What losing my hair taught me about brand promises, gender discrimination and inspiration.

This article is a hard one to write. I’ve umm-ed and ahh-ed about writing it but the lessons learned are too valuable not to share. 

18 months ago I experienced a disruption in my life that has yet to be equalled; both in terms of the emotional journey it triggered (and its impact it had on my day to day life) and on my perspective of the role brands can play in acute situations.

I was at a friends in Lake Tahoe, we had just come back from a hilarious afternoon trying to paddleboard, and I’d hit the shower to clean half the detritus of the Lake off me. As I was going through the motions of washing my hair, I was startled out of my daydream when I saw a giant clump of hair in my hands. I did a double take and then looked down at the shower basin. The sight that greeted me literally brought me to my knees.  

My hair was everywhere. Not just a few strands but clumps of it.

As I reached up to touch my hair, to run my fingers through it, I was horrified to see my hands covered yet again. As I realised what was happening, the water running down my face was joined by burning hot tears and a mounting panic.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.

My hair has always been a key part of my identity. Blessed with Middle Eastern DNA, I’d always had a lion’s mane of hair. Long, thick, curly and full of life. On any given day, when all else felt a little sub par, my hair had always been the part of me I could count on to look good. To make me feel feminine. To make me feel good.

Despite the fact it made most hairdressers want to avoid me like the plague - the prospect of cut and blow dry taking 3 hours of their time - it was a part of me that I loved. A part I was proud of.

I remember running some focus groups in NYC for a shampoo brand, discussing what their hair meant to them, and feeling gloriously happy as the participants pointed to my hair when we got to the discussion of what ‘great hair’ looked like.

My hair was something I’d always taken for granted, after all, it just ‘was’, and until that moment in the shower, was something I never thought I’d have to think much about.

Unfortunately, that all changed. A week after the shower episode, and a scalp biopsy later, I had it confirmed by a dermatologist - I was losing my hair. I had two conditions working hand in hand that were to ravage my lion’s mane; stress induced hair loss called Telogen Effluvium and a genetic condition called Androgenic Alopecia.

The former is something that eventually burns itself out once you’ve corrected the trigger, which can range from something as simple as crash dieting or an iron deficiency all the way through to surgery or a serious illness.

The latter is something that doesn’t stop and, I’ve now discovered for certain, cannot be cured. Once the switch has been flipped, it’s a one way trip to a balding head. The hair miniaturises over time until eventually it drops out altogether.  

The moment I was given the diagnosis, my life changed. I changed.

Nothing and no-one could have prepared me for what was to come, either in terms of the physical impact or the emotional impact.

Overnight the effects were felt; my confidence plummeted, I felt an almost permanent undercurrent of anxiety, and for the first time ever, I stopped feeling like a woman. My femininity (to my mind) was gone. 

All I could think about was a future with no hair and what that would mean; practically and emotionally. I projected forwards, trying to imagine doing all the things I loved doing, but with no hair. Or worse, doing all the things I loved doing but wearing a wig.

How would I date? How would I swim in the sea? How would I go horseback riding? How would I travel? How would I…. The list was endless.  

I’ve learned that unless this happens to you, it’s nigh on impossible to truly imagine and empathise with the grief and despair felt on the journey from discovery to acceptance. With few ever reaching a stage of acceptance. And in this case, acceptance means: ‘being ok with it not being ok’.

To the outside, it seems so trivial, ‘it’s just hair after all’, but for anyone experiencing it, it’s so, SO much more than just hair. It affects every part of you. And it affects everyone suffering from it, irrespective of age, gender or self-confidence.

When it first happened, after the initial paralysing devastation, my ‘fixer’ bias kicked in and I set out to find a cure, or at the very least, something that would help. I was determined to not let it play out in a textbook fashion for me. Was determined not to look in the mirror each day and be confronted by the sensation that I was fading away, losing my identity. 

I read every paper, journal and article written on hair loss. I consulted endless hair specialists around the world and I devoured anything that mentioned hair loss and available treatments. It was my way of coping, my way of trying to offset the inevitable. Surely I would find something that could help.

When I discovered that most treatments are either expensive or ineffective (for most both), and carry horrific side effects I tried not to get disheartened. I turned to OTC products, the brands I had trusted with my hair care for decades. The brands who promised me some kind of fix; from reducing hair loss to thickening up what’s left.

I bought up everything I could find and worked my way through them one at a time in what I quickly dubbed the ‘try and cry’ cycle. Filled with hope and anticipation as I opened the bottle, pot or vial, then crushed with disappointment when I realised yet again, each one didn’t work. Each one failed to deliver on their promise.

After a while, despondent and losing hope, I turned to online communities; talking to strangers in a similar situation, curious to understand their emotions, their journey but also how they were tackling the problem. I spoke to women and I spoke to men. I spoke to people in their 40s, 50s and 60s and I spoke to teenagers and young adults. I was relentless in my pursuit of a ‘fix’.

No matter who I spoke to, the response was the same: it’s devastating, it’s life-changing, it’s impossible to just accept. It bends you, it breaks you. There is no real fix.

If that sounds overly dramatic, think of this. 

At one stage I spoke to a group of cancer survivors (both male and female) and when I asked them what the worst part of treatment was, they all (and I mean ALL) said ‘the chemo-induced hair loss’.   

And when I consulted a therapist about hair loss related depression, I was told it was a known suicide trigger in women.

I was so profoundly affected by my experiences talking to these hair loss sufferers, most of whom are suffering in silence having withdrawn considerably from life, that I started to write about it. I shared my journey publicly. I also created a safe space for sufferers to come and talk about it with (what I hoped) was a supportive and empathetic community.

And over time I learned three things, three things that made me want to write this article (I will try to keep them as headlines or else this will be a 30 page article!):

Gender Discrimination

Men and women have a similar relationship with their hair (and react similarly to losing their hair) but society judges them differently. The options available to men and women are different, and expectations of how they should react in the situation are unequal.  

As one man told me “yes, I can shave my head but I don’t want to, you at least can wear a wig, try being a bloke and have people discover you’re wearing a hair piece...the ridicule is endless.”

“It’s socially acceptable for you to cry with your girlfriends about it, to ask for support, as a man, I just have to shut up and put up.”

Gender discrimination within hair loss is real. It shouldn’t be, but it is.  

And it needs to change.  

There is a huge opportunity (and need) for brands to help change the way men and women perceive, experience and deal with hair loss. And help change the way society judges and treats them. Media alone can’t do this.

Brand Promise

OTC Brands who offer ‘hair loss treatments’ within their product portfolio (with the exception of Regaine/Rogaine) are doing more damage than good. The inability to live up to both brand promise and product promise, causes more harm here than in other categories.  

It’s bad news for hair loss sufferers who repeatedly experience the ‘try and cry’, but can also lead to the formation of a brand shadow. I lost track of the number of people who, because of a bad experience with a hair loss product, left a brand in its entirety.  

People who refused to buy any skincare or personal care product (even though they may have been effective) because they felt ‘lied to’ and ‘let down’ by the brand.

When you look at the Brand Purpose of any major personal care brand, it’s hard to imagine they would enter this particular space with an ineffective product, and yet...

The Power of Community

There is a real opportunity for brands within the Personal Care category to create communities that support people with hair loss. To offer guidance, advice and help. To inspire and to empower. To help change perceptions and deliver solutions that minimise the downside of the condition.  

I experienced my first ‘moment of hope’ about 6 months in when I stumbled across a lady called ‘Y’ on instagram who has been suffering from the condition for nearly two decades. She rocked the most amazing wig, shared pictures of herself doing all the kinds of things I was terrified of and provided my first ray of hope that life with no hair may not be as hard as I imagined.

She opened the door to me having a more positive outlook, to find acceptance and to grow more comfortable with the idea that though my physical appearance may change, my identity didn’t have to.

The positive impact and influence a brand operating in this space could have is incredible. 

Truly.

As the months have rolled by, I’ve grown a little more ok with what’s happening, largely thanks to an immensely supportive network around me:

Fantastic friends who keep buying me wigs (determined to get me to the point where I enjoy trying different looks on any given day).

Fantastic colleagues who have made me feel safe enough to share my experience and ‘just be me’ (not feel I have to hide my condition) and even celebrate the arrival of a new wig!

And an incredibly large fantastic community of fellow sufferers around the world who check in on me to see how I’m doing and offer words of love and encouragement.

It’s still hard. I still cry some mornings as the hairs fall like needles from a Christmas tree.

But knowing I’m not alone, knowing there’s something I can do to help other people, knowing I have a role to play in changing perceptions (even if just bringing awareness to it through this article) keeps me from going down a rabbit hole of despair.

For anyone who is experiencing similar, let me say now that my DM door is open, I’m here for you. Reach out.

For anyone from a Personal Care brand reading this, let me say your brand has an opportunity to do more and be more for your consumers than you ever imagined. 

Thank you for reading this.

L