Alopecia Areata is something that’s very close to my heart not only have I personally suffered from it but so have so many of my clients and some very close family members. Alopecia areata is a type of hair loss that occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks hair follicles and destroys them. It usually begins with clumps of hair falling out, resulting in totally smooth, round hairless patches on the scalp or other areas of the body. In less extreme cases the hair becomes thinner without noticeable patches of baldness but in extreme cases, complete loss of scalp hair and body hair occurs.

I can still remember how devastated I was when it happened to me. I have a thick mane of black curly hair that I’ve spent my whole life straightening so when my hair started to get noticeably thinner I blamed it on over using my GHD’s but then within a couple of months I noticed a small patch (one penny size) of complete hair loss on the right-hand side of my hair line. I started to panic but my doctor reassured me nothing was wrong but just 1 month later when the patch doubled in size I found myself crying at the Belgravia Centre where I was diagnosed. It wasn’t the diagnosis that devastated me it was when the doctor had said, there was no guaranteed cure, it probably was going to get worse (which it did!) and although with the help of medication (steroids) it would regrow it would more than likely reoccur again. Of course she asked me about my lifestyle and asked if I was stressed? If I wasn’t stressed before I most definitely was now!

For us women, our hair is our thing, for me it was definitely my thing! My eyelashes being super long and thick didn’t even need mascara so it was when I started to notice them thinning I broke down but had to put it into perspective, I wasn’t diagnosed with a terminal illness after all… but ask any woman who’s gone through it, it sure can feel like it is because the one thing it does more than anything else is shatter your confidence.

I was extremely lucky, with the help of medication my hair did grow back after 9 months but I hated taking the steroids so much that I went against the doctors advice and stopped taking the medication once the hair grew back and surprise surprise 6 months later alopecia occurred again… 3 years on though my hair has fully grown back and I smile now when I have to ask my hairdresser to thin my hair out as it’s looking too thick…

As a stylist I have had so many cancer patients and alopecia clients and I’m truly humbled when I meet them for their bravery. Loosing your hair is an emotionally painful experience and although we luckily have wigs and different hair accessories to cover the visual signs it’s often very hard to cover the emotional signs and this is why I absolutely love my job as a personal stylist, you see we are in the business of working with and embracing what we’ve all been blessed with NOW, hair or no hair.

This is where wearing your most flattering colours and dressing right for your body shape comes into play. When you haven’t got your hair as your safety blanket you want to damn well make sure the rest of you is spot on. This is where the power of wearing the right red lipstick can dramatically lift your mood and as a result boost your confidence.

Wearing clothes that make you look slimmer and leaner so that people start complimenting how good you look to a women who’s battling hair loss can make all the difference as when someone says ‘”wow you’re look really well” you take those words literally and it can put the biggest smile on your face and after a while you stop thinking about the lack of hair and instead think about how good you’re looking and feeling, trust me I know exactly how that feels!

So for the whole month of September if you or anybody you know is suffering from any form of hair loss we are offering 50% off any of our personal styling services, please get in touch and we’ll do everything we can to put that spring into your step.