Hair Loss and Replacement for Dummies — The Reviews Are In!

I know this will just sound like a plug for my new book, Hair Loss and Replacement for Dummies, but I haven’t mentioned it nearly as much as I should. There’s a reason for this post aside from the obvious — renowned hair transplant surgeon Dr Richard Shiell, author of many article and classic books in the field has written his review, which I’ve posted below. It serves as a good overview of what you can expect from the book, which I might add is sold online for under $12 at Amazon.com, and makes a great gift for those that are essentially looking for a handy, printed version of BaldingBlog.

P.S. It’s now also available on your Kindle e-book reader (and iPhone), in case you’ve given up on printed books!

Dr. Shiell’s review starts here:

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Apart from the textbooks, written for professional, there have been many books on hair loss and replacement written for members of the public. I have read at least a dozen of these over the past 30 years and they are all quite informative and, for their time of publication, reasonably accurate and helpful.

Hair Loss & Replacement is no exception in this but it is a considerable cut above the rest. Firstly it is very up-to-date and contains a vast amount of information all exceedingly well organized in 7 sections containing 18 chapters:

1. Getting to Know your Hair
2. The Root of Hair Loss
3. Creative Techniques for Concealing Hair Loss
4. Pharmaceutical, Laser and Topical Therapies
5. Advanced Hair Loss Solutions (60 pages about hair transplantation)
6. The Part of Tens (10 myths about hair loss, pros and cons for wigs, hair treatments and transplants)
7. Appendices- this include a Glossary of scientific terms used in the book. In addition the reader is provided with the addresses of all the well known hair-loss websites and support organizations and many more. There is also an outstanding Index running to 16 pages.

Throughout the book important points to remember are clearly marked with an icon in the margin, as are tips and warnings. The reader is even alerted by another icon to technical paragraphs that he can safely skip without losing the thread of the chapter.

Now a warning. Although this book is designed for those with little prior knowledge about hair, it is certainly not recommended for “dummies”. It is a very well written and technical book, authored by two of the acknowledged “gurus” of our field, Bill Rassman and Bob Bernstein, The previous scientific writings of these two men are already at the top of any reading list on hair replacement surgery. Far from being a text for the “everyman” the book would be an ideal primer for any doctor wanting to know more about hair loss and its replacement, before committing many months to a specialized training course in hair replacement surgery.

Every aspect of hair growth, hair loss and hair replacement is covered concisely in this book in reasonably simple language and I could find few faults within the text. Perhaps even then, they were just minor differences of opinion between experts, rather than faults.

There is no attempt to “talk down” to the lay reader and in fact the only concession to the layman is that each of the 18 chapters is fairly well self-contained and if he only wants to know about, diseases that cause hair loss, hair transplantation or hairpieces, then he can be well informed in a self-contained section.

Summary
This is a really outstanding book for the beginner who has a considerable degree of education but no place for a true “dummy” to be browsing. Perhaps someone will do a 50-page comic-book version for these individuals who, judging by popular book sales and TV ratings, make up a considerable proportion of our population.

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Reviewed by Dr Richard C. Shiell, M.B., B.S., Melbourne, Australia