I was on the beach with my family on a summer evening when I first realised quite how extensive my hair loss was.
We were on the west coast of Denmark, and had a full view of the stunning sunset as it bled into the ocean. Naturally we took a photo – a group selfie with the horizon behind us and the camera held high – but it wasn’t our joyful faces I saw when I looked at the snap. It was the top of my scalp, shining in all its naked glory.
Losing your hair is every man’s worst fear. That beach shot was in 2016 when I was just 23 years old but, to be honest, I looked at least ten years older.
As a teenager, playing guitar with my band, I had hair down to my shoulders and didn’t even think about the possibility I wouldn’t always have a full head of hair. Yes, my father was fairly thin on top but he was in his 60s – decades older than me.
In fact, it’s a common misconception that you can predict your follicular destiny solely through your DNA. While genetics do have a role to play, your parents having luxurious locks doesn’t mean you’re safe.
As it turned out, aged 20, I was the first in my friendship group to experience thinning hair. Of course I felt embarrassed by it. Surely this was too young? It totally shattered my confidence and self-image, and from that point on, hair loss dominated my life.
By the time I started university in Copenhagen, aged 20, the problem was really quite advanced. I had a visibly receding hairline and was increasingly thinning on the crown. I had a hard time finding a hairstyle that worked. While my mates and I joked it was coming for all of us, I felt their sense of pity and dismay beneath the joshing. Inevitably, I looked older than them.
Losing your hair is every man’s worst fear, says Niels Konradi… it totally shattered my confidence and self-image
But being in command of what my hair looks like was a complete game-changer for me
I became very self-conscious. I laughed along to the jokes such as ‘are you sure about your age?’ or ‘time to go to Turkey?’ in reference to the abundance of hair transplant clinics out there, but of course it stung too.
My wife, then my girlfriend, is a model and I often went to fashion shows with her, but would always wear a hat to hide the hair loss.
I started to notice that people looked at my hairline, not my eyes when they were talking to me. My sense of insecurity grew. And then I saw that photo on the beach and knew I had to do something about it.
But what? They might have teased me about it, but I couldn’t afford a hair transplant on a student budget and I didn’t want to go down the medication route. Hair loss drugs like minoxidil and finasteride came with potential side-effects that worried me, ranging in the latter case from depression to erectile dysfunction.
I was almost bald on top of my head at this point and I tried to make it look uniform by trimming the rest really short, but I hated the way it looked – and knew others picked up on that.
In recent years there’s been a lot of talk about female hair loss and the emotional impact it can have, and everyone just assumes men will get on with it. But for me, it was very difficult to cope with.
My girlfriend was enormously supportive. We met when we were 16 so she’d known me with long, lush hair too, but she told me she loved me just the same without it. She even said the buzz-cut, bad-boy look was sexy, though I didn’t feel sexy at all.
With no obvious ‘cure’ available, I decided to take back control in the only way I could – I shaved it all off and went fully bald.
At first, it felt empowering; I was taking matters into my own hands. But what I didn’t expect was how people would react.
I’m almost 6ft 6in, and quite wide, and the new hairstyle really changed people’s first impressions of me. Some friends and relatives hardly recognised me. But I could also tell that new people found me intimidating.
By now I was working at a financial consulting firm and I realised that to many people I looked scary. That really bothered me because I’m a very warm person!
I was even given coaching at work on how to deal with it, and told that the last thing I should do in a negotiation was raise my voice since people would panic because I looked so menacing.
Then I was refused entry to a nightclub where my sister was holding her birthday party. The bouncer, assuming I was some sort of thug, told me I couldn’t come in as they didn’t want any trouble.
It was all very disheartening. Not only did I feel self-conscious about my lack of hair, but I was having to check my personality all the time to counteract other people’s impressions.
Being a very outgoing person, it was stressful and exhausting to be on my guard like that.
By then I didn’t feel quite so alone, however – more and more of my male friends began having the same hair-thinning issue. And it wasn’t just men.
My mother was in her mid-50s and going through menopause, and she lost pretty much all her healthy, thick hair in a very short amount of time.
It had a big impact on her. She’s a very open-minded and social person, but all of a sudden she found she didn’t really want to leave the house and started wearing all sorts of hats and wigs.
When she went to the doctor about it, she was told ‘hair loss is normal at your age’, which didn’t make her feel any better. She spent lots of money on different supplements, but none of them worked.
So many people suffer the same debilitating condition. You might argue that there are plenty of worse things to worry about than hair loss, but medical surveys show it has a serious impact on people’s mental health.
One study showed that 78 per cent of women suffering from thinning experience persistent feelings of shame, acute anxiety or depression, while a survey of men under 35 with male pattern hair loss found that 41 per cent would rather lose their sight than go bald.
Niels and his wife on their wedding day… she was glad I had my hair back for the photos
I carried on researching and looking into alternative options to help me regain control (and my hair).
And then in 2017, a friend introduced me to a team of scientists and researchers who were developing a plant-based solution to hair loss using biotechnology.
I was sceptical at first but as I delved further, I realised they weren’t using your average natural ingredients.
These were advanced, high-performance, lab-developed ingredients with clinical evidence behind them, such as Capilia Longa, a potent form of turmeric that helps reset disrupted hair-growth cycles.
I told them I wanted to help and we worked to create a product that we believed could help people.
I was my own guinea pig. I started using the serum we developed daily and after five or six months, was able to book myself in for a haircut – my first in five years.
I left my day job and co-founded Scandinavian Biolabs, which we launched in 2020. That product – our Bio-Pilixin Activation Serum (£49 for 100ml, boots.com) – became our hero product. It’s powered by stem-cell technology: you apply it to the scalp via a pipette and gently massage it in.
Being in command of what my hair looks like was a complete game-changer for me. That’s why I’m here every day, trying to improve life for women like my mum and men like me. I saw hair growth, increased density and my hair regained its strength where the follicles were still ‘alive’.
On that note, it’s important to say that this is not a magic potion – it won’t work in every case and, in fact, as you can see in my own hair, the areas in which the follicles are dead are still bald.
Most hair loss begins when follicles get stuck in shortened growth phases, producing weaker, thinner hair before eventually shutting down. If you don’t treat them, they eventually reach a point of no return.
But these days I’m content with the hair I have – it’s hard to overstate the impact that thicker, fuller hair has had on my confidence.
And though my wife never minded about my hair issues, she was glad I had hair again in our wedding photos.
My mum also started using the products and has never stopped; she now enjoys her beautiful, thick, healthy hair again. These days it’s grey but we haven’t created any solutions for that yet!
Our brand is now sold in 100 countries – this year we launched into more than 300 Boots stores in the UK – and I’m very proud of our success.
Every day, however, we still hear from people who don’t want to leave the house because they’re embarrassed about their hair. These are the people I always wanted to help. Believe me, hair loss can wreck your life – but you can take back control.
As told to Edwina Ings-Chambers
Scandinavian Biolabs products are available to buy at Boots stores nationwide and online at boots.com, Scandinavianbiolabs.co.uk, @scandinavianbiolabsco
