Many times we tend to forget about the benefit of camouflaging products in the goal to disguise baldness. We focus instead on surgical hair restoration and/or medical management with finasteride (Propecia) and minoxidil (Rogaine). However, products like Nanogen, Toppik, and Dermmatch are excellent ways to cover up baldness using topical powders and creams that reduce the shininess of the scalp and thereby make your baldness less visible albeit temporarily.

A worried young white man looks at himself in the mirror and insNanogen, a newer product, and Toppik are both magnetic wool fibers that when sprinkled on the hair and color matched to one’s hair can make the hair appear thicker and thereby reduce visibility to the underlying scalp. Nanogen reportedly is also waterproof unlike Toppik that can create social embarrassment when there is rain that falls upon it. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of patients who have tried Nanogen so I cannot report accurately how effective it really is, but I am sure it is of high quality.

Dermmatch is used like a shoe polish to be applied to the scalp directly to make the scalp less visible. It is important to be applied in someone who has enough hair that the polish would not be visible as a distinct polish on the head. Toppik or Nanogen, which are more popular standalone options, can be effectively combined with Dermmatch in the right patient. Since the products are not too expensive, it might be worth experimenting with these products for optimal results.

These products can be used to bridge one over to having a hair transplant in the future, to help cover postoperative shock loss after a procedure, or to thicken a hair transplant result even further.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS, a board certified hair transplant surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about hair loss, or to schedule a hair transplant consultation please call 972-312-8105, or visit hairtx.com for more info. To ask Dr Lam a question please visit our hair loss forum.