Three hair transplants. Over twenty years of the wrong medication. A company built in Newport Beach because no 18-year-old should have to figure this out alone.
Find Your ProtocolNot my hairline. My crown. If you know anything about androgenetic alopecia, you know that early crown thinning is a sign of aggressive genetic loss. I didn't know that at 18. I just knew something was happening — and I had no idea what to do about it.
So I did what most guys do. I went online, found finasteride, and started taking 1mg every day. Added topical Rogaine. Tried laser combs. Tried dermarolling for about two weeks before I realized it was pointless. Tried supplements. I was a teenager throwing everything at a problem I didn't fully understand — because no one was giving me a straight answer. And I kept losing ground.
In 2019 I had my first hair transplant — FUE technique, targeting the frontal region. I was quoted approximately 3,000 grafts. When other doctors later examined my donor area, they estimated only 1,500 to 1,800 grafts were actually pulled. Of those, roughly 500 survived. As you can see in the photos, the result was essentially nothing. A complete failure. Money spent, recovery endured, and ground still lost.
In 2021 I went to Dr. Meshkin — 2,500 grafts via FUT. I finally started getting some real coverage back. In 2023, Dr. Blake Bloxham specifically targeted my crown — the area that had been thinning since I was 18 — with 2,400 FUT grafts. That gave me more coverage, though I still have ground left to cover.
I have nothing to hide: I still don't have a great head of hair. I still have another transplant in the works. But the point isn't perfection. The point is that I keep taking action. I keep moving forward. And I'm in a fundamentally better position than I would have been if I'd done nothing — or stayed on the wrong medication.
"Had I started dutasteride at 18, I may have never needed hair transplants."
I read everything I could find on DHT, on 5-alpha reductase, on the difference between Type I and Type II enzymes. As a physical therapist, pharmacology is part of how we think about the patients we treat — wound care, tissue healing, medication interactions. I understood the clinical framework. What I didn't have was anyone connecting that framework to hair loss specifically.
When I finally understood the mechanism — that dutasteride blocks both enzymes while finasteride only blocks one — everything clicked. Not just the pharmacology. The business. I realized the information gap was the real problem. Not the medication. The medication existed. The data existed. Men just weren't being told.
I built Mane & Steel in June 2024, still working as a physical therapist in Newport Beach, because I believed one thing: if someone had built this company when I was 18, I might have made different decisions. So I built it for the guy who is 18 right now. And for the guy who is 35 and just found out what dutasteride is for the first time. Both of them deserved better information. Both of them still do.
"The medication existed. The data existed. Men just weren't being told."
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I still don't have a great head of hair. My crown is still showing. I still have another transplant in the works. I'm not going to pretend otherwise — that's not what this company is about, and it's not who I am.
What I have is this: I took action. I got on the right medication. I worked with good surgeons. I kept going. And I keep going. The combination of doing something — of refusing to just watch it happen — changed how I feel about myself in a way I didn't expect. Not because I have a perfect result. Because I'm in the fight.
Wherever you are with your hair loss right now, it is okay. If you're 18 and you just noticed something. If you're 28 and you've been on finasteride for years and still losing ground. If you're 35 and you're looking at surgical options. It's okay. There are options at every stage. Even getting a little bit back goes a long way — and I mean that from direct personal experience, not from a brochure.
I built this company because I care about this — not as a business exercise, but because I lived it. I'm still living it. And I want every man who finds us to feel what I eventually felt: that taking action is enough. That you don't have to have all the answers. You just have to start.
It doesn't matter what you do for a living. It doesn't matter where you are on the spectrum. Every man has the right to a great head of hair. And every man deserves the information to fight for it.
"I still don't have a perfect head of hair. I still have another transplant in the works. But I'm in the fight. And that changed everything."
Whatever brought you to this page — curiosity, concern, frustration, research — it doesn't matter. You're here. That's the first step. Two minutes to find your protocol. A physician review. The right medication from day one.
Why starting early is the only move that makes sense.
Why hair is your highest-leverage asset at 22.
Why finasteride wasn't enough — and what two enzymes have to do with it.
The head-to-head clinical evidence for early intervention with dutasteride.