A beauty vlogger has shaved her hair off to ‘start over’ after it was left badly damaged by years of wearing extensions.
Vanessa Martinez posted a video to Instagram by pretending to shave her hair – only to reveal it was a wig.
She had, in fact, already shaved off her hair and now she’s happily rocking her new buzz cut… and why shouldn’t she? She looks incredible.
Vanessa’s 590,000 Instagram followers and 2.1 million YouTube subscribers were first to see the transformation in the form of an 11-and-a-half-minute video.
In her video, titled ‘I let my friend shave my head (yes, I’m bald)’, she says:
This is not my own hair, I have individual micros and just a quick little lesson on them, I did notice that my hair did thin out a lot. No matter what extensions you put in your hair you’re going to go slightly bald from it, just from the weight.
Vanessa also explained the damage from using ‘individual micros’ had caused random bald spots to appear all over her head. It was because of those, she made the decision to just shave her hair off altogether.
She says:
I’m just making myself balder and balder, so why don’t I just cut all my hair off and start over?
Watch the full video here:
In the comments under her video, she wrote:
Being bald is not ugly. It’s not disgusting. It’s not weird. If you are going bald due to illness, stress whatever the case, you are still beautiful!
Speaking to Health, dermatologist Jeanine Downie, said hair breakage, damage, and loss are all – or can be – ‘common side effects when wearing heavy hair extensions’.
Ouch.
Downie said:
My experience is that many people sew in their weaves too tight and they break hair and this can cause bald patches.
Other people use glue, and the glue is a chemical irritant to the scalp, and that can also call small or large bald patches.
The video has been viewed almost one million times, receiving more than 59,000 ‘likes’ in less than a week.
Her followers had plenty of lovely things to say, with some branding her actions ’empowering’.
One wrote: ‘She looks so freaking beautiful reminding me of the girl from Lemonade by Rihanna and N.E.R.D.’
Another added:
Okay but seriously at the end when you said it’s the new 2018 trend you weren’t kidding. I’ve seen a handful of people shaving their heads lately and honestly I kinda wanna shave mine too. [sic]
And Andrea Franco Juarez said:
I want to thank you so much for inspiring me to cut and shave my hair I am thinning because I would bleach and dye my hair at such a young age.
I am now 19 and while shaving my hair I was crying in to tears because I was so happy and mostly excited to see the progress of my hair growing out and I will also be wearing weave. Thank you for this video.
Looking seriously good!
