The Bald Leopard: The Hair Massacure

Last week I had the pleasure of shaving my brother's head.

It was super satisfying.

For those of you who don't know, the Hair Massacure is a local fundraiser for our children's hospital and the Make a Wish Foundation. Participants collect donations and then head down to West Ed on the event day to line up and have their heads shaved. Most participants opt to dye their hair pink in January as a way to bring awareness to the campaign and add a little more fun to the fundraiser.

My brother did just that.

I wanted to shave Michael's head for 2 reasons:

1. When else do you have the opportunity to take clippers to your brother's head and not get in shit for it?

2. I wanted to know what it felt like to shave someone's hair off (I was always too chicken to do the event on my own and now won't really have the chance ;) )

I was surprised at how nervous my brother was to shave his head, especially considering he had participated in the event before. He mentioned how many people had commented on how 'brave' he was to dye his hair pink but no one had really mentioned anything about the hair shaving bit. It's funny how people just assume that men will be ok with having their head shaved but not ok with having funky coloured hair. For Michael, the apprehension was in the head shaved itself, he would walk around with pink hair for a long time and not really been fazed by it but the thought of having a closely shaved head bothered him. I don't blame him.

I think men affected by alopecia are often over looked. 'Oh it's easier for men. It's normal for them to be bald' is often uttered but how true is it? Sure, it is more common for men to lose their hair or have receding hair lines but does it mean that it affects them less? I mean, here is my brother who is not an overly vain man, who knows his hair is going to grow back, and he's still a bit nervous about shaving it off (of which I don't blame him and he took it like a champ. The only potential for watery eyes was from when I got hair in them because apparently you're supposed to shave it front to back not back to front. I don't have hair! How am I supposed to know????). Point is losing your hair sucks. Man or woman.

After the shave we got interviewed by the news (see clip below....hopefully. If it works fast forward to 12:00) Not going to lie, because this fundraiser is for cancer research I felt obliged to tell the cameraman that I do not in fact have cancer. Hard to say if he was going to ask about it but I wanted to avoid an awkward situation :)