Shaving my head gives me the confidence I've been missing for a decade

I spent 10 years and countless amounts of time and money trying to find a hairstyle that made me confident and comfortable, only to find out a buzz cut was the answer.

From the ages of 13 to 23 I was dying my hair, filling it with products and chemicals and cutting it into different styles, some rather questionable. It was long and pink, short and purple, somewhere in the middle and red – I was quite the chameleon. I was on a mission for self-confidence, and I wanted my hair to give it to me.

One evening my friend came over and told me she was losing her hair due to alopecia. She lifted the back of her hair and revealed the large patches appearing.

She directly associated her hair with her femininity and thought that if she went bald she was no longer a woman, no longer able to be beautiful. How was I supposed to tell her this was not true? I had associated my hair with my identity for an entire decade.

I still found myself preaching that your hair is not who you are, that your face is your face, you have to love it, and love yourself. Her response was a light-hearted ‘Well it’s easy for you to say, you still have your hair’.

She was right, so I decided to prove my point to both her and myself. Using my father’s hair clippers, we cut off my pony tail and gave my head a number two cut all over.

The scariest part of this process? You really do not know what shape your head is under there.

This is when my life changed. I looked in the mirror and had never felt so confident. I looked so different. I had nothing to hide behind and it was like a weight was lifted.

It’s been almost two years since this night and I have gone from changing my hair constantly to shaving it every two weeks. I have saved so much time and money but the most important thing to me is that every day I wake up and I love my face.

I battled with loving myself for most of my life and now I am me. I’ve stopped wearing makeup and am able to focus on the more important things in life. I’ve not had a moment of regret – and trust me I was expecting a moment of ‘I NEED HAIR’ to strike at some point.

The reactions have been wonderful – some incredibly positive, some of confusion and some have been absolutely hilarious. I have had girls get emotional over the level of empowerment in my image. I’ve been called brave countless times. Many people ask me if they can touch my head.

I have had younger women completely puzzled about why I would shave my head if I was not sick. I have travelled as an English girl and been referred to as a skinhead. So many people say ‘I would love to do it but I don’t have the face for it’. Again I reiterate, your face is your face. Love it!

When people ask me about my hair, I promote confidence, friendship, and self love. I don’t spend much time sharing the story of why I shaved my head on that particular night as that was between me and my friend. Instead I tell people I went bald so I could spend more time in bed, to try and show that it is not a big deal.

I’m not by any means saying that you must shave your head to love yourself if you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin. I am saying that this is how I finally see myself for who I am. I have realised that I am worthy by design.

It is so important, especially in current times, for women to realise they are beautiful and perfect by default, to stop looking at pictures of others and comparing themselves. To learn to embrace their features and the beauty in their uniqueness.

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