Hair Growth & Alopecia

I asked you all what you’d like my second post to be and a lot of you requested hair growth, so here it is!

Back in February 2014 I decided to go from my dark brown hair colour to white/grey hair. The process was gradual and turned out beautifully. ALTHOUGH after just over a year of putting blue colours on it, then bleaching over it again, not using any treatments and causing heat damage, my hair started breaking off and a change needed to be made. I decided to dye my hair close to my natural dark brown again and look into getting some hair extensions to cover the horrific damage. The extensions were ‘Great Lengths’, and I was over the moon with the results!

(photo on left caused from heat & bleach damage. Photo on right Great Lengths individually bonded hair extensions. April 2015)

Then, after a few weeks I noticed my hair was falling out in strands and the quality of it was EVEN WORSE than before. The hair extensions just put too much strain on my already damaged hair and made it even weaker. The best option was to get the extensions completely removed and just cut all of my hair shorter so it was relatively even, then I could start over. Honestly, all I wanted was my long hair back and was so worried about it staying short. I was too scared to do anything to it. I literally put a black hair dye on then left it alone. No hair drying, no hair straighteners and no bleach.

(Newly cut & dyed hair after hair extension damage. 1st July 2015)

The only products I really used for my hair while praying it would grow back was Superdrug’s Trichology intense shampoo & conditioner. Its vegan, cruelty free, smells great and isn’t pricey! With this shampoo & conditioner, patience, exercise, healthy eating and avoiding any heat or bleach my hair was growing back to a length I was happy with. It also happened much quicker than I expected!

After being patient for just over 18 months, doing pretty much nothing to my hair I decided to go lighter. I definitely didn’t want to do it myself so I went to my talented sister who’s a hairdresser! She used an Olaplex treatment on my hair while bleaching it to gradually make it lighter and my hair felt AMAZING! It literally was the healthiest it had been in YEARS! I’ve not touched my hair at all again apart from maybe the occasional trim and Olaplex treatments in the salon. I would 100% recommend Olaplex if your hair is damaged or if you want to start bleaching it safely.

(9th March 2017. Newly gently bleached hair over black hair dye with olaplex treatment)

SO this part of the post is about something pretty personal to me that I haven’t shared with many people. I figured this is something more of us should speak about to help others that suffer from it. February 2017 I noticed a bald patch at the back of my hair. This has never happened before so I was obviously concerned. I booked in with a doctor to see what they’d suggest. The doctor said it looked like Alopecia, then GOOGLED it in front of me and said I should just stop being stressed (as that was ‘probably’ the cause). He said to leave it alone and it’ll PROBABLY grow back. You may be able to tell I found this pretty disappointing.

I left it alone and it just got worse, this bald patch was getting bigger and it was stressing me out. I managed to get some advice from a friend that had been struggling with alopecia on and off for years and she helped way more than the doctor. Firstly she told me to go back to the doctor and tell them that it was getting worse and to ask for Dermovate cream. I got the prescription and the instructions were to use it twice a day for 3 months.

Secondly, she told me to get some Nioxin shampoo & conditioner. I ordered the hair system kit 6 which is a three step kit with shampoo, conditioner and mousse. I think you can get it from a few places but I ordered it from Beauty Bay.

After using the Dermovate cream and Nioxin treatment religiously for 6 months all of my hair grew back! I’d also recommend avoiding tying your hair up tightly and using hair grips. The least amount of strain you put on your hair the better!

I’m sorry I rambled a lot on this post but I wanted to cover everything and give as much detail as I could! Hopefully this will help as many people as possible, who may have encountered similar issues to me!