SkyMall Monday: iRestore Hair Laser

No man wants to go bald. As a man who shaves his head because it’s the only hair style that looks good anymore, I can tell you that I frequently feel pangs of hair envy when I see a guy with thick, luxurious locks. That’s why I often just sit around the SkyMall Monday headquarters wearing a wig. That said, I’ve never pursued any type of hair treatment or restoration because I’ve always believed that you should just make the best of what you have. Thankfully, my parents never dropped my on my head, so I look good bald. That’s helped me avoid any urge to use those potent pills that can’t be handled by women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, as well as any strange topical ointments, salves and creams. All of those remedies sounds frightening and messy. However, recent innovations in the hair restoration industry have led to developments that include lasers. Lasers make everything cooler. If anything can bring back hair that has been lost for years, it’s lasers. That’s why I am completely on board with SkyMall offering the iRestore Hair Laser.Historically, the problem with lasers is that they’ve been dangerous and often used by aliens to enslave the human race. Now, however, lasers have been put inside a helmet so that bald men can use them while doing anything from sitting around on the couch watching TV to eating a rack of ribs to sitting on the couch watching TV while eating a rack of ribs. It’s about time lasers became convenient for lazy bald men.

Think that you should play with the hand that nature dealt you? Believe that lasers are dangerous, precise instruments that are best left to professionals? Well, while I shine these lasers into my eyes, why don’t you take a look at the product description:

Adjustable Laser Dome for full scalp coverage!

That’s all you really need to know. Well, that and the fact that you’ll be able to tell your friends that you have an adjustable laser dome. They’re sure to feel stupid for being stuck with non-adjustable laser domes. Fools!

So, if you’re bald, wish you had a full head of hair and enjoy standing around reading books in an infinite black emptiness, then the iRestore Hair Laser is for you. Or, it might not be for you. To be certain, check out this handy and not-at-all amusing chart on iRestore’s website.

Stop being bald and laserless when you could be hairy and laserful. The choice is yours.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Galley Gossip: IndiGo flight attendants forced to cut their hair – or wear a wig

Meet the flight attendants from IndiGo Airlines. They’re young, chic, and might be wearing a wig. Well that is if they refuse to cut their hair. According to Anindita Ghose in the article A Curious Case of Stewardess Hair, the airline’s new uniform includes a grey tunic with an indigo corsage and a hat to be worn with a uniform bob. The new look was launched on August 15th.

IndiGo Airlines is a private domestic low cost carrier based in Gurgayon Haryana, India. It’s main base is Delhi’s Indira Gandhi’s International Airport. In 2008 the airline won the title “Best Domestic Low Cost Carrier.” I wonder if the airline is trying to reclaim that title by having their flight attendants sport what the airline reports is a more sophisticated and international look? According to the stylist for IndiGo airlines in an interesting article, long hair or hair buns do not go with IndiGo’s new image, a look the airline believes makes their flight attendants appear younger and smarter and, in my opinion, quite French and very vavavavoom! But in a vintage way.No doubt about it the IndiGo girls look great! But the new short do apparently has them preoccupied with their hair. Passengers have noticed them either constantly messing with the lock that curls midcheeck or adjusting the wig to keep it in place. All I can say is I’m glad the airline I work for doesn’t make us wear the exact same hairstyle, or worse, wear someone else’s hair! Imagine serving hot coffee and PLOP! There’s a wig in a lap and a flight attendant sprinting into the galley to hide. It’s only a matter of time, ya know. Let’s just hope no one gets burned in the process. As for the spill left behind, passengers can just mop it up with that sharp looking wig! But don’t ring the call light to ask the flight attendant to dispose of it as she’ll be passing through the aisle shortly with a pick-up cart – that is as soon as she figures out what to do with her hair! Priorities, people.

While it was initially mandatory for the flight attendants of IndiGo Airlines to wear the bob after the airline launched its new image, they now also have the option of wearing their own hair in a “French roll or tie bun.” This after they put on what was reported as “a brave front in the face of severe scrutiny by curious passengers” known to love long hair. Thankfully things have changed. If it were me, I’d go with the French twist. It’s just as sexy and a lot more practical.

Photo courtesy of LiveMint.com

SkyMall Monday: Flair Hair Visor Sighting

It’s rare that I actually see SkyMall products in the wild. Sure, many of them sell quite well and are used by thousands – if not millions – of people. However, I spend so much time toiling away in the SkyMall Monday headquarters that I can no longer attend the monthly Telekinetic Obstacle Course tournaments or volunteer to help chronic back pain sufferers set up their NECKpro Traction Devices. Sadly, the only time I have the opportunity to see SkyMall products is when I am testing them out myself.

Recently, however, my luck changed. While attending a New York Mets baseball game at Citi Field with my father, I spotted something glorious. There, as I waited for a delicious Shack Shack hamburger, was a short man with tall hair. Hair that didn’t seem to actually belong to him. At first, I doubted its authenticity. What are the odds that I could be witnessing such a rare occurrence? However, as stared over my father’s shoulder at the man just a few feet away, I realized that I was witnessing history. There, but for the grace of God, walked a man in the Flair Hair Visor.

As I got closer to this live male specimen, I could see immediately that he had no sideburns and virtually no hair below the visor line. Is it possible that he shaved off all of the hair on the sides and back of his head and left only a thick, luxurious and spiked mane flowing on his crest? In theory, yes. However, there is no way that the hair poking through the visor like a crowning newborn was real. It was unaffected by the slight breeze coming off of Flushing Bay. It appeared to have no product in it yet remained stationary at all times. This hair wasn’t cemented in place with a Pauly D amount of paste. No, this hair was simply fake. And it was attached to his visor.

What would compel a man to don a visor with an artificial head of bleached blond spiked hair? Was he attempting to attract a mate? Overcompensating for his male pattern baldness and inability to grow taller than 5’8″? Or, did he simply think that wearing a visor with Guy Fieri’s hair attached would just plain make him hip?

It’s worth noting that it was an incredibly hot day with not a single cloud in the sky. Under the intense August sun, many sunburns were acquired that day. As a bald man, I can attest to the fact that protecting one’s scalp from UV rays is as important as protecting your backside in prison. Visors are notoriously useless when it comes to head protection because of their one major design flaw: a complete and total lack of a top. So, while they keep the sun out of your face, visors do nothing to keep your scalp covered. Perhaps this man had no other hat to wear to the game. Maybe, just maybe, he knew that no harmful, cancer-causing rays could possibly permeate a layer of synthetic hair that voluminous. If this is the case, he was wisely managing his long-term health. For that, we must commend him.

As I researched this piece, I arrived at the disheartening conclusion that the Flair Hair Visor is no longer offered in the SkyMall catalog. It is a relic of a bygone era of air commerce that I will always remember fondly. While it is still sold on the Flair Hair website, its days of be availability in our seatbacks at 35,000 feet have gone the way of the dinosaur.

We’ll never know whether this man purchased his Flair Hair Visor from SkyMall, the manufacturer’s website or a third-party vendor. Similarly, his motivations for wearing the bleached wig will always allude us. But, we can all sleep soundly and shop SkyMall confidently knowing that we are not alone. There are others like us. People who spend their hard-earned money wisely. People who care about their appearance. People with a good old-fashioned sense of whimsy.

We salute you, Flair Hair Visor man. Keep living the dream.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Calling all gingers for Holland’s redhead festival!

Coebergh Redhead Festival is an event in Breda, Holland, which originated in 2005 and is now a worldwide annual phenomenon. Thousands of natural — or so they claim — redheads from all over the globe (over 36 countries in 2009) will gather in Breda’s Big Square, Grote Markt, for photoshoots, musical performances, a fashion show, lectures about the origins and significance of red hair and more.

The Coebergh (a popular women’s drink) Redhead Festival or “Redhead Day” was originally conceived by artist Bart Rouwenhorst, and art features heavily in the festivities, which include a “red” exhibition in nearby Grote Kerk with a giant, red Rapunzel braid as the central work.

Sunday, September 5, 2010 is the big day. If you want to go to Breda, the nearest airports are Rotterdam and Eindhoven, but you can also fly into Amsterdam Schiphol or Brussels Zaventem (they’re equidistant from Breda) and take the train. You can find a hotel here at the Breda Tourist Office.

To participate in Sunday’s (and the preceding Saturday’s) exciting activities for the fair of skin and red of hair, just register on the website by clicking here. It’s free of charge, and what could be more fun than to walk in a gingery sea of your own kind?

[Photo by e3000 via Flickr.]

Photo of the Day (04.03.10)

People watching is an underappreciated travel pastime. In between sampling local delicacies, seeing the sights and taking countless posed photographs in front of funny street signs, we should all take more time to just observe the people who occupy the places we visit. Flickr user penton42 did just that when he spotted this gentleman in Santiago de Cuba. One is left to contemplate if this young man’s hairstyle is a celebration of his love for the iconic men’s magazine, a commentary on his life as a lothario or just something his barber thought up without ever telling him. Whatever the reason, it’s excellent penmanship.

Seen anyone with JUGGS or Perfect 10 shaved into their heads? Submit your images to Gadling’s Flickr group right now and we might use it for a future Photo of the Day.