The trichologist who lost her hair: ‘I learned it isn’t about how you look – it’s about how you feel’

She knew how emotional hair loss can be from working with cancer patients, and going through it herself made her realise how fundamental hair is to our identity

When my hair started falling out, it came out in handfuls – and I mean handfuls. It was all over my fingers when I washed it, wrapping around them, this big ball of hair that I had to look at and deal with. I couldn’t stand it.

I had been working in hair loss for five years; I owned a hair extension company and had developed a programme offering bonding extensions that cancer patients could safely use after chemotherapy. So I knew how emotional losing your hair was. Yet it was only at that point that I learned something that’s been central to the way I work ever since: hair loss isn’t about how you look – it’s about how you feel. I’ve got amazingly thick hair, so even though half of it fell out, people said they couldn’t tell. But I knew, and I was shocked by how much it affected my confidence and how I felt about myself. It made me feel like I had lost my identity.

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