Alopecia Awareness Month is celebrated every year in September, all month.
As a Hair brand we feel it’s a huge priority to celebrate Alopecia and to spread the awareness. This year we are celebrating A.A.M by having women all across the world post their stories on our instagram to spread the Awarness and to talk about their Alopecia journeys.
We wanted to pick one of these ladies stories to feature on our website.
"Life is funny, isn’t it? It’s confusing. It’s full of surprises. It doesn’t always make sense. Not everything in life is guaranteed and we tend to take things for granted- For example, our hair. If you would have told 15 year old me that one day, all of my hair was just going to fall out, I would’ve laughed. But, low and behold, there I was- 23 years old and my hair was falling out in clumps.
It all started in 2011 while I was living and teaching overseas in London, England. At first, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought that I was having a bad month of hair loss and thinking, “Every girl experiences hair loss to a certain degree, right?”
I carried on. I Lived my life- Taught. Emptied my brush. Did some sight seeing. Unclogged the drain. Taught some more. Emptied my brush some more.
It wasn’t until the next month that I realized that maybe something was off. I looked in the mirror one day to find that about 30% of my hair was completely gone. It’s not that I didn’t notice it before. It’s just that I was in denial and I was ignoring it. But this one day, for some reason, something clicked. I panicked. I booked an appointment for that day and was then diagnosed with Alopecia Areata. What followed that was topical ointments and steroid injections that cost a fortune. Nothing was working and my hair was falling out more every day; Hair clogging the shower. Hair all over my pillow. Hair all over the floors. By the end of the year, I had had enough and left London to move back home. Upon arrival, I started wearing wigs and didn’t tell a soul (except family and close friends) about my hair loss.
And so I began to live in hiding behind my wigs, fearful everyday that someone would unlock my secret. Beneath my wig, all my hair fell out. My Areata had turned into Totalis for a while and any remaining confidence I had turned into fear. Eventually, my Totalis went back to Areata where I had a small amount of patchy regrowth. This went on for 3 years until I had finally had it. I was done being sad and living in fear. I wanted to dance, go swimming, play soccer, and just be free. I was done hiding my secret and somehow built the courage to ditch my wig and show my world of people the real me. To my amazement, I was greeted with so much love and support that I didn’t even know what to do with it all. My confidence soared, I felt free for the first time in years, and I was able to just be me. I was finally able to choose how I wanted the world to see me. I bought many different wigs in many different cuts and colours. I had so much fun switching it up, all while my hair was falling out and growing back and falling out in different patches all over my head. But I no longer cared.
Since then, about 80% of my hair came back so I decided to let it all grow again. I lived 3 years rocking my very own hair. This past year has greeted me with another round of substantial hair loss (2020, am I right?! Lol) so I recently made the decision to shave it again- I took control over my own body and have embraced the circumstances I’ve been given. I believe that alopecia has been a great gift to me. It has brought me confidence and allowed me to help more people than I could ever think. It has shown me the value of acceptance and that every single one of us has our own story to tell. After all, it is our differences and our uniqueness that make the world go round”. — Amanda Hoblak