It's not that simple. The overall hormone profile is more critical than the levels of the hormones individually. The "young man profile" is higher in T, and lower in E, but it's also lower in DHT so your hair will probably end up better off. (At least aside from the Norwood#1 hairline, which seems to be more susceptible to T in particular. Hence the "mature hairline" recession in the teens/20s.)
I don't agree with that at all now, in fact I think as men get older either two things happen.
A man's testosterone to estrogen ratio favors test even more, or men start experiencing testosterone deficits. I happen to be in the situation where I'm 40 and my testosterone to estrogen ratio has never been more disparate.
If you look at a lot of young men in their 20s, their faces say it all, and I can attest to this from personal experience, their testosterone might be high, but their estrogen is high as well. It is an out and out lie that higher estrogen will just make you fat and give you tits. Estrogen is the reason why a lot of young guys in their late teens and early 20s can't grow a beard but have soft smooth skin and still maintain an athletic physique.
High testosterone nukes facial collagen and makes you dry and sucked in the way a lot of fitness models and bodybuilders look. That's not how you see teenaged and 20-something boys look, because their ratio of estrogen is much much higher. Testosterone also makes your skin a lot more red, in fact if your test to estrogen ratio is really skewed you're more likely to take on a reddish tinge or a ruddy tinge to your skin and especially face unless you tan or are darker skinned.
Estrogen gives you smooth, often paler even toned skin, it's a dead giveaway for higher levels of estrogen.
I think it's largely a lie that most men have testosterone that takes a nosedive around my age, I think some unlucky men do, but mine is honestly higher than it was in my teens and I have less estrogen now which I plan to balance out exogenously.
Look at the well-documented decline in western men's testosterone levels over the last 75-100 years. The drop has been MASSIVE. It correlates a lot better with plastics exposure (and probably sugar exposure too) than with stress levels.
I personally don't think it has anything to do with that at all, I think it has more to do with breeding and diet as much as anything else. I think that extremely high testosterone of the past is being phased out through breeding and in demographics as an essential "vestigial limb" that is declining much like how we still occasionally find people born with spinal nubs that resemble a tail, but that has decreased substantially over the decades. Increasingly women are not interested in dating men who have the extremely coarse features that vestigially high levels of testosterone have caused. Most women preferred to breed with men who weren't lantern jawed, slope browed cavemen looking motherfuckers, that's an obvious trend of reproduction over the last 40 years that has only increased.
My testosterone is peaking at the top end of the reference range as it is defined presently, not only have I had my doctor tell me it's "too high" I personally feel like it's too high for me. My skin does not look as good as it once did, I feel a lot more dry, my face definitely feels more sucked in and not as full because of it, which is not as good of a look for me. Not to mention that it's much harder to curtail the oiliness of my skin because of the amount of testosterone I have going through my body at any given time.
Simply put, it's just not that necessary for me to have that much, yes I can eat garbage and roll out of bed with a near six pack after not exercising for months because testosterone is -that good- at maintaining muscle composition and burning fat. Yes, I can look like a f*****g monster in a month or two if I were to start picking up weights today, the strength I felt when I was exercising at my peak not too long ago was insane and you get to a point where you only feel like you're getting stronger and working out doesn't feel like a chore.
But I also want to look good, and it's really obvious that my balance of testosterone to estrogen is off, and as great as those things were to experience, I want my skin to look better, my face to look fuller and younger, and my hair to be extremely thick and have a nice color and texture to it, and that means sacrificing testosterone and adding estrogen.
There is no mythology behind why young teenaged boys and 20 somethings have nice skin, and thick hair, it's not "being young", it's called having a more balanced ratio of test to e2, period.
There's no point in engaging in whataboutery over testosterone being lower than it used to be on a demographic level over time when people like me exist. You probably think the healthy reference range for testosterone should be much higher, but I'm at the literal upper end of it by like a tenth at least, and I know for a fact I have too much. So what does that say about you wringing your hands over testosterone levels dropping by decade?
This is a hairloss forum and I want my f*****g hair back, and I want it as good as it was in the past. You're deliberately stuck in a poverty based zero sum mindset of "the past is a closed door, vaguely definable principles that we can never reconcile govern your existence" and that is 110% bullshit.
Like I said in other parts of the forum here, I'm done with the cult of testosterone, I think it's a massive source of insecurity for men and because they've been brainwashed with only half the picture they're stuck hovering over this idea that is based on a lack of information and saying "if I can't make my testosterone obsession I have work along with my desire for hair I don't want anything in the form of a solution". Then yeah, I guess you're fucked. All it means for me is I have to put more effort into my diet, exercise more and not expect to look ridiculously shredded as the price for my face looking better and my hair looking great.
To be honest, I think most people that is the case as well, but they're so f*****g brainwashed by propaganda and the insecurity that "ohh this man has way more testosterone and he has a full head of hair so if I can't compete with that I guess I'm screwed". That's such a scared adolescent boy attitude that I can't respect, you have to work with your hormone tolerances as they are, and optimize yourself based around your best appearance. This testosterone obsession is literally the male equivalent of the kind of pop culture brainwashing that causes female body dysmorphia. If you really want to have stupidly high levels of test and you're androgen sensitive, I would say to each and every man who thinks that way, shut up and get a transplant. Period. It's not that f*****g expensive.
I'll say this in summary, I can very accurately estimate a man's hormonal profile and their androgenic sensitivity based on looking at their face, more specifically the state of their collagen and skin. There is no better way of telling what a person needs hormonally or where they're at hormonally than by looking at their face and their hair.
