So many of us are obsessed by the thought of a thinning thatch that’s it’s easy to forget that baldness isn’t a man’s only worry when it comes to his barnet: thick, wavy and generally unruly hair can all present problems, too.

And having a Don King hair day can affect more than just your appearance. According to a study by Yale University, men who aren’t happy with their hair tend to be more self-conscious, more self-critical and less sociable than their well-coiffed counterparts. Even the thought of a bad hair day was shown to affect self-esteem dramatically.

Before you literally pull your hair out, remember that there’s no such thing as ‘normal’ when it comes to the stuff on your head — just the hair you happen to have been dealt: hair that’s unique to you. And what makes it unique depends on its structure.

Assessing Your Hair Type

Are you a man with wavy hair, thick hair, or curly hair?

Hair varies in thickness from 50 microns (a unit of measure equal to 1 millionth of a meter) in people with fine hair to over 100 microns. Thickness also depends on the number of individual hairs on your head.

How the hair behaves depends on the shape of the individual shafts. Asian hair, for example, is often round, so lies flat and straight; Caucasian hair is slightly oval, which tends to make it fine with varying degrees of waviness; and Afro-Caribbean hair is flat and curved, giving it its distinctly curly appearance.

What’s more, hair density – how many individual shafts there are on the head is affected by its color, with blondes having the most hair and redheads the least.

“Half the battle is learning how to work with the hair you’ve been given,” says Wendy Lewis, author of Hair Affair. “You may know best how your hair behaves, but getting it to look healthy, shiny, and manageable can take a little knowledge.”