's patience - drowned in a sea of sweat. "I went to the barber and said: 'Cut it off.' Who am I fooling? I'm a bald guy, and I'm going to be proud of it."
Pride doesn't begin to describe Brauner's passion for his Friar Tuck tonsure. It is his mission in life to restore self-esteem, rather than hair, to the hairless.
His year-old company, Bald Guyz, based in Manalapan, N.J., markets a line of products designed especially for the hairless. He sells a shampoo, a 30-SPF sunscreen, head wipes, a moisturizer, a shaving gel and a cleanser/conditioner.
Brauner, whose title is "head bald guy," developed the products himself over a dozen years, and talked to hundreds of shiny-pated counterparts.
"The people speaking to bald guys are Hair Club for Men, Rogaine, hair transplants. They're all saying it's not cool to be bald," he says. "It's a market no one's speaking to."
About 35 million U.S. men are in some stage of male-pattern baldness, ranging from about 20 percent in their 20s to about 65 percent in their 60s, according to Brauner's research. Hair restoration is a $1.7-billion-a-year business.
But in recent years, it has become more hip to be hairless, especially among the young and receding. "Shaving your head is a lot sexier than a bald patch," says Tyler Smith, 29, founder of slybaldguys.com, a Web site for the follicularly challenged.
The cachet of the egghead has been boosted by NBA superstars including Shaquille O'Neal and actors including Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel. People magazine has even run a "Bald and Beautiful" page.
Bald Guyz isn't the only company lured by the heady prospect of a bald market, but no one else has quite the same products. HeadBlade sells special razors and related products mainly aimed at the head-shaver. And Smith says his Web site has been contacted by two other companies preparing to launch special head-shaving creams.
The need is there for specially formulated scalp cosmetics, Smith said. Wiping your head with a paper towel or using regular shampoo can make the pate peel.
"Once your head is shaved, a lot of guys are like, 'How do I clean it?' Your old shampoo will dry out your scalp pretty bad," he says.
Bald Guyz also capitalizes on the growing niche of cosmetics for men.
Brauner's more hirsute partner, Michael Nyman of Weston, Fla., said he opted in when he saw the metrosexual trend taking hold with products such as moisturizers and cleansers for men.
"This whole men's grooming category is exploding," Nyman said. "Before, it was just shaving cream and deodorant. Now, retailers are devoting a lot of shelf space to men's grooming."
Bald Guyz products, which are mostly manufactured in north Florida, are made with ingredients such as calendula, green tea extract, and chamomile. They retail for $4.99 to $9.99, and are sold in 16,400 stores across the country, including many grocery-store chains and pharmacies. Brauner just signed contracts with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and CVS Corp.
Brauner won't disclose sales or investment figures, but he says the start-up is closing in on break-even. He is seeking investors for a second financing round that will see the company's bottom line into the black.
Part of Brauner's shtick is being bold about being bald. He organizes stunts such as Bald Is Beautiful Day in New York, where bald guys marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, and Sexy Bald Guys contests. He has a team of girls, clad in "Bald Guyz Are Sexy" T-shirts, hand out samples at firehouses and construction sites.
He is working on arranging Bald Guys Nights at bars with signature cocktails such as the Chrome Dome, Killer Comb-over and Hot Head, and is trying to get the King of the Comb-over, Donald Trump, to snip it off for charity.
Cutting the comb-over, says Brauner, is a defining moment for a bald guy.
"You have to have fun with what you're doing," says Brauner, who started losing his hair when he was 18, back in the '70s when men wore long hair and Afros. He now exhibits "the classic horseshoe" - bald on top and hair ringing the head.
He's also signed up John Bifarella of Boca Raton, Fla., who was selling his bald dome on eBay as advertising space for extra cash to pay child support. Bifarella will sport a Bald Guyz logo on his cranium.
Bifarella said he's psyched about supporting the cause: "Bald guys are people, too."
Says Brauner: "People have always been treating bald guys like it's walking on eggshells. We say embrace your baldness."