The liberated midcentury era saw the rise of many consumer products catering to newly howl-and-proud metamorphs, of which werewolves have always been a plurality. GeneCo's Alpha Net hairspray promised that fashion-conscious werewolves who were in control and desirous of social interaction whilst fuzzy could groom themselves to a higher standard. Products meant for mundane humans just couldn't cut it.

There were a few problems with this. The product didn't work as advertised and often spectacularly backfired, for one. The manufacturers of Aqua Net hairspray sued on trademark grounds. And the growth of anti-metamorph cultural forces led to a series of moral panics that led several states to outright ban products catering to werewolves. All the same, cans of the spray are highly sought after due to their incredible holding power in humans, and the rumor that they can induce werewolf transformations.

"Aside from containing volatile organic compounds that accelerate the degeneration of our planet into a ball of mold, Alpha Net couldn't deliver on its promises to the lycanthrope consumer. Werewolf hair is highly variable in length over the course of a metamorphosis, with a texture that can be humanlike, doglike, or both at once depending on the subject. Customers would get their wolfish coif just right and then the shadows on the moon would shift and they'd have a greased-in cowlick. And that's setting aside that using it as a human had a chance of inducing a transformation right then and there."

-IMF Field Agent Ellis

---

The art is by the ever-talented  mirandaleigh and the public domain original is from here