Hair Hair Hair - Another question
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Look who is complaining about the curls! Here is me 13 weeks Pfc. I wish to reach the point of complaining about my hair.
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it’s beautiful... have you slathered castor oil on your head? Tried and true. With other supplements if you MO is ok with it.
You are on your way!
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I read that castor oil really does nothing for the hair. There are studies that rosemary oil is as affective as Nioxin, so that’s what I am using. My hair was always growing slow, this didn’t change, apparently. Got iRestore helmet, hopefully it helps. Taking Biotin as well.
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Hi ladies...well here I am 6.5 months PFC and my hair continues to grow UP! Headband is strategically covering giant grey streak. Still debating whether or not to see my hairdresser later this month and beg for help or just let it keep growing for now. Probably will end up getting it colored either way.
CBK I have been trying your recommendations but I still feel like I have no idea what to do with curls! If anything maybe my hairdresser can give me some styling tips. Happy holidays everyone
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Inna—I hear ya. I used to be jealous when women got to complain about their hair. Your turn will come!! I've been taking Biotin since before my dx, although I think my hair and nails always grew pretty quickly. I hope it helps.
Steph you look adorable!! I'm curious what you'll do going forward.
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Curly gals-Seems we all want what others have. I love your curls. My 6 month PFC regrowthis mostly straight, as it was before.
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All right, getting ready for some serious curls with the help of iRestore helmet. Let it grow!
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InnaB2018- That is amazing you are doing iRestore. I'm really interested in seeing your progress. Castor oil may not have any research behind it but for me it has helped on brows, lashes and my lid . I do take a lot of supplements and i did use a shampoo when I was early on to sprout hair that did have rosemary oil in it. I stayed away from anything harsh and used Nioxin sparingly.
Steph74-I think hair looks alot softer than last photo you posted. And such a beautiful chocolate color. Did you try styling with tiny ceramic round brush and blowdryer on low setting once it's air dried.? This is how I started to tame "the beast". I think placing oil on a daily basis is helping me alot with the lid.... Buy one that is designed to be placed on dry hair. Another new fav... Shea Moisture Daily Hydration Finishing Oil Serum.
InGerp- Looking good, good healthy hair and beautiful growth. I'm not sure cutting the hair makes you lose the curl... the way my dermatologist explained it to me... it's all how your follicle decides to open... that determines the wave or lack thereof of new hair.
Rwns- we can celebrate your hair... curly or not!!
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so, I haven't cried over my hair since this whole thing began a year ago....until today. I went to the salon for a trim and wanted to cover up a bit of the grey. My stylist used a color all over and my hair turned orange. The only way we could think to fix it was to apply bleach to it and try to lighten it. So now it's just a bit less orange
And there really wasn't much he could do to shape it either. I wish I could turn back time and not go...I think I should have left it alone because now I feel like i have to go back into wigs again. I hate it. Almost want to shave it to nothing again.... 
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Oh Moth, I'm sorry to hear about your coloring experience. Can you go darker? Maybe it will at least "tone down" the existing color. I'm NOT a professional, just wondering if that's an option?
Ingerp, I think your hair is long enough to break out the tiara and wear it again 😊
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Moth, oh I am sooo sorry to hear that!
I was wondering - did anyone try colouring the skin/scalp so that it shows less through the sparse growth? I have a spot above my forehead, where hair is growing less and is sparse. what if I used a brown eye pencil or something to darken the skin? Silly, I know... But I could almost ditch the scarves at home, but this stupid spot is showing
Editing to add: I'm 1 week post chemo, dark hair and light skin.
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I don't think you can use traditional color for about 12 weeks, but maybe some spray color could work temporarily.
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Oh no Moth!!!
What color was your hair and what color were you trying to achieve? I think it’s pretty common for this to happen post chemo. My first color my hairdresser did repealed the color, so he hit it again. It looked ok and then like 2 weeks later it looked like a rusty orange color. Really awful.
Well at least i was attempting to be in copper family, but it was a really awful color . Then a friend of mine helped me and we just kept coloring every couple weeks ( I used a really mild color product) And I loved the color finally.
Something in that virgin hair repeals the color post chemo. I think there are others on this topic if you dig, that had the same experience. Especially when going blonde.
Hope you find a good solution. But I can relate because my first color was a horrible let down.... rusty orange. Ugh!
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Inna you are adorable!
CBK--I don't think cutting the hair makes it lose the curl, but I think I've read that a lot of women get something closer to their original hair after after the chemo curls (not sure how long after--maybe a year?). I'm thinking about keeping it short until that happens (*if* it happens--also not sure how I'll tell if it's really short!).
moth--honestly if it were me I'd consider cutting most of it off and wearing it proud, like it was intentional. I love a woman with a streak of pink or purple--why not orange?
Vslush--you remembered! I did wear one on my birthday down at Disney World. Funny that I had to go with the one that's more like just a headband rather than one of the ones I have with combs on the side--no hair for them to go into!!
(And FWIW--I've been looking over old pictures for my Christmas letter and realized how much my hair has grown since my WDW trip, which was end of October. A woman complimented me at the gym yesterday on how it's growing out. I think I'm a-l-m-o-s-t to the stage where it could look like an intentional short haircut. :-) ) (And yes I looked up pictures of Judi Dench the other day. I'm thinking something like that. . .)
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JaBoo, no need to pencil in the show-through scalp. There is a product for that called Toppix. It comes in a small shaker container, in powder form, in various shades of color. It also comes as a spray. Can be gotten at Sally's (& maybe at drug stores too) or online. I use it on occasion when I am having a bad hair day and can't comb over the thin spots. It does the job.
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Hi Moth,
Sorry to hear about your hair coloring issue. Having followed this thread for 7 or 8 years now, I have read about this over and over again. Suggestion: there is a product called Roux Fancifull. It is a colored mousse (in a spray can) that is temporary (as in it rinses out easily in the shower). It comes in a variety of shades. It can be bought at Sally's or online. It may be a temporary quick fix for you, and also a solution for others who are concerned about coloring their hair. I still use it on occasion when my "sideburns" are too grey and I am too lazy to do the whole head thing. Hope this helps.
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Moth, maybe you can try henna? It’s natural and might be able to mask the color you don’t like.
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the thing I'm really kicking myself about is that I was unsure about doing anything with the color in the first place. When I sat in the chair I almost said - look, I will pay for your time but let's skip the color, because I wasn't sure there was enough hair to really work with and I didn't know what I wanted right now. But then I thought - well, let's listen to what the pro thinks........ gad, I should know better & just listen to my gut.
I booked it for a color thinking a semi permanent something to lighten it up a bit. I was a light blonde as a kid and now naturally I'm ashy light-med brown with about 10% grey. I was thinking that *eventually* many months we'd end up somewhere like this https://www.instagram.com/p/BrG6OnvH_6g/but that the transition would just be my drab hair a bit lighter and covered up grey. In my fantasy life, the color would take the grey a bit different and it would just look like a bit of texture/highlighting. Yeah, wishful thinking.
Thanks for all the ideas. I just feel like I've wasted 4 months of (very slow) hair growth. There isn't much to trim off ingerp. I'd have to shave it back down.
Kayak - that looks like an interesting product and cheap solution to try. I will try to pick it up today.
Vslush - yeah, I'm considering darkening it up. I've colored my hair all different colors throughout my life but by the time I hit 40 it started to look ageing on me so I've been sticking to lighter shades. When I wear a lighter color wig I think I look younger so I'm hesitant but at this point maybe that's the best choice...? Maybe when it grows a bit I could just color it back to sort of the root color and just leave it alone.I'm going into a heavy duty clinical rotation in January (I'm in nursing school) and need easy, no fuss, fast hair. If I shave it, it's definitely back to wigs because I don't want to discuss my health with patients. I might just need to think this through and and get more comfortable with the wig
Thank you for listening to me whine about this. It hit me so hard last night. It's been months since I've cried but I'm still weepy about it and last night I couldn't sleep over it.0 -
JaBoo, there is also a powder product (looks like eyeshadow) that you can apply with a brush to thin areas. I thinks it’s easy to find in most stores in the hair color section, comes in different shades. Got mine at Target, worked great while waiting for part to fill in.
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Thanks for posting about the sallys product im going to look and maybe try it this weekend
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Moth,
Have you washed it a few times? Usually color fades if washed within 48 hours of application! I agree that perhaps you can go a little darker to cover up the color you have now.
I've used Clairol Natural Instincts (semi-permanent color) since my hair came in. Might be worth a try!
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The idea of making chemo hair look "intentional" is great! Mine grew in as a mohawk for the first 3 months or so. No gels, mousse or hairspray would get it to lay down. My son of all people just said to go with it since I couldn't control it. I started wearing my makeup a bit heavier and more "edgy", and wore big earrings and heels. It worked and I felt much better about it for the time.
Of course I remembered, Ingerp. You were a beautiful princess in that picture! ☺️
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Hello beautiful ladies, I finished my last round of TC 2 and half weeks back. I am just taking Biotin for hair. Based on your experience can you please suggest what other supplements or oil can be used to stimulate the growth? I know each one of us reacts differently, but would like to what can help to have quicker growth. Thanks much!
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Ladies, this is my first time on this thread. I'm about to have my last chemo infusion on 12/19, and I'm anxious about hair growth. I lost most of mine and then shaved it to 2 mm when it started coming out in handfuls. Since then it has thinned out, so that the tiny hair has been splotchy at best. I'm going to be on Herceptin and Perjeta for the next 9 months, too, and I'm concerned that it'll inhibit hair growth.
Over the last couple of weeks the little stubs of hair seem longer, by about 2 more mm and they're curling. Is that even possible while I'm still in chemo?
Do you have any idea how long it will take for hair to grow back? I'm really tired of having people look at me like I'm dying! I've been wearing head covers all this time and would love to go bald, but people openly stare when I do that.
I should add this: I had pretty curly hair before cancer, and you have to learn to manage it. Eventually I learned to cut the width, so it was taller than it was wide. I also learned to use hair products, lots of them! Very gentle shampoo, lots of conditioner, and stuff to make the curls piece-y. I got a lot better at managing it as I got older. Thank God for hair product!
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Fairchild I dumped my baseball caps/bandanas at about 12 weeks PFC. It was a little shorter than I wanted before I made the transition but I had a work trip and didn't want to mess with packing headgear. I'm now 19 weeks PFC and it has grown a lot—to the point where I'm getting comments from strangers about my cute haircut. I guess it's finally at the point where it looks intentional!
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Beingpositive
I will give you what I think allowed me to grow back a super thick and healthy lid. But I don’t think there is any concrete research behind any of my method. I started 5000mcg Biotin while on taxol with b6 and b12. I washed my scalp first with baby shampoo and then with Avalon organic biotin thickening shampoo when I began to sprout. I used organic castor oil on my scalp at least 2 times a week (left it on overnite). I still use castor oil on my scalp, eyebrows, and eyelashes; organic black Jamaican castor oil. I used nioxin sparingly; once the follicle opened I didn’t use it anymore.
I waited to color my hair at about 6 months. I only use a mild product called Naturtint, love this product. After coloring my hair in a salon for decades, this color is so rich and mild; holds very nicely. Doesn’t seem to dry or damage my emerging locks in the least!
I think healthy eating shows up in our hair and nails. When I was having trouble eating during chemo I turned to smoothies as meal replacement. Vega one powder and Garden of Earth powder are packed with plant based protein and vitamins. Especially needed is vitamin C for healthy hair. High quality fish oil supplement is something to consider as well.
Fairchild. Congrats to you finishing chemo. 🥳 I finished about a year ago, I started going wigless about July. But I was super self conscious. It was when I was ready. My hair grew In super curly and still is. Indeed it is an adjustment caring for chemo curls. Any tips or products you like? Moisture moisture moisture. Do you have a spray oil you like to use on dry hair?
Im still frustrated a year later as my hair is only 6 or 7 inches. But it’s thick and healthier than pre-chemo; now-it’s just a wait game to grow.
Grow, grow, grow Ladies. ❤️
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Thank you CBK. I will try Avalon shampoo. I'm already using baby shampoo on scalp, but it seems to make my scalp dry. I use coconut oil and keep it overnight. Will try castor oil too. yes, I agree about eating habits. Now I am focusing on eating fruits and veggies. Will check the powder you mentioned. Thanks again!
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CBK, about products for curly hair? There is a line of products call "Devacurl" that's really good...they have everything from shampoo to product to enhance and hold your curl in pieces, so that it doesn't get fluffy and enormous. I know Amazon carries it. Their "ultra defining curl gel" is great for keeping the texture of curls from getting out of control. If I'm not careful, my hair becomes a mass of frizzy volume...so NOT my best look! These products help me use the texture to my advantage instead. Plus, I can blot my hair after a shower with a towel, put gel on it while raking my fingers through, and then go to work and let it dry on the way. I never would have thought I could do that, but the gel makes it dry in little natural curls that fall just right.
The worst thing to do with curly hair is to mess with it! If I brush it, or finger it during the day, it gets frizzier and frizzier, until it just looks like a mop. I eventually learned that if it got frizzy, I just needed to wet it, put a little more gel on it, and leave it alone! Again, it dries in better shape if I don't touch it.
About oil...I don't actually use oil on mine, as I generally have oily skin/hair. But I use a really good conditioner (Devacurl has some!) that moisturizes the hair without weighing it down. You have to make sure whatever products you use don't weigh the hair down so that it strips the curl out, you know? And most gels made for curly hair have lots of moisture built into them. That's why it's best if the products are specifically made for curly hair.
Devacurl also has a short book out on dealing with curly hair. It was really helpful to me, because my mother had perfectly straight hair. She had no idea what to do with my curls, so she had me grow it long and tried to brush it....all the things you don't want to do with curls! I eventually figured out from companies like Devacurl what to do with it.
BTW, it's usually better to have curly hair cut in layers, so that the curls can spring up more evenly. I've learned that some hairdressers have more experience working with curls, so I ask who is best with curls when I have to change hairdressers. Curly hair is often cut dry, b/c you can see the way it falls better.
I hope this is helpful! About a year before my cancer, I got Devacurl's book and figured out what to do with my hair. No longer having to blow dry / straighten / brush / struggle with my hair was life-changing! I hope you grow to like yours, even if the curl turns out to only be temporary!
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Sorry to hear you are having a rough time with your hair. For what it is worth, the exact same thing happened to me a few months back. My hair came in darker with more grey than before so I decided to go with a slightly lighter all over color. I specifically said, I want it slightly blonder, but not warm or reddish. To make a long story short, I ended up looking a bit like a tiger for a while. Brown on the root with ripples of orange all over. Trimming it into a fun pixie did help a lot to get rid of the worst of the orange, without going full buzz cut. Now it's a bit more like highlights. I plan to see a different colorist next time obviously!
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So hair coloring number two went redish and darker brown. Im going to try a toner and see what that shall do. I just knew I didnt want to end up green before xmas.lol
Wishing every a Happy Holiday season.
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