It's Just Hair...Or is it?

I used to love Sundays for the extra newspaper stories, coupons, and classified ads, partnered with strong coffee, of course. I still enjoy these things. But I’ve discovered a new reason to love Sundays: That’s when the secrets are posted on PostSecret.

Created by Frank Warren, PostSecret is a group art project that involves people mailing their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. The only rules are that they must be true and never shared with anyone before. If you haven't checked out the website, do so. It's amazing to see what people say when they know they won't be discovered.

My biggest secret used to be that my hair was really a wig—an auburn, vacuum-seal, custom, natural hair piece made of fine European hair.

It looked real, and that was the problem. I was determined to make people think it was real. Or at least to make sure they never, ever wondered if it was real or not. Like most people with a big secret, I went to great lengths to cover it up.

Some people want to go where everybody knows their name. Me? I moved to another state where nobody knew my name, or my original hair color, or what my hair used to look like before it fell out. In this new place, people knew me as Christy with the auburn hair. They had never seen me with patchy hair, or with a comb-over hairstyle, or in wool berets. Every now and then, someone in this new place would make a joke about redheads, and it always took me a minute to remember that I was the redhead being referenced. Ah, they don’t know my secret, I’d smile to myself.

For a long time, I didn’t go to the gym because my fancy hair didn’t mix well with sweat. Imagine wearing a flimsy silicone hot pad over your head while you’re on the elliptical machine. That’s what made up the suction cap of my fancy hair piece: bendable silicone. Try it sometime. It’s not fun. Finally, Mom figured out how to sew Velcro strips of synthetic hair into breathable baseball caps: a three-inch strip of short bangs in the front, a longer strip of shoulder-length hair in the back and sides. We were careful to match the color of the synthetic hair strips to the color of my fancy hair piece. The length too. That way people wouldn’t wonder why my hair looked different in the gym than, say, the grocery store. Or in the office. Suddenly, I was able to work out again. I started running. I toned up. And if anyone noticed the difference, they didn’t say anything.

It took even longer for me to get the courage to swim. My suction hair piece was supposed to stay on in the water, but I never trusted it. The suction required a completely bald head, and I still had hair patches back then. I liked my patches – a couple at the bangs area, a couple at my ears – because they made my fake hat hair look more natural. Besides, real people swam laps in a swim cap. But I couldn’t just drive to the pool in a swim cap. I’d look ridiculous. Which meant I’d have to put the swim cap on in the women’s locker room. Finally I figured out a plan: I’d make the switch behind the shower curtain. It wasn’t easy. I was the only person taking a big duffel bag into the shower stall. But where else would I put the fancy hair piece without anyone else seeing it? I would walk into the stall wearing the fancy hair, and walk out in a blue swim cap, the fancy hair carefully tucked away in the duffel bag. After the swim, I reversed the process, removing the swim cap, then replacing the hair piece onto my nearly bald head, always behind the curtain. I would even dab a little water on my wig and wrap my head in a towel before departing the shower stall. One time a friend asked, "How does your hair always dry so quickly?" I smiled. She didn’t know.

Keeping my big secret took a lot out of me. Not just energy, or time, but opportunity, too. To trust. To set an example. To educate. To increase awareness.

It’s like the movie, Milk. Great movie. What did Harvey Milk say? Something like, if they know one of us, they will vote for us. I can't recall it verbatim. But the idea was that people didn't even realize that they knew gay people, because so many gay people were afraid to come out.


Okay, so it's not exactly the same. But so many alopecians hide their baldness. They don't share their secret.


I am finally ready to unleash my secret hair confessions, both from my days with and without hair:

• I cried when I got my first perm because I didn’t like the way my hair turned out. It was too curly. (Wasn't that the idea?)


• I lied when I said the sun naturally turned my orange, yellow, and then a platinum color only seen on strippers. It wasn’t the sun; it was Sun-In. I have no idea why.


• I spent way too much time wishing my hair was something it wasn’t: curlier, blonder, fuller, thicker, shinier.


• I cried myself to sleep every night for months when my hair first started falling out.


• I felt guilty for crying over my hair. It wasn’t like I had lost a limb or anything.


• I felt guilty for wanting a cure for alopecia. It wasn’t fatal.

Is it just hair? We like to think so. But until we can truly open up about the topic, until we can confess how much time and money we spend on our hair, how strongly we react when our hair doesn't turn out the way we want, how negatively a bad hair day can affect our self-esteem, how important the right hair color, length, and style is to our identity and our sexuality...until we can admit all that and more, how are we supposed to have a fair discussion about baldness in women? How will we accept it, perhaps even embrace it?

What do you think?

© 2009 Christy Bailey

What Does My Hair Say About Me? Apparently, That I'm a Pirate

Growing up, my hair said I was a follower. I had a short Twiggy shag and a Farrah Fawcett feathery flip, Madonna's teased hair and a Molly Ringwald poodle perm bob - always well after the trend had caught on.

The pattern stops at The Rachel, the bouncy, long, layered hairstyle introduced and popularized by Jennifer Aniston in the first season of Friends. That was the year I transitioned from late majority follower to trendsetter. I use the term loosely, because I was not setting trends that generated followers: the oddly placed barrette, the female combover, the office beret, the synthetic strip of bangs velcroed to a baseball cap.

Let's be clear: I did not want to separate myself from the crowd. I was dragged away kicking and screaming. For some of us, that's the only way to cross the chasm from one way of thinking to another.

If my hair hadn't fallen out, I probably wouldn't have adopted a style of my own, especially one that sends such mixed messages. Today, I am Pañuelo Girl, the girl who wears scarves. It means different things to different people, and I'm okay with that.

Sean said he thought I was a motorcycle chick.

Jane said she thought I was stylish.

Every now and then a guy - usually an African American - thinks I am a hip hop girl.

Of course, there are those who think I have cancer.

Kids have their own ideas about scarves. One day I was working the volunteer registration booth for a trail cleanup project, when a four-year-old boy approached me, cocked his head to the left, and asked, "Are you a pirate?"

"Why, yes, how did you know?" I laughed.

"Because of that thing on your head!" He was talking about my black scarf, tied do-rag style, with a double knot at the back of my head, long tails hanging down my back. He grinned and turned to the man behind him. "She’s a real pirate, grandpa!"

I had to smile.

People will always apply their own perspective to what they see, but that doesn't change who or what I am.

What does my "hairdo" say about me? It says I'm comfortable with myself, that I don't mind standing out in a crowd, that I embrace my individuality. It says I'm more than my hair.

What does your hair say about you?

Read this Oprah magazine story to find out what other women are saying about their hair.

© 2009 Christy Bailey

It Starts at Birth

"It's a girl!" soon leads to comments about hair. "Oooh, what a head of hair!" they say. It's so soft, so dark, so blonde, so messy, so short, so long, so straight, so fine, so thick, so cute. Or maybe they don't say anything about the hair, just that it will grow in time. Which prompts Mom to run out and buy a hairband with a giant pink bow at Target. Girls learn from an early age that hair is important. Important enough to warrant dozens of hair decoration products and a drawer to store them in - metal clips and plastic barrettes and bobby pins and snag free pony tail holders with fabric flowers or tiny crystal balls. Important enough to demand daily attention - shampooing and conditioning and styling, often accompanied by the sweet scents of pineapples or tangerines or lilacs or spring meadows. Important enough to require suffering - the real tears cried when Mom brushes the tangles out of your hair. Important enough to garner compliments - and advice - from strangers. "What beautiful long hair you have, my dear, don't ever let your mommy cut it." Important enough to attract the gentle touch of loved ones, Mom running her fingers through your hair, Aunt Sally tucking it behind your ear, Daddy smoothing down a flyaway hair at a picnic, Grams caressing your hair as you tell her about your day.

I don't remember a time in my life when hair wasn't important. So imagine my surprise, and horror, when it all of a sudden fell out. I was 26 years old when alopecia areata attacked my hair follicles and robbed me of hair, and along with it, my drawer of hair decoration products, the required daily attention, the compliments, the caresses and strokes.

My journey to self acceptance has been a long one. A bumpy one. An emotional one. Along the way, I have come to know more than I ever imagined about treatments, and wigs, and beauty, and strength, and compassion. I've learned a lot about myself. And for reasons I can't explain in one single post, I've also learned about scarves, which have now become my hair - well, more like head - decoration product of choice.

Sometimes I think my journey is over. I've made my choice about how to present myself and I'm okay with it. I own it: the girl with the scarves. That's me. But I've also learned that journeys are never really over. Every day I face a new comment or challenge or dilemma. Every day I have to explain or justify my choice or even question it. Four million Americans suffer from alopecia, but three hundred million Americans don't. Of those three hundred million, many have never even heard of alopecia. And until everyone knows and understands and accepts girls without hair, my journey won't be over.

© 2009 Christy Bailey