The clipping tipping point – when is the right time for men to shave their heads?

Prince Harry is looking very close to the clipping tipping point when you spend more time worrying about the way the back of your head looks than any other part of your body. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

It comes to us all in the end. It certainly came to me. The realisation, that is, that I needed to stop trying to cut my hair in a way that attempted to disguise my impending baldness.

And Prince Harry should really take note. He is looking very close to the clipping tipping point when you spend more time worrying about the way the back of your head looks than any other part of your body.

It happened to me about 20 years ago. I was sitting at the hairdressers - an unbelievably fashionable salon called Fourth Floor, just around the corner from the offices of The Spectator. As I was nattering to my cutter about this, that and the other, he put down his scissors and said, in a not unreasonable tone, " You know, you should really be doing this yourself. You'd save yourself a fortune."

'But here's some advice from a bald man to a balding one: As with any other "affliction ", the only thing to be done is to accept it and move on,' says Dylan Jones. Photo / Getty Images

"What do you mean?" I asked, slightly irritated that he'd interrupted me mid-anecdote (he'd probably heard it before, to be fair).

"Well, you could keep coming back every four weeks, and I could keep charging you, but while it's very nice to see you, even though you do support Manchester United, what you should really do is buy some clippers and do it yourself."

Which is precisely what I did. That afternoon I went to a shop in Shaftesbury Avenue that sold professional hairdressing clippers, and I've never looked back. Every couple of weeks I whizz the clippers around my head (the robust ones last around two years) , and I emerge from the bathroom looking like Bruce Willis, Vin Diesel or Jason Statham (minus the muscles and the money).

And if Prince Harry can rustle up some suitable security guards, I suggest he nips along to his local professional hairdressing supply outlet and get himself one. Because nobody in his position should walk around with an accidental comb-over, looking like one of the West Coast's many displaced people.

Harry has, of course, been losing his hair for a while now, as has his brother, although Williams's sense of decorum and dignity has meant that he's taken far more care with the way he presents himself to the world. As befits his position, the Duke of Cambridge looks like a statesman, while the Duke of Sussex appears to be fitting in with a slightly more Laissez-Faire and Californian way of doing things. And if he isn't careful he's going to start looking like one of those leather-skinned surfer dudes who wanders around in flip-flops and loincloths. And while that might appeal to the Montecito mindset of his neighbours (many residents of Harry and Meghan's new home take holidays in the surfer capital of Hawaii), it doesn't really go down very well anywhere else.

Stanley Tucci at 32-years-old in 1992 and now at 61. Photo / Getty Images

He will probably be thinking that shaving his head is some kind of admission of defeat, or failure, but he shouldn't worry. In fact he should do the opposite and positively own it. Because it will make him look a hell of a lot more in control of his life. Plus, it looks cool. Look at Stanley Tucci, Patrick Stewart, Samuel L. Jackson, Andre Agassi. Hell, look at John Travolta, who finally realised that wearing a hairpiece was not good for his image. There are few things as silly as walking around with a Danny Zuko quiff if you're bald as a coot underneath.

Of course, he could simply go for a transplant, which, while being risk free these days, I fear would only feed into some much-unwanted media accusations of California narcissism.

I know many famous men who have gone down the transplant route, and the process is now so sophisticated that for £40-50k you can disappear for a few weeks and then miraculously reappear with a completely plausible new head of hair. It doesn't look ridiculous, people don't really care that much, and I think most of us are quite forgiving towards those who spend their lives in front of the camera.

Even if they have to be shamed into it.

Samuel L. Jackson at 44 in 1992 and 71 in 2019. Photo / Getty Images

About 15 years ago I went to the FA Cup Final with a ridiculously famous television personality I know. After the game, we headed out to look for our car. As I called our driver, I said, without really thinking, "You can't miss us. Just look for two tall bald men standing on the central reservation."

But I could feel my friend flinch, as I had obviously mentioned the unmentionable. Yes, he was thinning on top, and yes he was developing the classic 50p hole on his crown, but until my blunder his friends had obviously chosen not to alert him to this.

Anyway, the next time I saw him, he looked like Tarzan, with a new, rather glorious head of hair that wouldn't have looked out of place on the head of Brad Pitt, Harry Styles or Nicky Clarke.

But poor old Hazza can't do that, which is why I'm suggesting he spends some of his Netflix fortune on some clippers. And while I obviously appreciate that he might not want to shave his head himself, I'd certainly encourage him to do so.

After all, pride comes before a fall. Or a transplant.

Will people criticise him for going bald? Of course they will, but who cares?

Like many men he may find losing his hair traumatic. But here's some advice from a bald man to a balding one: As with any other "affliction ", the only thing to be done is to accept it and move on. Own the shape of your head. Own your space.