My name is Mariam, and I have never really known what it feels like to have a full head of hair.
It didn’t fall out. It was just always thin, always fragile, always sparse. So much so that I didn’t fully understand what was different about me until I was about seven. That was when I started begging my mum to perm my hair like all the other girls. I was convinced that was the answer. That if I could just get that one treatment, my hair would finally have some life to it.
She resisted for a long time. When she finally agreed, I learned what a false hope felt like. The perm did nothing for the thickness. It just made my edges more obvious, what little I had of them. I went to school and the other children noticed immediately.
My beret became my best friend after that. It was part of my school uniform and I wore it like a lifeline. Scarves everywhere else. I got so good at covering up that even when I was ill and being rushed to A&E one night, my first instinct was to make sure my hair was covered before I left the house. That is what it does to you. It doesn’t just affect your hair. It quietly rewires how you move through the world, what you reach for in the morning, what you feel safe doing and what you don’t.
I found wigs at university and they gave me back something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Control. A version of myself I actually recognised. But I was still searching for a permanent fix underneath it all. I spent years researching hair transplants, saving up, believing that one day I would just sort it out properly and move on with my life.
At 29, finally earning enough to do something about it, I flew to the US. I had done my research and I was not cutting corners. The UK clinics did not feel right for my hair type, and Turkey is where everyone goes but I was not sure they had enough experience with Black women’s hair. I wanted the best possible chance, so I went to America. I consulted. I committed. I waited a full year after the procedure.
Nothing grew.
I tried multiple rounds of PRP. Still nothing. It was only then that a doctor suggested I take a scalp biopsy, something that honestly should have been done years before any of this. The results came back and told me I had Lichen Planopilaris. My own immune system had been attacking my hair follicles the whole time. The inflammation meant the transplant never had a chance. When I went back to the clinic they were straight with me. Even if I tried again, my condition would just attack the new follicles too.
I sat with that news for a while. Then I shaved everything off.
The transplant scar is still there. The little dots are still there. Some days I look at them and feel the weight of everything I went through trying to fix something that was never going to be fixed that way. But somewhere in all of that I also found clarity. I stopped trying to reverse what was happening and started figuring out how to actually live well with it.
So I started building pieces. Not fashion items. Not something you wear to an event and put back in a box. Pieces that feel like your actual hair. That sit right and move right and let you just get on with your day without thinking about them. I built them for myself first, because I knew exactly what was missing and I was tired of settling. And then I realised I probably wasn’t the only one.
Mazel Tov Hair is for every woman who has spent too long trying to hide, too much money searching for answers, and too many mornings dreading the mirror. Your hair loss does not define you. It never did.
Mariam, Founder