Women share stories of losing their hair

Something unusual happened recently at the Miss USA beauty contest: Miss Nevada, 22-year-old Mary Sickler, walked on stage without any hair. She had lost it to a condition known as alopecia but, until that moment, had worn a wig in public.

Tens of millions of women around the world suffer from some form of hair loss and the story has sparked a global conversation. We bring together three women with alopecia, in the US, South Africa and the Netherlands.

“For me it was really important because representation really matters,” Anne tells us. “The media doesn’t often show bald people in a very positive light – quite often they make it seem like it’s a joke – so I think it’s really important that it’s shown to the world like this and shown that bald is beautiful.”

Many people having cancer treatment can also lose their hair – it’s usually temporary but can be permanent. Three women whose hair fell out during cancer treatment share their experiences of baldness, wigs and dating mishaps.

This edition of The Documentary is from BBC OS Conversations, where we bring people together to share their personal experiences of news events around the world.

Presenter: Rahul Tandon
BBC producer: Iqra Farooq
Boffin Media producer: Richard Hollingham

An EcoAudio certified Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team.

(Photo/credit: Anne)