Everyone has those days when they get ready for work or school and feel that their hair is misbehaving or not looking quite how they wanted it to. But for one young boy, this is something which he lives with due to a rare condition which means he cannot comb his hair flat.
Sam Barley, 9, from Lincolnshire, suffers from the rare condition known as Uncombable Hair Syndrome, otherwise known as Spun Glass Hair. This is a very rare genetic condition only affecting a known 100 people worldwide and has left the boy being compared to some top A-List celebrities and The Simpsons characters.
The condition is often spotted in early childhood as the hair is usually blonde and frizzy, but it will often disappear by the start of puberty.
Sam's mum Helen Barley, 38, said: "The most common thing we get is people staring at Sam's hair.
"When Sam was about four years old, a few children at school started to tease him about his hair so he would wear a hat every day and refused to take it off.
"This is when we made the decision to let him have his hair shaved short to his head.
"The most common comments are, 'What have you done to his hair!', 'Is that his natural colour or have you dyed it?' and, 'Have you crimped it or something?"
His look has even drawn comparisons to A-List celebrity hairstyles from Bart Simpson to Sideshow Bob, among a few others.
She said: "I think we've only ever had one slightly negative comment when a grown man once told Sam to his face that he looked like he'd stuck his fingers in a plug socket.
"He's had a few celebrity comparisons: Dolph Lundgren when he played Ivan Drago in the Rocky films and Val Kilmer from Top Gun, and Bart Simpson and Sideshow Bob have also been mentioned."
The condition can be carried genetically by the parents who often never realise they have the gene as they may have never suffered with the condition themselves.
Sam's mum first noticed her son's unusual hair when he was just six-months old but it was not until 2019 when Helen's mother-in-law was watching two other kids with the condition on BBC's The One Show that the family realised Sam could have Uncombable Hair Syndrome.
Both Sam and his mum are proud of his uniqueness and want to raise awareness for the condition which affects very few people worldwide.
Helen said: "I'm proud of Sam for embracing his uniqueness and learning to love his individuality. We just wished more people knew that Uncombable Hair Syndrome actually exists and is a genuine condition.
"Sam gets comments about his hair almost every week and I don't think we've ever met anyone who knew what UHS was.
"All of the research we have read has said that there are only 100 diagnosed cases of UHS in the world but I'm certain there are thousands of undiagnosed cases."
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