About

Hey! I’m Ashley.

Welcome to my page – a place where, regardless of where you are in your hair loss journey, you can come for inspiration, reflection, tips, tricks, and community.

Noticing Hair Loss

My hair has always been thin, but I’m sure that birth control and using an actual iron on my hair (seriously – I put my head on the ironing board – my mom did it back in the day too) were no help for my already thin hair.

I’m not sure how long my hair looked noticeably thin to others, but I first realised my problem postpartum in 2013. I just had my daughter, and I realised after looking at some family photos that my scalp could be seen, if not for the right angle. Post baby #2 in 2015, I knew that I had something more severe than average. I started covering my part with eyeshadow, and took what I thought was the brave step to see a dermatologist.

Looking for Help

In Canada, getting in with a specialist is no easy task, so I was relieved when I finally had an appointment. The experience didn’t go as I hoped. The doctor looked at my head, made a disgusted face at the residue of powder on my scalp and declared that mine was the most advanced thinning she’d ever seen for my age. She suggested that I look ‘into prosthetics’, scoffed at my job as a teacher (but that’s another story), and handed me a prescription for some pill whose side effects were alarming. I left without a diagnosis, without a blood test, and without hope.

Exploring Alternative Hair

After picking myself back up, I started looking into other options for concealing my hair loss. I found Toppik Hair Fibres, and started using them religiously. I was covering any and all parts of my hair, but I didn’t want to spend extra for the applicator, so I just shook them on my head, and when I realised that I could save even more money by buying fibres on Aliexpress, I started buying in bulk. Even now I shudder when I think about what I might have been subjecting my own lungs and my family’s lungs to. The fibres were everywhere. When I put them on my head, they would also end up on the walls, on the floors, and on my pillow: everything was coated in a thin layer of dark brown dust.

I decided that this wasn’t sustainable, so I started looking into wigs. I turned to YouTube, where the online community was small. I ate up most of the content that Taz from Taz’s Wig Closet and Nisha from Sugar Puff and Fluff would put online, and concluded that I needed a Raquel Welch synthetic in my life.

In December 2017, I made my first purchase: a Raquel Welch ‘Crowd Pleaser’ in shaded cappuccino, a Raquel Welch ‘Editor’s Pick’ in black coffee, and a Gabor ‘Soft and Subtle’.

I anxiously awaited the arrival of the box, but when it finally came, my heart sank. The pieces weren’t for me. I bought shorter pieces so that they wouldn’t get friction tangles at the nape, but the pieces looked nothing like my bio hair, and were, in my opinion, suited to a more mature wearer.

I sat on the decision for a few days, and decided to send the whole box back. The shipment ended up at the wrong address, and someone else accepted the order. Fortunately, the good samaritan put the wigs into another box and shipped them back to me, but by the time they returned to me months later, I was well beyond the return window, and I now had $900 of unworn wigs sitting in my closet. I was crushed. Money was tight; we just built our house, and we had kids in daycare. I reluctantly returned to the hair fibres, and hoped that I would find another solution.

Toppers: A Solution to My Hair Woes

About 2 years later, in early 2020, my hair hopes were answered. I learned about hair toppers for the first time after stumbling upon Highline Wigs on Instagram. Though I was a little uneasy about making another online purchase, this time I felt slightly less anxious. Though I was paying more money for the Highline piece, I watched Sharon’s stories on Instagram for months, so I was pretty sure that I knew exactly what I was getting. I based my colour choice on how the colours appeared on Sharon, and I finally took the plunge during the first Covid lockdown of 2020. Coming in at around $700US (an absolute steal by today’s standards), I got my first Lexie 4 root with a custom cut a few days later. The rest is history.

Since the day that I got my Highline, my life truly hasn’t been the same. Yes, it took a little practice and patience to become comfortable in my new hair, but I am now a more confident version of myself, and, ironically, having alternative hair has helped me to embrace my hair loss. The longer I wear hair, the more comfortable I am talking about it, and the more excited I am to share my experiences, to play around with different pieces, and to build a community so that others don’t have to go at this alone.

To think about all of the things that I held back from or missed out on because of thinning hair still pains me. I still have bad hair days, but I hope that this community continues to grow and that, together, we can destigmatize hair loss so that no woman needs to miss out on the things she loves because of hair. I’m on a mission for all of us to find pieces that work for us in each stage of our lives, whether they be toppers, wigs, synthetic or human hair, and to celebrate life beyond the locks – because it’s a good one. 

Thanks for being here.

xo Ashley