Rugs and Plugs

A few years ago, fear of being humiliated by a slightly askew toupee was enough to keep all but the boldest of America's estimated 17-20 million balding males in their natural state. Now, in a youth-oriented age of flowing locks, the artificial hair industry has finally developed "rugs" that not only look real but will stay in place in wind, water or bed. Consequently, more than 2.5 million men now wear toupees, and where hair does not flourish, rug makers do.

Max Factor produces rugs on a lightweight lace-lattice framework that allows the scalp to breathe. The framework is attached to the scalp with two strips of strong double-faced tape. Toupees sold by Squires of Hollywood also use double-faced tape that covers most of the interior of the hairpiece and allows the wearer to "sleep in it, live in it . . . even swim in it." Most such rugs cost between $300 and $500.

Parucca di Roma makes stretch toupees with synthetic hair that pull on like bathing caps and sell for $69 in department stores and barbershops. For only $5 more, at Gimbels in Manhattan, a barber will style the wig to the wearer.

For those who are still fearful of losing their piece in an awkward moment, there is a more extreme solution. For between $650 and $1,350, "Hair-Anew" surgically attaches the piece to the scalp with half a dozen individual loops or sutures of Teflon-coated wire. "Medi-Hair" weaves the sutures in and out in a basting pattern; its $1,000 job is supposedly permanent. In one ad, a "Medi-Hair" wearer is shown hanging upside down with a 12-lb. weight attached to his rug.

Woven Headaches. Another secure mane is produced by hair weaving, a process that costs between $150 and $400. Supplementary hair is woven onto a base of nylon thread and then crocheted with the client's remaining hair across the bald spot. Unfortunately, as the real hair grows the woven hair becomes loose and has to be tightened every four to six weeks at a cost of between $5 and $50 per treatment.

But man's real crowning glory is hair transplanting, a technique that has the benefit of covering the client's head with his own hair. It was pioneered by New York Dermatologist Dr. Norman Orentreich and is also practiced, among others, by Dr. Samuel Ayres III, a Beverly Hills dermatologist who has transplanted hair on Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, the Smothers brothers and many other show business personalities. In a long series of operations, strips or plugs of hair--a plug contains from 15 to 20 hairs complete with roots and skin--are removed from the back or side of the head and then transplanted into a similar-sized hole cut from the bald spot. Then follows a months-long cycle of scabs, scars, falling out of the old hair, and finally the growing in of the new. The process is both physically and financially painful; a complete job may run from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

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