My Father Had No Hair. I Almost Didn't Either.

My father was already going bald at 27 when I was born, and as a small kid I'd look up at his head and ask why he had no hair. He'd answer in the way only fathers answer ridiculous questions from small children — with total, unblinking authority: "Every time you get a new hair, I lose one. That's how it works."

It made complete sense to me, and I didn't question it — I also didn't question why my maternal grandfather, a dapper man who had grown up in pre-war Berlin and cared enormously about his appearance, was also losing his hair and was so unhappy about it that he restricted his washing to a once-a-week bath. In my child's mind, this fit neatly into the same theory: hair was finite, you used it up, and that was simply how it goes.

So when my own hairline started retreating in my early forties, I wasn't surprised — I had the genetics, I had the blueprint, and I had no particular interest in fighting what felt like an entirely predetermined outcome. I did nothing.

Then I was 44 and we founded Hairstory, and suddenly the prospect of a balding hair CEO felt like a slightly bigger deal. I'm not the face of Hairstory — never wanted to be — but you meet a lot of hairdressers in that role and you occasionally end up in front of a camera. I noticed my own insecurity about it in a way I hadn't before.

And then something unexpected happened. My hair loss slowed. Noticeably. I still wouldn't qualify myself as having a full head of hair, but my hairline stopped moving and I retained far more than any genetically related male in the two generations before me. The only thing that had changed was this: I had started washing my hair with New Wash instead of shampoo.

The dirty secret hairdressers already know

When I first started working at Bumble and bumble, we had a problem in the flagship salon: our own hairdressers were constantly telling their clients to wash their hair less. This was not great for product sales, so I dug into it.

What I discovered was a kind of open secret in the high-end salon world — almost universally, the people who understand hair best, the ones doing it professionally at the highest level, believe that shampoo is the enemy of good hair. Not a particular shampoo. Shampoo itself.

It's not a hard idea to follow once you hear it. Why is second-day hair almost always better than day-one hair? Because day-one hair has been stripped of everything. It needs time to reclaim the natural oils that give it shape, body and movement. The shampoo did its job too well.

I have a simple rule, which I've used ever since: if it foams, it strips. Every shampoo — sulfate-free, SLS-free, organic, "gentle," whatever the label says — over-cleans. It removes the dirt and sweat and styling product, yes. But it also removes your body's natural protective oils from both your scalp and your hair. Those oils exist for a reason. Your body produces them because that's how it protects you.

What over-cleaning actually does to your scalp

Here's the part that took me a while to connect: shampoo doesn't just strip oil, it strips your microbiome — the entire community of bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms that have co-evolved with your body over millennia to keep your scalp healthy. When you wash that down the drain, you create a vacuum, and nature, as it always does, rushes in to fill it.

In many cases, the good bacteria lose that race. What you get instead is overactive oil glands working overtime to replace what was stripped, exposed skin with no microbial protection, and an invitation for invasive microorganisms to take hold. The result is a stressed, irritated scalp. Itching. Dandruff. Dermatitis. And — yes — hair loss.

I'm analytical by nature, and when I see a change in trend I want to understand the fact pattern. I know perfectly well that correlation isn't causation — and I'm aware that the founder of a hair company claiming his own product changed his hair trajectory is not exactly an unimpeachable source. But I've gone through the checklist carefully: my life got objectively more stressful after founding Hairstory, stress is a known contributor to hair loss, and everything else in my life stayed the same. The only thing that calmed down was my scalp. You can draw your own conclusions. I've drawn mine.

How New Wash works differently

New Wash doesn't foam. That's not a bug — it's the entire point.

To clean anything, you need amphiphilic molecules: molecules that are both oil-loving and water-loving. The oil-loving side grabs onto dirt, sweat, and everything you want removed. Then, when you rinse, the water-loving side bonds to water molecules and the whole clump goes down the drain. That's how every cleaning system works — from dishwashing liquid to surgical scrubs. The difference is in the strength of that bond and the collateral damage it causes.

Shampoo's amphiphilic molecules are powerful enough to strip everything — including your protective oils and your microbiome. New Wash uses a different class of molecules: oil-based cleansers derived from essential oils and esters, with enough strength to remove what you want removed, but not enough to strip your body's natural defenses. As an added benefit, some of those molecules don't fully rinse away. They attach to your hair as emollients — long carbon chains with extraordinary conditioning properties. The product cleans and conditions simultaneously, which is why it has the consistency of a custard rather than a liquid.

The result, for your scalp, is the absence of the vicious cycle — no stripping, no overproduction, no vacuum for invasive microorganisms to fill. And a calmer scalp is a healthier scalp — which, for many people, means less irritation, less flaking, less dermatitis, and less hair loss.

One more thing I tried

About two years ago, I read a piece in the Times about people microdosing minoxidil and seeing real results. I was curious and, even though I was no longer the CEO of Hairstory, I decided to give it a try. Three months in I thought I noticed new growth in what had been a thinning patch at my crown. My hairdresser later confirmed it and within a year my hair was visibly fuller.

(I've also noticed more hair in my ears and nose, though I'm genuinely unsure whether to credit the minoxidil or simply the passage of time — probably both.)

My working theory: New Wash slowed the loss. Minoxidil reversed some of it. Either way, I look nothing like the trajectory I inherited.

My father is 82 now. Still no hair. My own son never asked me about losing my hair so I guess that family myth has come to an end. But if he asks why I'm shrinking, I'll tell him it is so he can grow taller.