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It was the buzz heard round the world. As even those who couldn't care less know, on Feb. 16, Britney Spears walked into Esther's Hair Salon in Tarzana, Calif., and asked owner Esther Tognozzi to shave her head.

Tognozzi refused and Spears, not to be dissuaded, proceeded to maim her mane herself. When it was all over, the paparazzi photos showed the world a sad, lost and, we hate to say it, terrible-looking young woman.

Baldness, it's true, is not the first-choice hairstyle of many people, male or female. But bald can be beautiful. Sinead O'Connor springs to mind. And Canadian model Ève Salvail, who enjoyed a runway career with a dragon tattoo on her bald head. And countless women who have lost their hair to chemotherapy. Just not Spears, apparently.

So what's the secret to rocking the shorn scalp?

"Part of it is head shape, but you have to be incredibly confident," says Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC Radio's Sounds Like Canada. She shaved her head last June to raise money for the Alberta Cancer Research Foundation in honour of colleague battling the illness.

Shaving her hair off "was the easy part," says Rogers, whose hair has grown in to around to ears. "The hard part was having a bald head. It was so weird."

People looked at her differently, she says, and she felt less womanly and less attractive. "I really struggled with it. Your hair is such an identifier."

Most armchair therapists agree that Spears's shaving is a direct result of a lack of self-confidence. "I don't know what's going on in her head," Tognozzi told Us Weekly of watching Spears's shaving spree, "but she obviously is not very happy deep down, but she thought it would make her happy to have her head shaved." After it was done, Spears broke down in tears, witnesses say.

Compare that to the attitude of other bald singers. In her heyday, O'Connor had confidence to spare, infamously ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. (Although, when you're blaspheming the Catholic church like that, no one is looking at your hairdo.) Melissa Etheridge, bald from chemotherapy, looked triumphant at the 2005 Grammy Awards, showing off her scalp to millions around the world. And American popster Meshell Ndegeocello hit in big in the nineties partly because of her gutsy baldness.

When actresses go bald it's usually for a role, which gives them an out, just as when they gain weight for a movie. It's seen as a good career remove, almost heroic. They can hold their bald heads high.

Natalie Portman went bald on the big screen in V for Vendetta. She commented afterward that she liked the look, saying "it's quite liberating to have no hair." Sigourney Weaver knew how much her shorn crown was worth, reportedly demanding big money for the razor when shooting Alien 3. And Demi Moore, who shaved it off for G.I. Jane, kept her hair short for years.

Look at their pictures, and you see women who will kick ass at the slightest provocation. They call to mind powerful, strong-willed baldies of the past -- Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc. Unlike Spears, who looks like she would hug a telephone pole if it offered.

Real women can look good bald, too. Once again, it seems to come to attitude. An Internet search turns up dozens of sites where proud bald women post pics and share stories -- and get inquiries from men who love their look. "A woman, in her baldness, must decide to love herself so much, so deeply, so courageously that she is an unchallenged champion of herself," reads an essay on boldisbeautiful.com.

Of course, a good skull helps, too. Tom Adrian, a stylist at Mutt & Jeff in Montreal, doesn't like the bald look on men or women, but acknowledges that some can pull it off better than others.

"It's all about bone structure," he says. "A chiselled, square jaw can wear anything."