My hair’s journey from thin and oily to thick and healthy

Have you ever wished you had someone else’s hair? Maybe some curly layers, or a shiny ponytail, or an effortless messy bun?

I know I did. I always had painfully thin, oily hair; I had to wash it every second day, buy ‘thickening’ shampoos, and cut in lots of layers to give the illusion of volume.

After a surprising journey that went for over ten years (during which I learnt the important value of humility, and hats), I discovered the secret that transformed my hair from looking like Medusa’s snakes into thick, bouncy locks.

This is my hairy story.

First, I learnt that pregnancy won’t always result in great hair

I had my first baby at 27 and thought the upside of wild pregnancy hormones would be wildly growing hair – it didn’t happen.

I had my second baby at 30 and guess what, hey presto, my hair changed! Not because of the hormones, mind you, but because I basically didn’t shower for three months. I had bred a non-sleeper. My magic trick was putting my hair in a bun without a hair tie (gross, I know).

Then, I learnt that how often you wash affects your hair.

The upside was that when I started washing my hair again, I noticed it started getting oily five days later instead of two. I had accidentally ‘reset’ the oil balance on my scalp, which was a bit of a revelation to me.

I started doing some research and experimenting with alternative ways to clean my hair that didn’t upset the oil balance again. Over the course of two years, I tried:

• Conditioner-only washing. Shampoos strip your scalp of oils, but conditioners don’t. I tried using only conditioner for about two months. The end result? A flat, unclean mess. Thumbs down.
• Raw honey and apple cider vinegar. Yes, really! The science was there, but to be honest the four months I stuck with that regime wasn’t fun. My hair was kind of dank and scraggly, and that magical breakthrough to beautiful shiny hair never happened the way the websites promised.
• Clean shampoos and conditioners. I looked for brands that didn’t strip the scalp of oils and didn’t have toxic chemicals like SLS. This took a lot of experimenting and a lot of bad hair days. Frizz, split ends, and generally unclean hair were standard for a long time.

I learnt that loads of hair falling out in the shower is a bad sign

When I had my third child things went from bad to worse. I would have given anything to go back to my oily, thin hair, because my hair was a frizzy nightmare.

Huge clumps of hair would fall out when I had a shower – enough that I was sometimes worried I was going bald.

I was also exhausted all the time, and cranky, and I realised there were other things going on with my body I needed to deal with.

Eventually, I learnt the big secret

I started focusing on nutrition and adding in the foods I’d lost during my pregnancies, like omegas and healthy fats. I drank more water and felt my energy coming back. 

After about a year, I caught a glimpse of myself when my hair was in a high bun, and realised I had a mass of new hair, about 6cm long, sitting at the nape of my neck. It looked like a little bob. My hair continued to get thicker, and stronger, and it stopped falling out in the shower.