What we eat isn’t a problem until it is.

My time as a hairstylist was quite a hectic one. To say I had poor eating habits would be an understatement as I often began my days with a soda and ended with fast food because I was too tired to cook after being on my feet all day. All of this seemed to be working for me, in my opinion that is, until it no longer did. My eating habits began taking a toll on my kidneys and I started developing kidney infections. At that point in time I had already started working with clients who had hair and scalp disorders, but I knew that treating their scalps alone wasn’t working as effectively as I would have liked them to.

I remember one particular client who exhibited visibly thinning hair. I knew something was wrong but I could not put my finger on it. That was the eventual push I needed into the field of nutrition and away from the salon. She wasn’t being as open about her diet as I would have liked her to be and I needed to know what lied beneath her hair loss but more importantly, how to fix it. If poor nutritional intakes were responsible for my issues, surely it was the same for my clients and I was right. The more I looked, the more I realised our diets did have an impact on what stylists and hair technicians saw among our clients in the salon.

Though that experience is but a past memory, it has taught me to look beyond what I see on the surface. Hair loss is often one of the first indicators that something is out of balance in the body. Alopecia can often occur years before a diagnosis of some type of auto-immune disorder and scaly scalp disorders pointed to a leaky gut. Every cell and system in the body was intimately connected and depended on one important thing to function, nutrition.

It is heart breaking for me to see so many clients with issues who think there is very little redress for their conditions and their hairstylists who struggle to guide them. It is my hope to empower hairstylists to be able to identify problems and know when to forward them on. I will be looking at conditions and sharing knowledge so clients are informed. An informed client is a powerful client and they are the ones eventually to change the industry for the better.

As for that client I mentioned earlier with hair loss, did I have success in having her hair regrow? Short answer is no. I was right about her not being transparent about her diet, but like so many, we want change while things remain the same and that also includes our diets. Unfortunately, better health outcomes depends on a change of unhealthy habits.

#hairtechnicians #nutrition #salonclients #scalyscalp