I came into Sophie’s salon today because I need a change, my life is changing, and I feel my hair needs one too. I have this gorgeous Follea wig that was formerly a 5010, and she’s been beautifully colored already once before, and banged… However, as I’ve evolved over the years in life and in hair wearing, so has what I want out of my wig hair wearing experience. I’m much more explorative and adventurous. I have found you need to get a little dirty to get a little more beautiful. That probably makes no sense, but I was always very vanilla with my hair needs, but working with my girl Sophie Hafner, has leveled up what I thought could be possible. So here I sit, with a wig and bangs, and feeing I need a little something something.
While my life has been in flux and ever changing, I want you to know, I’m still here…. hair loss took away my life for a long time, but in return it gave me so much more. I have found love, friendship, and you, all of you.
In my spirit of gratitude and feeling thankful, i want to thank all of you amazing women who have supported me, without the love and support of the Women’s Hair Loss Project, I wouldn’t be able to be where I am today. While some people say I gave them life and hope again, you gave me life and hope. Mad props always to Follea who let me feel like myself again, and for eventually finding my sister for another mister, Miss… Sophie Hafner… can I formerly thank you hair loss. Like thanks. I thought my world was over, but I didn’t know at the time when I was 21 (I’m 39) that my journey was really just beginning.
I’m way over due for life updates. Forgive me, this year went zip zip. I will be back with more on me.
This past week, while everyone was prepping their Thanksgiving day dinner, I met up with a group of amazing people to start a project towards de-stigmatizing hair loss and hair wearing for women. As odd as this may sound, through hair loss I have found love and friendship, I have found a greater self acceptance of myself that I never knew I could ever achieve, and the ability to connect with others who are like me. I have found the perfection in imperfection, mostly 😉
The day of the photoshoot, I woke up with a major rosacea breakout. Perfect skin the day prior and the day of it looked like Mike Tyson punched me in the face, I was swollen with a rash all over my face. I was icing my face at 4am. The photoshoot began at 7am. This on the heels of already accepting I wasn’t going to be whatever vision of scale perfection I had in mind, thanks to my new anti depressant keeping my body in a fluffier state. Lights, camera… holy crap, but a lot of time, planning, effort and money went into this and I wasn’t going to back out. The old (younger version) of me would have totally backed out and flushed it all down the drain (I’ve grown leaps and bounds), but jacked up face and all I knew this wasn’t about me. This was about helping women, it didn’t matter what was going on, on my physical being, that reality was more important… by far. [click to continue…]
EEEK (in a good way) my hair is pink! Well, pinkie purple 🙂 The story behind this concept for the entire photoshoot (as a whole) that I shot last Monday, is longer than this post will delve into, but… I wanted to share a few of the pics with everyone because I was so excited with how they came out! Concept in short form for this photoset, all things being equal… Two girlfriends, same sunglasses, same jacket, same tank top and even same exact pants, nearly same color hair, could you tell who is wearing hair in the photo?Would you even think either one was wearing hair? Since all of you know me, it won’t be hard to pick me out of the photos, but if you didn’t, and objectively looked at this picture, could you really tell? In some of the photos, you’ll notice that somewhere along the way my tank top got lost, but I swear I had one when the shoot started! LOL
What I realized in the days following hanging out with one of my girlfriends (Sophie) who has tons of her own hair, was that my hair was on par with looking as good as hers. Our texting back and forth sharing selfies of the nights prior from when we went out, were about just us and reminiscing on the fun… not my hair, but for some reason one day, that stood out to me… like, hey, my hair looks as good as hers, I told her about that… and she replied, “Actually, sometimes I think it looks better.” 🙂
I wanted to capture and illustrate the beauty of wearing hair.[click to continue…]
I reflect back on my hair loss journey, and if you asked the 21 year old scared girl beginning to loose her hair in 1999, if she could ever imagine life with and after hair loss, she (me) would have said, “NO” and then cried uncontrollably… as I always used to do… daily. Impossible to process, and yet here I am. I’ll be 38 years old in 2 months and this affliction stole over a decade of my life. I am not making use of hyperbole when I say that. My 20’s came and went, and all I had were memories of devastation and a complete feeling of being helpless, powerless and destined to exist in a state of forever suffering. Paralyzing.
I’ve written a tremendous amount on my blog about my hair loss, finding my acceptance… removing the shackles of hair loss and taking back my life. This change came for me in 2012 when I started wearing hair and realizing, that while not perfect in the respect that it’s not growing out of my head… it was perfect enough. I could go out and portray myself to the world, as I wanted to be seen (the way I looked before my hair loss) and feel good about myself again. It was a process, it took time. I cut my hair super short (buzzed in back, long in front) so I didn’t have to see my hair fall out anymore and I could have a cute edgy hair cut that I could wear, one where people would think I just was just so bold to wear a style like that, not knowing I do it out absolute necessity. Since my hair loss began when I was so young I never really got the opportunity to do anything fun with my hair… cuts, colors and styles etc., was not an option. I was just praying it stopped falling out. [click to continue…]
So that is pretty much a title that makes no sense, on the surface… but if you watch my video below it will. I am trying to get back into the swing of things, and when I mean in the swing of things, I mean into working on my site here, communicating with everyone (to the best of my ability) and helping in any way I can.
My main goal, since starting The Women’s Hair Loss Project, has always been to make sure no other woman ever feels she is alone in this journey. I know hair loss. Intimately. I know what it is to deal with hair loss at a young age, since I started to loose my hair at 21… I’m 37 now, and I hope no one has to ever struggle alone, the way I did.
Once I started wearing wigs and found Follea in 2012, it ultimately, for me was how I was able to accept my hair loss. I really wanted women to know that there is life after hair loss, even in the worse case scenario. I know not everyone can accept wearing wigs, it’s not perfect, it’s not our hair… but it can still be pretty awesome, it’s been a journey to say the least.. and if you read my last post, you will know this journey still continues for me.
Over the years I have received emails with the question of why do I wear sunglasses in my videos and photos. I want to answer, and answer why I am now taking them off. [click to continue…]
I had a few moments of randomness this morning while I got my coffee and I wanted to discuss this randomness in dealing with hair loss, wig wearing and ultimately… acceptance.
Everyone has their own way of tending to their wigs, how they wash and dry etc. I’ve done wig washing videos before and for the most part I typically wash my girls the night before they are going to be worn and they will just get the upside down air dry treatment, and by “treatment” I mean pinned to two styrofoam heads upside down LOL. The exception is made with my Follea Aero-2 wig (Mila) which I will always dry right side up because she has more natural volume on the top and drying her upside down just leaves me wanting to sing “9 to 5” the following morning with my ooh la la Dolly hair. Not that there is anything wrong with that if that is your style, but it just doesn’t work for me and quite frankly, it scares my fiancé 🙂
Mila is my one wig I do tend to my quick dry the most with. I wash her, blow out the cap, pop her on my head for some extra dry time and then I’m out the door in a flash. Super quick, super easy, nothing fancy here.
To wig or not to wig, that is the question… and a very personal one indeed. I arrived early for my shrink wrap appointment and thought I’d make a little video on a question I get asked quite a bit. Watching the video back, I think it’s a little babbley, but here it is anyways 🙂
What’s better than an awesome wig? An awesome wig with a color touch up! Wigs fade, the color lightens or whatever… I don’t know the technical mumbo jumbo other than the color changes over time. I got Natalia (my Follea Lifestyle 5030) in May 2012, and she had lightened up to the point where her color just wasn’t working as well for me, so it was quite clear she needed some color-love. I took her to see Vicka at Follea and explained to her how naughty Natalia was, and how her color just wasn’t right for me anymore. I didn’t want her to be a totally different color, I just wanted to get her as close to the original color as possible. Vicka suggested that would best be accomplished with low lighting the entire wig, and it indeed proved to be a great suggestion because Natalia is looking slamming hot! I am sooooo happy with how the color came out.
It’s really just a subtle difference, but it makes a huge difference in how it blends with my bio hair and looks against my skin color. I feel like I have a brand new wig again, it’s awesome! After seeing how supa fabulous Natalia came out I’ve decided to take Anya back to Follea, so Vicka can work her color magic on her as well. I’ll be looking forward to her updated freshened up 2013 color 🙂
I received this email, and requested permission to share it here, with all of you. Much thanks to “A” for writing me this incredibly amazing email and allowing me to share her story. I had gotten home one night and made a quick check of my email and saw this in my box, I felt moved, excited, touched and inspired all over again. Thank you!
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I want to thank you for your wonderfully honest, heartfelt, and supportive web site. I found the womenshairlossproject site one day on the internet and my life hasn’t been the same since. I have been struggling since my late 20s with thinning hair due to androgenic alopecia and I am 49 now. I so wanted it to be a medical issue that I could then take a pill and be cured but that was not to be. I took aldactone for a while and it stopped the shedding but I hated taking pills so I went off those after a year. I found a shampoo for thinning hair that controls the shedding for me and I have used it for several years (Nisim is the brand). However, the diffuse thinning continues and it’s worse on the top of my head. I have been wearing baseball caps everywhere for over 15 years now, even at work, it’s my signature look.
I have been living (and I use the term living loosely) a subdued life, shunning social activities and just not being able to enjoy the outdoors. Being naturally shy anyway, my hair condition has made me hyper sensitive and even more uncomfortable being with other people for fear of being found out, stared at, or laughed at. You don’t realize how insidious the negative inner dialog becomes until you see yourself 20 years along in your hair loss and how much you’ve retreated from life. You also can’t help becoming more cynical of people thinking they have nothing better to do than find weaknesses in you to possibly exploit.
I have grown especially weary over the last year of wearing hats, of spending an hour fixing my hair moving one hair this way and another that way hoping for a better outcome, of feeling less worthy and less than in everything. I traversed the web to find solutions and support and I found it with you and your web site. I found hope and realized I wasn’t as alone as I felt. I began to believe that my life could be different. I began to believe that I didn’t have to hide anymore and that there are solutions. It took many months for me to finally decide to DO something. I originally shied away from wigs because I believed it’s harder to hide wearing a blonde wig and I didn’t want anyone to know I was wearing a wig. [click to continue…]
I want to first write that I am not a fan of hair transplants for women, I personally
think that most women with androgenetic alopecia are NOT candidates for
this procedure. Having said that, I get emailed all the time from women looking
for a good hair transplant surgeon.
If you are deadset on having a consultation, please visit the International Alliance
of Hair Restoration Surgeons. The IAHRS (http://www.iahrs.org)
is an organization that selectively screens skilled and ethical hair transplant
surgeons. Read
my thoughts about hair transplants here.
I’m way over due for life updates. Forgive me, this year went zip zip. I will be back with more on me.
EEEK (in a good way) my hair is pink! Well, pinkie purple 🙂 The story behind this concept for the entire photoshoot (as a whole) that I shot last Monday, is longer than this post will delve into, but… I wanted to share a few of the pics with everyone because I was so excited with how they came out! 
I reflect back on my hair loss journey, and if you asked the 21 year old scared girl beginning to loose her hair in 1999, if she could ever imagine life with and after hair loss, she (me) would have said, “NO” and then cried uncontrollably… as I always used to do… daily. Impossible to process, and yet here I am. I’ll be 38 years old in 2 months and this affliction stole over a decade of my life. I am not making use of hyperbole when I say that. My 20’s came and went, and all I had were memories of devastation and a complete feeling of being helpless, powerless and destined to exist in a state of forever suffering. Paralyzing.
So that is pretty much a title that makes no sense, on the surface… but if you watch my video below it will. I am trying to get back into the swing of things, and when I mean in the swing of things, I mean into working on my site here, communicating with everyone (to the best of my ability) and helping in any way I can.
Everyone has their own way of tending to their wigs, how they wash and dry etc. I’ve done wig washing videos before and for the most part I typically wash my girls the night before they are going to be worn and they will just get the upside down air dry treatment, and by “treatment” I mean 
What’s better than an awesome wig? An awesome wig with a color touch up! Wigs fade, the color lightens or whatever… I don’t know the technical mumbo jumbo other than the color changes over time. I got Natalia (my Follea Lifestyle 5030) in May 2012, and she had lightened up to the point where her color just wasn’t working as well for me, so it was quite clear she needed some color-love. I took her to see Vicka at Follea and explained to her how naughty Natalia was, and how her color just wasn’t right for me anymore. I didn’t want her to be a totally different color, I just wanted to get her as close to the original color as possible. Vicka suggested that would best be accomplished with low lighting the entire wig, and it indeed proved to be a great suggestion because Natalia is looking slamming hot! I am sooooo happy with how the color came out.
