I Am My Hair

Where It Started

When I was seven years old, my father did something that sent my mother into an absolute fury. He lined up my four younger brothers and sister and I, and cleanly shaved all of our heads. Through her anger, my father offered a simple, stoic defense: “Their hair will grow out thicker.” He was right. As adults, every single one of us boasted an incredibly dense, thick head of hair. Mine was coarse and dense, with no natural fall and no easy waves. It was just a lot of hair that needed to be worked with.

In Mexican culture, hair is never just hair. Indigenous traditions, from the Maya to the Aztec, regarded hair as sacred, a direct connection to identity, vitality, and the spiritual world. That reverence didn't disappear with time. Walk into any barbershop from East LA to El Paso to Chicago and beyond and you feel it immediately: Mexican men take their hair seriously. The styles that come through the chair reflect generations of tradition mixed with the present moment. Hair carries culture, identity, and pride in every strand. I grew up in that tradition. My father would take us boys to the barbershop all at once. A ritual, not an errand. We'd come home with fresh cuts and clean lines; a slightly better version of ourselves. That’s what a good barbershop does. 

The Years of Figuring It Out

By my teenage years, the hair had become part of who I was. It was thick, coarse, and determined to do whatever it wanted. Heavy gels and Aqua Net hairspray were the tools of the era, products that held everything in place because the latest styles demanded volume, structure, and commitment. It wasn't a daily routine so much as a negotiation. Around 22, I decided to grow it out. It took three years of patience, product, and intention to reach my shoulders. I don't remember the exact day I cut it off, but I remember the feeling after. It was something close to relief. Long hair requires a different kind of maintenance, a different relationship with time. I respected the experiment, but I was ready to move on.

What Nobody Tells You About Losing It

Walking out of that neighborhood barbershop as a boy, you feel entirely invincible. But nobody prepares you for the day the mirror starts telling a different story. Losing your hair is never just a physical shift. Because our identity is so deeply anchored to our self-image, watching a hairline retreat can feel like an erosion of the ego itself. It is a psychological challenge that most men encounter in absolute isolation. I think about the story of Samson and Delilah, the idea that vital strength lived entirely in the hair. It is a mythological tale, but it captures an emotional truth that any man who has watched his hairline shift will immediately recognize. We begin to get a sense of who we are from our bodies, and when that canvas changes, it asks you to reckon with time in a way that most men would rather not. Despite the fact that up to 80 percent of men face noticeable thinning at some point, societal norms have created a heavy silence around it. Men are rarely given the language to express the vulnerability of watching their hair change texture, lose its color, and fundamentally alter the geography of their face. But that silence does not serve anyone. It turns a universal human transition into a source of quiet shame.

The Decision to Do Something About It

At some point, the choice becomes simple: accept it passively, or take it seriously. I chose the latter. This wasn't out of vanity, but out of the same instinct that sent my father to the barbershop every few weeks: the understanding that caring for what you have is worth the effort. I educated myself on diet, scalp health, and the science behind hair loss prevention. In that process, I found products I could trust, products I now use every week as part of a deliberate routine.