So, I’m losing my hair.

To those of you who know me in the real world, it’ll be no surprise that I’m losing my hair.

I’ll admit I’ve been in denial about it, holding on to it for no other reason than I considered my hair to be such a large part of my identity and confidence for so many years. I’ve grown it long, cut it short, spiked, coloured, mohawked and even curled it.

Ten years ago I had my own Britney breakdown on New year’s eve and started shaving my head while blind drunk. Obviously I needed some help finishing it off.

What followed was months of regrowth; it took about 6 months for me to have any kind of recognizable hairstyle. This happened back when the barbering/hairdressing industry was a very different place, before the resurgence in popularity of the barbering profession over the past 6 years.

I first noticed my hair thinning around 5 years ago. At first it was a few photos from unflattering angles, followed by the odd comment and even having my crown poked with the words “What’s that?”.

My hair has thinned to transparency throughout my crown area, and the front hairline has receded as well, making the remaining hair half the thickness as it is on my sides and nape.

Although I’ve looked into processes such as hair transplants, micro-needling and trying to make changes to my diet and lifestyle, I’ve found that the options available to me are either ineffective or prohibitively expensive to have done.

Although I can style my hair well, it takes a level of effort that I feel no longer pays off with how thin it has become. Almost like trying to style smoke in some parts.

The only way forward I see for myself at the moment is to simply shave my head. The main difference this time is that I have 10 years of experience in hair AND I have a beard!

After a long chat with Matt, one of my colleagues at Keep The Faith Social Club, we decided to take it down as short as possible using the Wahl Cordless Detailers and then tapered in the neckline with a foil shaper.

We also ended up blending the beard out rather than creating a point. (This decision was made using one of those Wheel of Fortune style apps).

This post and decision may seem very sudden or even drastic, but this post has taken me months to write. The past 4 years have been a long journey for my hair to say the least. Now it’s finally done, I feel like there has been a weight lifted, obviously physically but I also now feel like I don’t have to worry about what my hair looks like.

I was expecting it to feel so alien to me and yet it just feels alarmingly normal, which is something I didn’t even account for. I guess that’s the difference between taking the time to prepare yourself for a big change, rather than being a drunken mess, yeeting your hair straight into a bin on New Year’s Eve!

I’ll admit that I’m still not sure about it. I even forget about what I’ve done sometimes until I see myself in a mirror. But I still believe it was the best thing I could have done!