All things are on a journey… even your hair. I cannot tell you how many times I told myself I was going to grow long hair, but somehow I’d always get distracted along the way as this process would take years and you also are told to trim your hair to grow it faster (such nonsense) and so I’d end up with shoulder length hair, bleached, damaged, not growing past that. For a while it stayed healthy as I feel I have good quality hair (even though is fine) but the last time I saw it healthy was probably around 2016. The following years has been a shit-show hair wise… I’ll tell you the whole story.

Below is my hair around 2008 and 2016.

I never really cared enough to understood hair, like many things you think it’s either you got it good or you don’t (not always the case). This mindset kinda leaves you hopeless and so you just go with whatever you feel it belongs you, good or bad. And that’s precisely the point, hair goes with whatever you feel.

That means, when I felt I was relaxed and calm in my life, I had a stable relationship, I was overall happy… my hair grew faster, I let it be and the more I did so the better it looked. It’s crazy how things work paradoxically in life: when you relax and stop stressing (in this case about my hair), Nature (Source, the Universe, God, Infinite Intelligence…) takes over and does it for you. You gotta allow it and get out of the way.

So I noticed when my life got really good, my hair did too. You can tell how a woman feels by her hair. This also explains what happened after 2016…

HELL BROKE LOOSE.

If you have followed my account, you might remember this traumatic episode which caused tremendous hair loss. Around that time not only I had just gotten divorced and ran away with a rebound guy who turned out to be a psycho, but also left Las Vegas to start my life over in Miami (this was 2017). So a ton of stress was happening in my life and my hair reflected that. Around that time I also started bleaching my hair again and cutting it more (I loved myself tan and blonde, plus I was going through a rough time and was numbing it all up with pool parties, clubbing, late nights, moving apartments … you know the deal. I really wasn’t doing that great, even though I looked quite hot falling apart lmao (and I was STILL training of course).

It’s weird because when we’re going through a hard time we’re not conscious of the damage we are causing to ourselves or others. It’s like dust settles later on and you realize what happened.

Let’s say I regained some sanity by moving to Miami, still I struggled fitting in what felt like a new city again (I was living in Miami before living in Vegas). For a couple years I was entertaining the idea of going back to Vegas where I had great friends and my coach, but I trusted my instinct about Miami and eventually it turned out to be the best place for me. My hair was still recovering, slowly. It was brittle, half the mass I had was gone, but in time it got better till… I FUCK IT UP AGAIN.

Below is hair in 2018, recovering

In a way I almost forgot what healthy hair looked like, I thought that maybe it was a memory of the past and my hair was forever changed. Thing is, hair takes a long time to recover and coloring it and not caring for it on top of it is a recipe for disaster.

That’s when I started seeing girls with braids and braids with extensions became a bit of an obsession. I saw it as a way to have long hair fast, styled, where was the problem?

Oh, there were problems ahead… if I only knew.

I decided to first try the two side braids, and to be honest they were fun and minimally painful. I kept them on for about a week. I wish that’s all I did! It didn’t ruin my hair further.

But then… I got greedy😂

I wanted to have a full head of braids. I thought if it looked good with two, imagine a full head! How I regret this decision. Never get box braids done if you have fine hair, if you ever do have someone with experience on caucasian hair. Our hair is NOT meant to hold a lot of weight and tension as very curly and coily hair.

I didn’t last more than 2 weeks. The discomfort was intense! I started noticing hair breakage at the ROOTS… I thought “oh well it’s because I’m not brushing it, it’s the normal fall cycle”, not at all. The tension was destroying my hair.

The worst part happened when I took the braid off MYSELF and nobody advised me on how to do it when I got it done. I ended up with a fluffy head ball and when I tried to brush it… it all got matted. It was a legit nightmare.

I was beyond shocked. 3/4 of my hair was gone.

I eventually ended up going to a salon to have it cut short and brushed through. They had to cut the matted parts out, so my hair was uneven and destroyed.

I rushed and got extensions clip ins a few days later, I couldn’t stand seeing myself like that. It was a hard time, and a couple months prior I also experienced a painful personal event as well. My hair and my heart were a mess.

There is definitely a link with heartbreak and hair loss. The three times I lost my hair (third one is coming below) there was always a guy involved, first time with a painful breakup (my divorce), second time it was a non reciprocal love, third time fell for a completely incompatible man.

Let’s address the third mayor hair loss I had, in a span of 5 years.

After the braids, I let my hair be. It definitely grew back, till it got a fullness I haven’t seen in years. I definitely learned my hair loves to be left alone lol. No cutting, no heavy bleaching, no styling. It got stronger in its natural color, I was really happy about it.

The fullness, the softness, it came back! I was doing regular hair care (shampoo, conditioner, masks, hair oil) and taking Viviscal supplements (I tried Nutrafol and other ones but Viviscal was the only one I could notice a difference with).

I was finally getting back to the good old hair of 2015! But not yet…

I got COVID.

Covid was a real stressful experience on my body, I got it January 2021 and it took me a solid 10 days to feel somewhat better, but didn’t notice hair loss till about 3 months after that.

If you don’t know, hair loss and Covid has been a real big thing. I heard tons of people that had the same problem. It could be a side effect of what has been called “long Covid”. All I know is that one day, all of a sudden, I start shedding HEAPS of hair. Every day.

I was so devastated. I JUST got my hair back… to lose it all again.

My hair loss post Covid lasted about 3 months. I remember crying in the shower each time I’d wash my hair. It was shocking, women know how we are attached to our hair, it means a lot about our femininity. Seeing it all go again and not knowing when it will stop was heartbreaking.

Eventually it stopped. Kinda suddenly. And my journey back to hair health started, one more time.

I waited a year to color or cut my hair. I didn’t want anyone to touch it. I was missing being blonde though and so I started going at it again, but as much as I love the blonde, the more I think about my hair, the less I want to damage it. So now I’m coloring it once or twice a year and do Balyage or baby highlights (not a full on blonde head, trying to get my natural color to stay present). Here is a few pics from 2022-2023:

2022, bit tooooo blonde still

As of now my hair is the longest it has been. I will make a separate post about my hair care routine, how it has changed once I learned that my natural hair pattern is curls/waves (like in the two pics above) and how to care for it, while still getting some highlights once in a while.

If you made it this far… thanks for reading! It has been fun and a bit painful to reminisce all the mistakes I made… but I’m here to make it all better now and hopefully I can show you that despite what you go through, your body as innate tendency to heal, recover and repair if you let it.

Stick around for more 🙂