My journey with hair loss taught me that maybe—just maybe—hair isn’t everything

I have to hand it to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (2016–19) for altering my brain chemistry forever and leaving an indelible mark on my impressionable young mind. Special mention to the ‘hair’ monologue in episode five of season two, that follows after a hairstylist who completely annihilates Claire’s hair (#justiceforthatponytail). If you’re one of those few people who still hasn’t seen it, what’s the name of the rock you are living under? If you have, I know you’re already about to read this in Fleabag’s voice: “Hair is everything. We wish it wasn’t, so we could actually think about something else occasionally. But it is. It’s the difference between a good day and a bad day. We’re meant to think that it’s a symbol of power, that it’s a symbol of fertility. Some people are exploited for it, and it pays your f*cking bills. Hair is everything.” I remember watching it with intense concentration. Hair is everything. Or at least, it had always been everything to me.

Growing up, I was always told that I had a lot of hair. Not just pretty hair, or nice hair, but an excessive, overwhelming, borderline alarming quantity of it. Hairstylists would pause mid-section to kick up a fuss about how difficult it was to manage my hair and how unfair it was that my elder sister had so little in comparison. I often wondered if my hair was my entire personality, because it certainly seemed that way. It was the obsession of my relatives and the go-to topic of small talk for strangers. No one ever mentioned my doe eyes or my endearing bunny teeth. Just. The. Hair. And so, for years, my identity was wrapped around it. Until I turned 21—the year it all came undone. I graduated into a COVID- battered world with no career plans and a grief-stricken family grappling with the loss of my maternal uncle. It was the first death I had witnessed up close, and somewhere between mourning and existential dread, I noticed something new—hair, everywhere. On my pillow, the bathroom floor, woven into my sweaters, clogging up my hairbrush. My once-mighty mane was shedding. It felt like all those years of nazar were finally catching up to me. Naturally, I did what anyone would do: I looked up remedies on the Internet and self-diagnosed.  You see, there was nothing on the algo-cursed Instagram that I didn’t try—bathed myself in rosemary oil, popped biotin pills like M&M’s, and scalp-brushed like my life depended on it. And yet, nothing. The shedding continued, indifferent to my desperation. Eventually, I caved and saw a dermatologist, who took one look at my scalp and diagnosed me with scalp psoriasis—an autoimmune condition that looks a bit like dandruff but is so much worse. And guess what one of its biggest triggers is? Stress.

The good news is that thanks to my derm and over two years of taking really good care of my scalp, psoriasis for me is now a thing of the past (it does make a comeback when I’m stressed, of course), and my hair growth journey is back on track. In 2021, Cosmopolitan US reported that women experiencing hair loss in their 20s is far more common than you’d imagine. Hormonal changes, stress, diet, genetics—so many factors can throw your follicles into chaos. But for someone whose hair had always been a defining feature, losing it felt like—not to be dramatic—losing a part of myself. But here’s the thing I’ve learnt over the years: I’m still here. And so is my hair, albeit slightly less of it. I’ve learnt that maybe—maybe hair isn’t everything. It’s something, sure. But it’s not who I am. Now, I find myself coming back to this video of Bella Hadid, where she says, “Every morning my body works for me, my two legs walk me to work, and I’m worried about a pimple? My brain works every day just to give thoughts, my heart works every day to give love, I can use my own hands—so what am I worried about my hair thinning, or the acne, or the fact that I hated this picture of myself?”

This piece originally appeared in the March-April print edition of Cosmopolitan India.

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