From Hair to Eternity

Recently I have been wondering why instead of becoming a writer, a thankless profession, I did not become an international hair growth expert, like Riquette Hofstein. Riquette was educated at the Schwarzkopf Institute of Hair Research in Munich and the prestigious René Furterer Institute in Paris. You, not having attended Europe’s finest hair-growing academies, probably think there is nothing you can do to make your hair grow faster. Wrong! The problem, you see, is not on your head but in it. Riquette uses hypnotherapy to “redirect the subconscious to correct the erroneous beliefs that aging, genetics, or the environment are keeping them from growing hair.” In her latest book, Grow Hair and Stop Hair Loss(2003), Riquette devotes a whole chapter to “Mind-Body Techniques for Manifesting Hair Growth.” (She does not say whether with sufficient mastery of these techniques you can manifest hair on other people.) I am envious of Riquette, who has published two books, has “countless fans worldwide” and doubtless makes more money than I do. And who cares that she is a snake oil merchant? Even if she can’t give her clients the hair they want, she gives them something nearly as good: the belief that they can get the hair they want through the power of the mind. When so much of life is beyond one’s control, what is more seductive than the idea that you can at least control your hair?