When I was young, my hair was so thick that I snapped banana clips. I can still remember the impressive way each half would fly in different directions. I could get a claw in part of my hair, to do the “Elaine from Seinfeld” hair, but a banana clip holding all my hair? Impossible.
My kids have kindly informed me that my hair is thinning. They do this in the best way possible: they tower over me, look straight down, and then laugh as they say they can see my scalp.
Kids are great.
I started hormones as a tool in my perimenopause arsenal, and the difference in some areas has been astounding. (SIDEBAR: If perimenopause is making you miserable, please know you don’t get extra points for suffering. Find a practitioner. Get treated.) One of those hormones is testosterone gel, because it turns out women need a little testosterone too. It’s a gel I get to apply to my inner thighs, and my only complaint is it increases hair growth in the area of application. It’s not really the end of the world until the day you decide to go to the beach, dry shave your inner thighs in a hurry, and then walk 2 miles in a bathing suit with your thighs chafing together, creating a razor burn so spectacular it deserved its own warning label. Not that this has happened to me, of course …
Then it hit me.
Hair growth.
Thinning hair.
My teenage sons mocking me from their lofty heights.
Have I … have I been applying this stuff to the wrong end of my body?
