If you want to read the first three parts of this series, you can click through here, here, and here.

It’s occurring to me, that throughout the entirety of this, I’ve yet to show you what my hair looks like now.  It’s partially because I honestly don’t look at my scalp that often.  I did so much in the beginning to the point that I was obsessing over it.  Every day I examined everything to see if there was new growth and when there wasn’t, it was a huge let down.  It became really depressing and it wasn’t helping anything.  So, I stopped focusing on my scalp and started focusing on what I could control: how it was styled, what products I used, what tools I used, etc.  (If you want to see more of the products I use, you can check out this post in the series.)

As a reminder, this is what I started with:

Which is still painful to look at.  This was 2.5 years ago.

Now, when I took my “now” picture, I hadn’t actually taken a picture in about a year, and I hadn’t really looked at my head in a long while.  I’ve been going by what I feel and what my hairdresser says about the thickness of my hair.  But…I’m honestly a lot happier at this picture than the one from 2.5 years ago:

It’s a huge difference.

It’s not perfect, but….it’s a lot better.  It’s still thinner at the top than it was when I was, say, in my early 20’s, but definitely better.  This picture was taken right after I washed my hair and I actually don’t have any product in it because I wanted to see it naturally, without chemical help.

I haven’t done pictures of it with various volumizing and thickening products in it, but I can if anyone is interested.

Basically, if this is the most I’ll get back of my hair, I’m okay with it.  I’ve learned ways of camouflaging it and how to manipulate my hair so that you can’t tell that I have hair loss, but that I’m still comfortable.

Taking care of your hair is so important when you have hair loss .  You want to be gentle with it, you want to protect it.  The last thing you want is to brush through your hair too roughly and cause more loss issues.

I highly recommend using a wet brush if you need to detangle your hair when it’s wet.

I know they’re a bit trendy these days, but it is amazing on my hair.  I used to use a wide-tooth comb on my wet hair, which is fine, but my stylist used this on my hair the last time I was in, and I’ve never used a wide-tooth comb again.  It glides through any tangles or kinks without pulling or harming my hair or scalp.  It’s amazing.  Your hair is so much more prone to breakage if you brush it when it’s wet, so if you need to, definitely invest in a wet brush.

Just invest in good brushes, period.  You want brushes that will glide through your hair, not pull it all out, and that will make your hair look great.

I love Olivia Garden brushes.  They’re a little pricey, however, if you take care of them, they will last a really long time.  I got my set about 2 years ago and they’re still working well.  I prefer the Nano Thermic Ceramic Ion line, which is the gold line.

I own a couple different sizes for different styles.  This line has vents in the brush and the brush holds heat really well so it cuts down on blow dry time, which also cuts down on damage to your hair from heat.  It also helps control frizz and flyaways, which I love.

I also keep a small round boar bristle brush on hand.  I’ve had mine for years, but this one is similar to the one I own.

It’s not really good for general hair brushing, but it’s good for more defining styles and sculpting your hair than a regular brush is.  I usually just need to glide this over the top layer of my hair, gently, and my hair does exactly what I want it to do.

Now, if you’ve known me a long time, you know I was the girl that essentially wore her hair down almost every day of her life.  Now, it’s a rare occasion that I wear my hair fully down.  It’s taken some getting used to, but it has made me a lot more creative in styling my hair and doing different things with it.

That’s not to say I do super intricate styles or up-do’s daily.  I don’t.  When I’m getting dressed at 6:00am, I don’t have that kind of time or desire to do that.  But, I still want my hair to be presentable and pulled together, but simply.

How I do my hair, more often than not, is so simple I hesitate to call it a “style”.

(And no, I’m not a girl that cares whether or not you can see bobby pins in my hair…most days.)

 

Essentially, I still wear my hair mostly down, I just pull the sections around my temples back, so it kind of looks half up.  But, I still get to have the majority of my hair down. The amount of hair I grab each time I do it varies depending on what my hair is doing or whether it’s behaving that morning.  This picture shows a bigger section of hair grabbed, sometimes it’s super tiny; it all just depends on the day and what kind of product I have in my hair.  This day, I just have the Bumble and Bumble Thickening Hair Spray in my hair, which is just sprayed on while it’s wet before I blow dry; and I really only use it around my crown area, where I have the most issues.  I also have a little leave in conditioner at the ends and hairspray holding it in place.

When I have Aquage Uplifting Foam in my hair, I usually only grab the smallest section and a lot of times, I just pin it up behind my ears, and don’t pull it all the way to the back on my head, because I don’t need to.  As hot as it’s been here the past few days, I haven’t been bothering with the Aquage because the humidity will make my hair fall anyway, so why bother?

Keeping really cute hair accessories will also help.  Obviously, you can see I don’t have the super cute pins that you can find in some places, in my hair for this, because I wanted to show how I do my hair to run errands or run to work.  If I feel like doing more or wanting to “bling out” my hair a little more, I go for cute pins and hair clips that add some pizzazz.  You can find cute hair accessories anywhere these days, but I find a lot of really cute clips at Target, Forever 21, and H&M.  I don’t need them to cost a ton (especially since I have tendency to break them) just look cute and hold my hair.  I grabbed a set of these Star clips at H&M last week just because I thought they’d be cute for summer.

At the end of the day, this has not been my favorite experience ever in life.  But there are ways around it so that it doesn’t have to be the worst thing either.  It’s made me more creative with my hair in what I use in it, how I style it, and it’s also made me take a lot better care of it.

I cannot ever stress enough to say that if you are having this problem or a similar problem and you don’t know the cause or how to deal with it, definitely visit your doctor or get a referral to a good dermatologist who is willing to find the root cause of it.  And to also make sure you have a competent hair stylist who understands how to work with hair loss and will help you figure out how best to deal with the situation.  You can still feel confident with your hair, even if it’s not exactly what it used to be and while you are working toward a solution.  At this point, if I didn’t tell people, most wouldn’t guess that I have a hair loss issue, which is fantastic.  There’s no shame in having it, but it’s never the first thing you want people to notice.

Again, I’m no expert in this.  I just wanted to share my experience with it, but every experience is different, which is why finding a good team to help you is the best thing you could do.  My only hope is that if you’re suffering with hair loss that something here either helped kick start you into finding the cause or gave you some tips on what to use or how to do your hair to mask some of your difficult areas.

If you have any questions/comments, you’re more than welcome to leave them here or send me an email and I will respond as best as I can!  🙂