Spare locks: Prince Harry’s recent hair transformation causes a kerfuffle among royal fans

It’s no secret that Prince Harry is rapidly losing his hair with his thinning locks out there for all to see, and it appeared the troubled Prince was choosing to age gracefully under the spotlight. Until now.

In a headshot recently released for BetterUp, a life coaching tech company where Prince Harry is the Chief Impact Officer, Harry sported a fuller, darker head of hair implying either a photoshop touch-up job or a “neat, optical illusion trick”.

The latest image stands in stark contrast to his appearance in Singapore just days earlier.

Harry was in Singapore advocating for an African-based HIV/AIDS organisation, where while playing in a charity polo match, his rapidly thinning hair was obvious to see.

Commenting for the Daily Express US, London hair expert Fabian Martinez suggested Harry could have simply used a treatment that gives the impression of fuller hair.

“It appears that Harry is sporting hair fibres which are commonly utilized as cosmetic items to give the impression of denser and more voluminous hair,” Martinez said.

According to Martinez the synthetic materials are ground down and transformed into minuscule particles that stick to existing hair strands. The fibres adapt and “intertwine” with the user’s natural hair creating an “optical illusion” of increased thickness.

Other royal watchers speculated that the case of Harry’s fuller, darker head of hair was merely a photoshop job.

@BetterUp tell the truth to yourself #PrinceHarry your baldness advancing rapidly, double chin- What’s up with all that Photoshop? Be real #Sussex just buy more hair extensions for your wife, and iron and take the Freedom Flight ✈️ ???? pic.twitter.com/VjPKIjVuBJ

— CR (@CarmenInUSA) August 20, 2023

Ridiculous photoshop. What on earth possessed the company to do that?https://t.co/6Q5AtusE7N

— Mary Palmer (@AKAMaryPalmer) August 18, 2023

nice rug

— Iain Brown (@iainb1991) August 22, 2023

Fake hair, fake heir…

— Costakii (@Costakii77) August 22, 2023

This would not be the first time Prince Harry has been accused of turning to Photoshop to conceal his receding hairline.

In 2021, Harry and his wife Meghan Markle graced the front cover of Time magazine as one of the magazine’s top 100 influencers of the year. In the image, the Prince sports a flourishing head of hair.

Harry and Meghan featured on Time 100 influencer list https://t.co/QPAKqNnABs pic.twitter.com/2HIPnI2vin

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 16, 2021

The considerable backlash Harry has received for tinkering with the appearance of his hairline comes after he himself openly criticised his estranged brother Prince William’s balding head in his tell-all memoir, Spare, earlier this year. 

The Duke of Sussex referred to his brother’s baldness as “alarming” and “more advanced than mine”.