The importance of hair

How important is your hair to you?

For most women- who spend a fair sized chunk of their annual salary on products, straighteners, dryers, curlers, clips, bobbles and extensions- hair is hundreds if not thousands of pounds worth of importance.

For those who lose it through chemotherapy or alopecia, it’s important for their confidence and femininity.

And for those who pull it out- yes they exist- it’s so important, that it has become their entire lives.

Thousands of women are literally tearing their hair out due to an impulse control disorder. It’s a condition that’s been given the official title of trichotillomania, although as you’ll soon learn, there’s nothing noticeably manic about these women.

I met up with Lucinda Ellery, a lady who opened her own salon 25 years ago to cater for women who have lost their hair, through one way or another. Lucinda has an emotional attachment to her business, having experienced hair loss at a young age as a result of alopecia areata. Her salons in London and Manchester offer hair replacement prostheses that help change the lives of women with hair loss issues. Most importantly the salon is a magical place to be in for those women. The Manchester salon is hidden away in the Old Exchange Building on King Street and no matter what your story is, it’s a place for you to feel safe, welcome and beautiful.

It’s only over the last couple of decades that women have felt able to open up about hair loss. Trichotillomania and female pattern hair loss were always taboo subjects in the media, but Lucinda joyfully remembers the first magazine to break the secrecy spell.

“1993 opened up a floodgate for women with the same problem” she said. “Before then, journalists didn’t want to write about this side of what I do. They just wanted to know which celebrities I was doing hair extensions for- you know the fluffy stuff.

“Woman’s Own broke with this and said they’d write about this. That was a very healing time and it resulted in lots of women coming forward. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’m seeing the changes, but it’s still very under publicised.” Trichotillomania, or TTM as Lucinda prefers to call it, makes up the majority of Lucinda’s clients.

“It’s a very common disorder and it’s stressful. A bit like biting nails, it’s a childhood disorder which usually starts at about 10 or 11 although I’ve been seeing kids as young as two years old recently. I actually had a baby once, who was 4 weeks old” she said.

There are women who have lived with the undiagnosed condition their entire lives but they’ve not been hauled up in a mental institution, as the title of the condition may lead you to believe.

“They’re smart arses some of these girls. Amazing women- barristers, MPs, journalists, power packed women. But they’re also gentle sensitive people and I can spot them a mile away. I see them everywhere.”

Female pattern hair loss is also a common problem Lucinda comes across. Around 13 million women in Europe suffer from it, yet many still feel very much alone. What’s more, the condition is different to male balding and equally, there are specific methods to help deal with it, as there are for TTM.

“Losing crown hair is quite common” said Lucinda, “It’s female pattern hair loss. There are women who have all this lovely hair and then in their late teens/early twenties, it starts to go and it marks you for life. I get girls pointing to their breasts and saying ‘I can live without these but I can’t live without my hair’. When it’s renewed they are hot to trot again.”

Over the years Lucinda admits she has seen “some of the most magnificent works of art” from women who have suffered in silence- instead using all manner of wigs, hairpieces, clips and even marker pen to hide bald patches.

“Some girls get up at 3am to get ready for work and cover their hair loss. Some gather hair that’s fallen out and glue it back on.”

Lucinda has a variety of manageable hair replacement techniques and ultra fine hair extensions (Medi Connections) to work with the clients existing hair- no matter how sparse it may be.

“I pull the hair through a mesh and it can take 20 odd hours to do. It took me years just to find the right mesh. It’s quite profound stuff” she said, “It gives a girl her life back. Most of my work is around lifestyle and some of the girls are indeed with me for life.

“Girls who have cancer and lose their hair- we put it back and they look the same as they did. Their whole outward appearance is one of health and wellbeing, so they don’t get the sympathy card which isn’t good for your psyche. It’s very quickly restored.

“My entire business is built on emotional content because hair is way more than physical. It’s deeply emotional. My work is very joyous but it’s also tinged with sadness.”

With that, I feel my eyes welling up as I tell Lucinda that I feel overwhelmingly sad that so many women suffer and I, a health and beauty writer, didn’t know about it. “Ahhh, you’re a sensitive one too” she smiled.

Lucinda is a woman with a big heart and these days, big hair too, thanks to her own endless research and development. She devotes hair and heart to every woman who steps through the door- often in tears- and whether or not you think hair is important, what she does for those women most certainly is.

For more information on dealing with female hair loss and the services Lucinda Ellery offers, please click here. Alternatively, call the salon on 0844 5678899.

On Friday 16 July at 7.30pm, Channel 4 will also be airing a revealing documentary about girls with Trichotillomania called ‘Girls on the Pull’.