For almost 20 years, I didn’t really belong in a hair salon. When you lose your hair, something surprisingly ordinary disappears from your life too. You stop booking hair appointments. You stop sitting in that chair, looking through the mirror while someone creates something beautiful for you. Instead, your relationship with hair can suddenly become medical, practical or something that needs to be hidden.

External beauty can support us, but it cannot do the inner work for us. When alopecia changed the woman I saw in the mirror, I had to begin a much deeper journey within. I had to understand who I was beyond my appearance. I had to look at my values, the stories I was telling myself, the things I believed about beauty and femininity, and the fear and shame that had kept me hiding for so many years.

My journey with alopecia began when I was ten years old, when I discovered a small bald patch on my head. Luckily, my hair grew back, and for many years, alopecia became something I barely thought about.