If we’re to believe Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race. But where it comes to the hair we shampoo as opposed to the hare who ultimately lost out to the lumbering tortoise, sometimes a swift, bold move is the 21st Century man’s best bet. In other words, rather than to slowly go bald, suffering the protracted process, withering confidence and cranial frigidity often associated with hair loss, many men choose to simply pick up the razor and become a new man now.

It worked wonders for comedian and “Deal or No Deal” host Howie Mandel.

“It was kind of like a rebirth,” Mandel says. “Though I think I was born bald the first time, also.”

Mandel says that shaving his head brought about “a great change,” both personally and professionally – a creative choice originally made for a film role in 2000. “Just a razor’s swipe and this neurotic Jew becomes a tough guy,” he cracked. “People assume I’m a lot edgier than I am,” he added. “In some ways, the new ‘do’ has given new life to my career. Mostly, I just enjoy the feeling of cleanliness and the low maintenance.”

Indeed, while some 35-million American men deal with significant hair loss each year, many of them spend a combined two-billion dollars annually on drugs, rugs, and plugs (shorthand for loss-prevention and growth-stimulation prescription medications, hairpieces, and follicular implant surgeries, respectively) a rapidly growing number are instead embracing the chrome dome look. While some are allowing nature to simply take its course, others are taking matters, and razors, into their own hands and shaving their heads. And culturally speaking, the cue ball look is not only becoming more widely accepted and generally embraced – something many trace to Bruce Willis’ fashion statement in the 1994 film “Pulp Fiction.” In fact, Bald-Headed Men of America (BHMA), founded by John T. Capps, boasts an international membership of more than 50,000 in all 50 United States, as well as 39 foreign countries, and hosts an annual convention in Morehead City, North Carolina.

“Bald is beautiful,” says Capps. “That’s all we’re trying to say.”

But it wasn’t always considered so. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman poet Ovid was merciless about the blight of baldness in his work “Ars Amatoria” he wrote: “Ugly are hornless bulls, a field without grass is an eyesore, so is a tree without leaves, so is a head without hair.” In “The Arabian Nights,” Scheherazade wrote: “Is there anything more ugly in the world than a man beardless and bald as an artichoke?” An Egyptian tomb dating from 3,100 BC was recently found to house one of the earliest toupees, a region and era that saw hairless heads as an affront to the gods. So obsessed were they with curing baldness that they spread mixtures upon the head of lion fat, hippo urine, deer entrails, and serpent’s venom. If that rings vile, the alternative treatment for baldness in Ancient Egypt was a salve made of ink and cerebrospinal fluid.

Less offensively, some in Rome believed that elm tree bark, watercress, onions, creosote, and cortisone could cure the disease of baldness. Detractors of Julius Caesar lambasted him as being “disfigured” and “monstrous” for his baldness, which encouraged him to try an array of toupees and combover stylings. Caesar, it was said, was especially grateful to wear a laurel wreath at formal gatherings. Baldness was for a very long time seen as a sign of weakness, impotence, and deficiency. Remember what happened to Samson when he was shorn of his locks?

But, throughout history, attitudes about the follicly challenged have also been positive. Alexander the Great actually ordered his troops heads to be shaven to enhance the ferocity of his warriors’ appearance. In the Elizabethan era, baldness was viewed as a sign of intelligence, largely because of words written by Shakespeare. “What he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit,” wrote the bald bard in “The Comedy of Errors.” The U.S. Army added fuel to this notion in 1938, when two high-ranking officers suggested that bald soldiers be promoted first and fastest, as they were the brightest, according to the book “Bald! From Hairless Heroes to Comic Combovers, a Fascinating, Breezy History of Hairlessness” by British (and bald) writer Kevin Baldwin (yes, that is his real name).

Nevertheless, by 1959, international toupee sales were estimated to be about a $15-million-dollar-a-year business. That number has decreased significantly over time, and today, according to “Time” magazine, Japan accounts for 35-percent of all toupees sold. In America, where more men are covering their baldness with more advanced hair “systems,” toupees are mostly passé, although many are still purchased by cancer patients while working through chemotherapy.

In his book, Baldwin comments on the most common types of male baldness, from “The Widow’s Peak” (where the hair recedes from the temples), “The Naked Crown” (hair receding more quickly in the center), “The Domed Forehead” (the whole of the hairline recedes), and “The Monk’s Patch” (where a bald patch appears at the top and back of the head). Baldwin holds particular animosity for “The Combover,” also known as “The Sidewinder.” “It looks ridiculous, and marks the wearer as seriously deluded,” writes Baldwin. “Do they really think anyone is going to think they have a full head of hair?”

While toupees have fallen out of favor with American men, baldness remedies – from pharmaceuticals to magic potions, herbal supplements to miracle tonics and tinctures, to grafts, implants, transplants, and all manner of weaves and systems – are still a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business. But even when the client is extremely wealthy, the results can be headscratchingly obvious. Baldwin cites Tom Jones’ scalp reduction, Silvio Berlusconi’s hair transplant, and Elton John’s million-dollar hair weave system as being particularly brutal examples of bad bald beatdowns and encourages his readers to do all they can to embrace the bald look.

“Look, there is a connection between your age and how likely your peer group is to be bald or balding. If you’re 30 years old, about 30-percent of your male peers will be bald. If you’re 50-years old, that number jumps to 50-percent,” he writes. “It’s time to just embrace the inevitable. It worked for Patrick Stewart, Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi and John Malkovich. There are far more important things in life to be concerned about than losing hair.”

Cheryl Connolly, a Southern California hairdresser who has worked with a sizable celebrity clientele during her 25 years in the business, said that she has seen attitudes toward baldness shift dramatically during her career. Whereas a bald spot, especially a premature one, was once a stigma for men (not to mention a cause of great social concerns for women) it is now a totem of wisdom, strength, authority. “Bruce Willis, Vin Diesel, and the Los Angeles Police Department have a lot to do with that idea of baldness,” said Connolly. “But hey, it works.”

Connolly also said that she has seen male pattern baldness become widely accepted over the past quarter of a century. “Gone are the generic toupees, lost to the new, aesthetically-pleasing and functional hair weaves, or better – the shaved heads,” she said. “There’s has been a huge change in how men with male pattern baldness want their hair cut these days.”

According to Connolly, in the 1980s and early ‘90s, clients wanted her to leave all the hair I could so they could comb it over and drench it with hairspray. “Thank Donald Trump for that,” she said with a laugh. A decade ago, the trend was to have a very short, clean-cut look, “like Woody Harrelson or Ron Howard,” she added. “But over the last several years, I’ve seen most of my balding clients dwindle away. They’re just doing the shaved head thing – they’ve just quit resisting the inevitable.”

Connolly said that products claiming to regrow hair such as Nioxin, Rivita, and Rogaine “may help a little,” but she is unsure if they are “worth the cost and effort.” She is more optimistic about a new prescription drug that is currently under FDA review which stops the Anagon phase – the last stage of hair loss – and reportedly produces thicker and longer hair. It’s a counterpart to Latisse, which grows thicker, longer eyelashes, and has been FDA approved for about 10 years.

Most baldness treatments – from drugs to surgery – are, according to Baldwin, “too expensive, inconvenient, of limited effectiveness, painful, potentially harmful, liable to cause embarrassment, or worse. As a bald man myself, I wouldn’t recommend any of them.”

Baldwin recalls the horrifying and hilarious torment afforded a former colleague who found himself in a hairy situation trying to solve his baldness. “I worked with a guy once who left the office bald on Friday and returned on Monday with a full head of hair,” said Baldwin. “Colleagues were merciless. They pulled up carpet squares from the floor and tied them on top of their heads to mock his new look. So don’t bother with that stuff – unless you’re also planning on moving to another country.”

There is also an upside to being bald. Along with the amount of time saved in shampooing, styling and combing, men who simply surrender to being bald figure they save in excess of $1,000 a year on haircuts, shampoos, and other grooming supplies.

Personally, Connolly thinks if a man is losing his stack, he should embrace the loss and go bold – er, bald. “Grab the shaving cream, the razor, and the fogless mirror, and shave that thing,” she said.

That’s exactly what Howie Mandel did in an hour-long ceremony, during which his mass of trademark curly hair that he used to call his “Jew-fro” was shaved straight across the top, leaving the sides (a la Larry from The Three Stooges), then shaved further to reveal just two bulbous pieces of hair on each side (like Princess Leia from “Star Wars”) to a “one fell swoop” climax that left his head completely nude. “I left the house immediately to gauge reactions,” said Mandel, who claims to have a bikini wax named after his celebrity crown and is now (jokingly, one assumes) considering just growing back some bangs. “After the third person approached me with an overly concerned look, not wanting to ask how many more chemo treatments I required, I decided to grow my lower lip hair to confirm my health.”

A shaved head is “neat,” writes Baldwin, “it makes you look strong, positive, and decisive. You’re not trying to cling to what you no longer have. You’re taking control.” On the downside, Baldwin notes, “It takes longer to wash your face, since there’s more of it.”

Connolly said the most important thing about hair of any type is to wear it with confidence, especially if you’re thin or shiny up top. “Stand up straight with your head held high and show that great personality,” she said. “You’re more than the hair you do or don’t have. That’s important to remember. It’s also important to remember: if you’re bald, put sunscreen on your scalp.”

Still, not everyone shares Mandel and Baldwin’s sanguine attitude toward a naked head. “I started losing my hair when I was, like, 17-years old,” said Marty Frost, a 51-year old Los Angeles musician. “It made me crazy for 20 years. I tried everything I could afford. It seemed like the medications worked for a while. I looked into transplants and all of that, but that didn’t seem feasible. When it was just a bald spot, I used this shake-on hair stuff that worked really great. But at a certain point I was stressing about this wreck I had on my head which was just dominating my thoughts and destroying my self-esteem. That’s when I started to consider taking a long breath and just buzz it all.”

Frost smiled, slowly, mischievously running his hand over his smooth scalp. “I’m told it feels like a baby’s bottom,” he laughed. “I can live with that.”

Todd Aaron Jensen is an award-winning journalist and a regular contributor to “Life After 50.” He and his wife are longtime foster parents and certified Kundalini yoga instructors who own and operate The Yogi Tree, a studio and wellness center in Toluca Lake, CA.