No, it applies to people who TRY to improve their appearance but do it so ham-handedly that it looks awful, in fact, much worse than if they had just left things alone. The equivalent is a 80 year old woman who slaps on foundation with a trowel, and puts on so much cheap pink lipstick she looks like $2 hooker.
It shows bad judgement and self-delusion in an extreme way.
That’s actually a big part of it. People don’t make fun of good toupees, they make fun of bad toupees, and most toups are really bad.
Look at actors like Shatner and Burt Reynolds. Back when they had good toupees, no one really cared. Then they suddenly had curly hair and more hair than before.
On an old episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, Alan Brady was outed as wearing a toupee. On his desk he gathered all his different models, including the “you need a haircut” style and the “ooh, he’s losing his hair” style. Few men make that kind of effort to keep their toupees looking natural.
Exactly the point I intended to make.
There is “making yourself look nice” and then there is “thinking that you’re making yourself look nice when actually you’re turning yourself into Scary Clown Lady”.
So, you’re only a liar if you lie so badly that everyone immediately knows it’s a lie? 
With all due respect, it wasn’t.
You said:
You claimed that toupees and combovers indicate untrustworthiness.
Now you seem to be saying it only indicates untrustworthiness if it’s noticeable.
I can’t see the logic in saying that how good you are at covering up a lie can be taken as any indication of trustworthiness.
Toupees are fake.
I hate fake, but I don’t think that’s a prevailing view. The prevailing view is that faking is pretty much fine if you can pull it off.
It depends.
A former coworker had an “off the rack” toupée that didn’t match his own hair at all. Plus, it had a part in the middle that didn’t go in the same direction two days in a row. This was of course ridiculed and scorned. Actually ***everything ***about the guy was ridiculed and scorned.
On the other hand, one of my cousins wears a toupée, and it’s totally natural looking. He spent a fortune on it (he can well afford to), and he replaces it periodically as his own hair grays. I have never heard anyone ridicule his toupée.
I have a question…two actually: in the 18th century, most wealthy men wore wigs-they had their heads shaved, and wore wigs instead-why was this?
Second: does Rod Blagojevich wear a wig? He appears to have a dead animal atop his head…same for Donald Trump!
Hair lice?
Trump does not have a rug. He had an amazingly complex comb-over.
It was indeed the point I intended to make. I just didn’t make it very well.
Because of the aforementioned added layer of delusion. The person who engages in personal beautification presumably does so for aesthetic reasons. But the person who does so and only manages to make themselves look blatantly worse, as I said, is either self-deluding or thinks that you are too stupid to notice. It’s not just “lying”, it’s lying about lying in the face of obvious truth.
I think that’s Blago’s actual hair. Trump’s too.
I think these two snippets pretty much sum it up for me. Us men are all going to age, and some of us will start losing hair. Deal with it.
When the king goes bald, everyone at court had better start wearing a wig, so he blends in. And in the 18th and 19th century, there was a lot of syphilis going around, which makes your hair fall out.
Hhhhmmm. There are only a few things that socially we’re allowed to make fun of – toupees and people who are overweight. Not really sure I understand why making fun of either is appropriate.
Now let me get back to cleaning my rug and my hoho.
Seen a candid photo of Hugh Laurie on his way to the grocery store lately?
Charlie Sheen. Good hairpiece, but I vote hairpiece nonetheless.
If you are going to be a liar about something, at least have the courtesy to the rest of us to put an effort into it.
Blago is Serbian. He’s genetically prone to having hair with the same density as a sea otter. See a google image search for Serbian hair:
because most look stupid
I’m guessing there are a lot more guys that DO wear toupees, but because they are better quality, you don’t notice. But when they’re cheap and bad, you DO notice. And it looks ridiculous. Unflattering.
Same with make-up. It’s not meant to look “fake”, but flattering. Yes, you know a woman is wearing make up, but it’s not supposed to make her look like a clown, but to flatter her natural skin tone, shade of hair, etc.
It’s not the fact that it’s a toupee – but whether it’s a cheap, crappy looking toupee. Same with make-up, clothes, etc.
Combovers, however, almost ALWAYS look bad. I remember when I was in high school, and I worked at a local groccery store. We had this one guy who came in with the mother of all bad combovers. He only combed the FRONT PART of his hair over, so he had this big bald circle in the middle of his head, and since he was seriously balding, it looked so ridiculous.
People, it’s not so much about fake, but fashion.
Another female’s perspective:
If they’re well-fitted and tasteful, why not? I’m personally sick of the bar bouncer bald look that even younger men have been sporting for several years now.
Yes, I have seen many atrocious examples of hairpieces. Technology and time will eliminate the dead animal look!
I really had to stop and think about this question, because I had never considered it before. What I came up with, before I read the replies was:
Maybe it is because caring about your appearance is considered un-manly. And men on some level find “un-manliness” or femininity in other men disturbing. So we use ridicule to distance ourselves. Basically we joke about men who are wearing toupees to signal that we’re not vain, because being vain would be close to being feminine/gay.
Of course you can also make fun of toupees because they’re of bad quality or just makes people look funny or stupid, but that’s not as interesting. The interesting question is why we make fun of toupees that look good and realistic, or the phenomenon of wearing toupees.
