Injuries can be embarrassing, especially if you rebreak your leg slipping on your crutches in a junior high hallway.

But do you know what’s also embarrassing? Helmet hair, apparently. It’s so embarrassing that a Swedish company developed an invisible bike helmet. The helmet, which is really just an airbag you tuck into a collar you wear around your neck, is safe, stylish and costs $535.

Despite the fact that my parents taught me to wear a helmet while I was still on training wheels, I have a constant urge to ditch mine. I like the wind in my hair and the lack of claustrophobia, and yes, I like not having helmet hair. But I was a good girl and wore one — until I went to Europe and rode a bike there. In the Netherlands, the biggest cycling culture in the world, I discovered that no one wears a helmet. No one.

And hallelujah, the excuse I had been waiting for. I could go bareheaded and chalk it up to trying to blend in. Who wants to be the geeky American tourist with a racing helmet when they’re riding a retro Dutch bike? I didn’t even bother to get a helmet when I rented my bike. That summer I cruised along bike paths that ran along grassy dikes and overlooked fields of cows — at grandma speed like the locals did — without a helmet. I liked the feeling, but I also felt a lot cuter without a bowl of styrofoam strapped to my head. It was safe there, both because I was biking so slowly and because bikes have their own pathways in the Netherlands and cars yield religiously.

I was hooked.

I know exactly why Hovding came up with the snazzy invisible helmet. The first time it popped up on my Facebook feed, I thought, “What? No. Really? Oh my. Yes. I need one. I need one now.” The bike models (like all models, I suppose) looked so happy and free and well, helmet-less. Looking at the ads, I was suddenly biking along a row of trees in Belgium, down a sandy beach on an island in the North Sea, bumping up and down a cobblestone road.

But my second thoughts started even before I saw the price tag.

The world knows we pay big money to adjust the way we look. Just think of how much you spend each year to feel cute.

But are we so worried about the way we look that we are willing to pay just to stop looking a little silly when we hop on a bike?

I’m not nagging you about wearing your helmet. That’s not my job, and if you’re anything like me, I know that my chances of convincing you to snap one on your head would be slim, even if I tried.

But I know why helmets matter. I know that I never go without one, because last year I went head over handlebars on State Street in high-speed traffic. I limped around with roadrash for weeks. Like I said, injuries can be embarrassing. But for once, I was wearing my helmet.

This isn’t about horror stories. It’s about how a little Swedish invisibility cloak that just called us all out on why we’re not wearing things that can save our lives.

Do we care that much?

a.drysdale@chronicle.utah.edu