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.
