How I Embraced Being Bald With Alopecia

Foreign hi everyone - it's Abby here today back for another live stream on the Renee of Paris channel uh. I just realized. I'M dressed very fall today because the weather, the temperature dropped a lot I'm located in the New York area and today it actually really felt like fall. So I'm just over here getting into the fall spirit, so that's kind of fun. I love getting to experience all the different seasonal changes and all that, but I'll just wait a couple moments for people to join me because today's topic is really really exciting. Um from I think, it's just a really fun thing to talk about, especially for fellow people with hair loss, and it's going to be just kind of a little bit about my own personal story with alopecia and just like my own Journey with it. But really specifically talking about how my taste in wigs has changed over the years, because if for people that have known me, my whole life, they know that when I was younger, I used to just wear one specific wig style and stick to that and never change Up my style, because I really wanted people to believe that that was my hair and I never wanted people to think it was a wig, and I think that option works well for a lot of people, and some people are perfectly happy to do that. They just want people to respect their privacy; they want people to just think the wig is their hair and that's a great option for some people. For me personally, it kind of put this big weight on my shoulders that I knew eventually. As I got older, I knew that a goal of mine was to start switching up, wigs and being open about my alopecia, but when I was younger, it was very, very daunting for me. Someone commented that's me so there's that's nothing to feel bad about at all. For some people that works really well and it's different from person to person, and if it is a goal of yours to eventually open up and start changing wigs regularly, then that's something that you can work towards. Don'T beat yourself up for being nervous about it. Now, if that is a goal of yours, because as you'll see in this live stream, it's something that took me a very long time and I'll also talk about the ways that I eventually got myself there, because for me I used to always say it's all about The baby steps it was really about the baby steps for me and it's almost it's almost funny the things looking back now. The thing is that I thought were such a huge deal and we're so scary to do. I now do on like a regular daily basis, and I now see that they're not as scary as you think they are, and that's a really great thing to start to realize. If you are nervous about opening up about your alopecia. Is that the things that seem really daunting and scary turn out to really not that, be that big of a deal once you actually embrace them, and you just kind of try to get yourself used to them. So hopefully, if it is a goal of yours, this video can help you kind of um see a clearer path to getting there and, if not, for some people wearing the same wig style and like just kind of keeping it private that they have hair loss is Amazing and that's a great method for people, that's why it's great to have such really realistic. Looking wigs, because if you don't want to talk about it, then that's your business and you absolutely shouldn't ever feel pressured. So that's! What'S really interesting about social media and alopecia is getting to see all the different ways. People uh handle their own personal alopecia. Some people like to wear wigs and some people like to wear just one wig style. Some people like to change it up all the time. Like I do, and some people just rock the bald head and all of it is valid, all of it's beautiful and amazing, and it's really fun to get to see all the different ways. People handle that here on social media, because for many of us that have alopecia, I don't know about you guys, but for me I'm having alopecia I've met very few people in my day-to-day life who have alopecia. I can probably count on one hand the amount of people I've met that have alopecia so to get to see it on social media and get to connect with all of you. Guys is really really special to me and um yeah. So I hope that speaking about it on here as well, can also help any of you that are struggling with it new to it or just feel like you want other people to connect with, and I do want to mention before I start this video is that It is alopecia awareness month and that's a big part of the reason that I am doing this video today. I thought it would just be fun to come on here and talk about my own personal Journey with alopecia and my own personal Journey with wigs. Now, just to give a really quick overview, I feel, like I've talked about this in multiple videos before so. I don't want to go on about my own personal story with alopecia and feel free to ask me any questions below and I'll address them, but just to give a general overview of my own personal Journey with alopecia, I lost my hair when I was about two Years old um someone said all social media yep, so I lost my hair when I was about two years old and when I was younger when you're a kid, you don't really think much of it: you're not insecure about it, because when you're young, you don't really Know to be insecure, yet until you get older and um. So at the time I just kind of rocked, like hats and headbands and stuff that I think I had a few wigs that were just fun to play with. I remember my first time going to a wig store. If I recall correctly, I was pretty young, I might have been around seven years old. I think I had gone to the dentist with my mom and I hated going to the dentist as a kid. I still hate going to the dentist as an adult and so to kind of like cheer me up afterwards. My mom was passing by a random wig store and we stopped at the wig store. So I could like try on some wigs and have some fun um and then at that point that's probably when I got my first wig when I was about seven years old and then I didn't start wearing wigs consistently, probably until a couple years later or so, And as a kid I just kind of my parents kind of handle the wig purchases. So I didn't really think much of the styles that I liked or anything and there's like a few more options for children. So my parents just probably bought whatever was available and that's what I wore and I didn't really think much of it. It was until I was about 12 years old or so maybe 13 years old, where my parents took me again to a wig store, and it was the first time where I had been to a wig store where I was old enough to really have a preference On style and start to learn more about the wig Styles, the wig caps and things like that myself, so that was kind of a turning point for me with my own wig Journey. So now I want to show you the wig in just a moment that I was introduced to around the age of 12 or 13, which became my go-to wig for so many years. So this is a wig that I wore so with synthetic wigs. They do have a lifespan if you wear them every single day. You typically might want to replace it roughly every four to six months. It'S there's a lot of other factors that can change that time frame time, but so every couple of months I would purchase a new wig to replace it, but it would always be the exact same style and color. Now I'm going to pull that wig out now, because it is, it is a wig that when I like, I don't know if anyone else can relate to this as someone that changes my hair and my wigs on a daily basis, you kind of like still think About your self-image and what you look like in your own mind - and there are a few wigs that even if I'm wearing a totally different wig like those wigs, are the ones that I still view myself. As does that make sense like. Sometimes, if I'm on a video game - and I have to make like a character, Avatar and you have to pick the hair - it's so hard for me to choose - which hair to use, because I um obviously change my hair on like pretty much a daily basis. But there's like two go-to hairstyles that I still view as like the most me. This is one of them and this will kind of I'll bring this the details about how I started wearing this one a little bit later. This is Tatum from Amore in the color. I think this one is cappuccino, but this is the one that became my go-to wig later on, but now I'm going to show you the go-to wig that was my go-to wig from the ages of about 13 to about the age of 18. and every couple months. My parents would buy me, I think, two wigs per year and every couple months they would purchase this exact same wig and same color for me again because it was just um I'll put it on and then I'll go over the details. So this is the wig. If you look back on my old Instagram account, you can probably see, like all my pictures will be me wearing this wig, because this was like my hair for a very long time. This wig that I'm going to switch to is Cody from the Amor collection. Now, if you're not familiar with the Amore collection, it's the collection from Renee of Paris that is geared specifically towards people with hair loss, so um things with this collection that are made for that are things like the wig cap is designed to be very realistic and Very comfortable, most of them have a double monofilament, wig cap and, of course, as always, um adjustable straps in the nape of the neck. So you can make sure it fits you properly. So this is the style Cody in creamy blonde. Now I think I had tried a couple of different shades of blonde throughout the time where this was my go-to wig, but I was never very adventurous. It would be like slightly lighter slightly darker, but I always always stay in the blonde range, because my natural hair color would have been blonde. When I was a kid, it was very golden blonde wow. Oh my gosh. This is like such Throwbacks. For me, I still love this wig so much. It is like one of my favorite wigs um, for so many reasons, just because it is so comfortable so manageable. I feel like I can throw this on and not look in a mirror, and I know it's gon na look good. I know it's gon na be secure, like I will do cartwheels in this wig and not think anything of it um so yeah. This is Cody from The Immortal collection. Here'S what the monofilament wig cap looks like on the top. You can change the part Any Which Way and it'll still look natural like that natural scalp peeking through effect. Now, when I discovered this wig so again going back to the story, I was telling before my parents took me to a wig store again when I was about 12 or 13 and it was the first time I went to a wig store where I was picking The wigs kind of more for myself, rather than my parents, picking them for me when I was a kid, so I started to learn a little bit more and have more of awareness more of an awareness of the different styles lengths, my own preferences and wig caps. As well - and I remember being able to go to a wig store in person, I think is such an amazing experience. If you're not able to, you can still purchase wigs online and kind of figure out or do like telephone consultations with wig store, um wig Specialists to figure out what works best for you. But it's also really an amazing opportunity to get to be able to go to a wig store in person, because you get to try on different styles. They can teach you a little bit about them. Show you different ways to style them, so the woman at this wig store that I went to her name was Denise and she was very. I still have a very fond memory of this experience because she tried on a whole bunch of wigs on me. I was very insecure about my alopecia at the time, so she made sure we were were like covered behind a curtain. I had so much fun trying all these different styles and then she taught me about styling the wigs and she specifically taught me about monofilament wig caps at the time. So again, that's what I just showed was the natural effect of scalp peeking through, which is a really really great feature for a very realistic looking wig, and because I was so insecure about my alopecia at the time. This was a really amazing thing for me to discover, because it just looks so natural and if I wanted to make sure nobody was questioning that I was wearing a wig. That was a really great feature to have someone said I have Cody and dark chocolate Supernatural. It is one of my favorite wig styles of all time. I will wear this wig style like for the rest of my life, I'm just replacing it every once in a while and whenever I don't have a Cody in my collection, I feel like I'm missing. One of my hair options so um, so she actually taught me like a really cute way to style it that I ended up wearing so often when I was young, I want to get a hair clip out because it was just a very slight. Let'S see, I need a proper hair clip, I don't. I used to use like little um like butterfly clips, which one can I use. It was a hairstyle where she taught me that I could brush the hair back and expose the monofilament wig cap and almost have that be a way to make. It look even more realistic because if the monofilament wig cap was showing, then it would just people would see that and think like. Oh, you can see her scalp, it's definitely not a wig. So that's kind of what I thought in my head. When I was a kid, so I used to always style my hair, like this. It'S gon na be so weird putting it back in this style, but I would just kind of like brush back some of it. I feel like this was a very uh 2000 style. I don't know if it would fly as much now, but it still looks cute just the fact that I used to always always do this. I would put like a little bump on top and it's kind of exposed like the monofilament intentionally, because then it would just look like my natural scalp peeking through, and I was like really excited to discover that this was a feature that some wigs had. I don't let this clip will hold all the hair but yeah. So, as a hairstyle, I used to wear all the time so again, every couple of months my parents would get me a new wig, but it would always be a Cody wig in slightly different shades of blonde, like the most adventurous I got was going from like Uh creamy blonde to maybe uh, I don't remember which maybe vanilla Lush. I think I did it for a little while, but they were all very similar um. I never really went into other hair color territories. Now one thing I started to do when I got a little bit older, I knew that I wanted to start getting myself comfortable, changing wigs. I thought about it in the back of my head as being something that seemed like so much fun to be able to change to all different hair, colors and styles. But I was just made so nervous by questions people asked me and and at the time I knew that changing wigs would kind of lead to more questions, and I didn't want to have to deal with that and again when I was in, like middle school high School things are a lot scarier back then, because you're like just surrounded by um people that you're not necessarily like friendly with you're kind of just forced to be in this place. Where, if you change wigs and people are asking you questions, you can't really get out of that situation, whereas as an adult you're, not often in that kind of environment, if that makes sense, um, but my one way of kind of getting myself used to trying to Change wigs is, as I got, into my Junior and Senior year. I actually got a separate wig. This is like one of the first times I had two wigs in my collection at the same time, which is so funny because now I have a very huge wig collection and I love it and I change my wigs all the time. But this is one of the times my childhood, where I did have two different wig Styles. At the same time, and what I chose to do is, I got a longer wig, but in the same color and what I would do is if people ask me questions. I would challenge myself and if people ask me questions I would like, if I felt comfortable, I would try to challenge myself to tell them. It was a wig and like tell them, I had alopecia, but in a lot of cases when I was younger just saying the word alopecia, even just thinking about saying the word alopecia out loud made me like shake with fear, because I just didn't. I I just considered alopecia to be such a big secret. It just became such a weight on my shoulder and I gave it so much more meaning than it really had in reality, um and that's why I just had this fear of talking about it. So what I would do, instead, if I didn't, feel comfortable talking about it, I would just let people think it was extensions or something and just kind of let them think that was the case instead. Now, before I switch to the longer wig I'll show you in just a moment, I did pull out a picture that I had in my room. This is a picture of me and my brother. I believe I was in 11th grade of high school, but just to prove that I've been wearing this exact, wig, color and wig style for so many years. This is just a picture of me and my brother um when I was a lot younger. That'S probably that's, got ta, be hmm, it's gon na be like about seven years ago or something like that, but yeah, maybe eight years ago, um someone said I did this too I'd say I wore extensions yeah. So it's like. If people ask me questions, I would try to challenge myself to tell them about alopecia or maybe tell them. I was wearing a wig, but if I felt too uncomfortable in the moment where I just didn't want to talk about it, I would just let them think it was extensions. But then this ended up became one of my favorite becoming one of my favorite. Wigs of all time as well, so this wig here is Shiloh from Noriko and, as you can see, it's the same color. So the two things I would do to kind of give myself like training wheels is either where the same color in a different style or the same style in a different color. Because if it's the same color, you can say it's extensions or that you cut your hair and if it's the same style, you can just say you dyed your hair or something like that. I remember sometimes um. If it was like summer vacation in high school that was like coming back from summer, vacation was like when I felt most confident to change my wigs, because if I was out of school for two months for the summer, if I came back, it would make more Sense that I had a different hairstyle like oh yeah, my hair grew over the summer um yeah. So let me go ahead and put this on. Ah, I get so happy wearing all these old wig styles that I haven't worn in a long time because they just feel so me now. This is a wig that I wore for so long because, even as I started to get older and changed wigs more often, I would still wear this one, pretty often as well such a gorgeous style. So this is a Shiloh from Noriko and again it's the same. Color um creamy blonde, so to kind of challenge myself when I was probably in like senior year of high school, I would wear this to school and if anyone asked me questions I didn't feel comfortable answering. I would just let them think it was extensions, see I don't know if anyone really believed me, but it made me feel more at peace, and it was a way to kind of just challenge myself a little bit. This wig is just so gorgeous. I want to show you guys how this wig looks in a side braid, because that's a wig style that I used to always wear on this wig as well. It'S just so long and silky. I love it. I would wear a little side braid and then I would kind of intentionally let it get a little messy. So it just looked like nice and cute and casual. Those are just a great way if you're wearing a longer wig to um still wear the long style. But then just have it like tied back if you ever need to tie it back for any reason. Yes, that's another really cute way to wear this wig style and again this style does have a monofilament wig cap for someone that is looking for a good go-to wig. That looks very realistic. I personally love monofilament wig caps because they just give you that styling flexibility and they just look so natural on top so now, moving on to my next kind of era of wigs so to speak, is when I went to college. So when I went to college it was initially my plan to make that be the time where I started changing up wigs all the time, because I was like okay, I'm gon na I'm just gon na challenge myself. I'M just gon na go into college and start doing this right away and start being open about it right away. But when I got to college it was the first time in pretty much my whole life, where I was around people that nobody knew that I was wearing a wig. Nobody knew that I had alopecia, whereas when I was in high school I went to a pretty small school and even if I tried to keep it a secret, pretty much everybody knew from when I was younger. So, even though I tried to keep it a secret for the most part people, I I think people probably knew so when I was in college, and I was wearing really realistic. Looking wigs and nobody knew me from before, everyone just thought it was my hair and it was really easy for me to kind of go back into my comfort zone and just let people think it was my real hair, because it was just so easy that way And it was the first time I like just just speaking in terms of someone who was really insecure in the past. It was the first time where I felt like normal in regards to my alopecia. So when I went to college, what I did do at least is I switched from wearing Cody every day to wearing um Tatum every day. So I did change wig colors drastically because at the very least nobody knew me as like blonde Abby. So at least I could just start wearing this as my daily go-to wig and that's when I fell in love with the wig Tatum from the Amor collection, so Tatum and Cody. I always talk about as being my two favorite go-to wigs and what I recommend to anybody. Looking for a really great daily, wear wig from my own personal experience so yeah, so I did end up wearing Tatum every single day and consistently for, like the first two to three years of college and then. Finally, when I was about a junior is when I decided to just really I try to think of my timeline here. I believe it was after my freshman year of college, I made a Facebook post about having alopecia now pretty much. Nobody from my college Years, like from freshman year, knew that I had alopecia, except for, like maybe two of my closest friends, so that was actually a really huge deal for me to post about it on Facebook at the time, because all my friends that I had Met freshman year, none of them had any idea that I was wearing a wig, but because I knew I wanted to challenge myself to be open about it. I knew that if I posted it on Facebook, it would kind of force me out of my comfort zone in a way that I wouldn't be able to kind of crawl back in. If I got nervous again, I wanted to really just force myself to be open about it, so I just posted about it on Facebook. I remember I was so nervous at the time. I closed Facebook and I couldn't open it for hours because I thought people would just react negatively. I thought people would think I was weird for it like I was just really really nervous and when I eventually got the courage to open Facebook back up again, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of encouraging comments I got and just so much support from everyone. I knew uh just like such kind uh words, and it was really eye-opening for me that this thing that I thought people would think that I was weird for my entire life ended up being um, so people didn't really care and it's not that they didn't care. It'S that they didn't think anything negative about it. It actually turned out to be something that people were super super kind about, and now that I'm older and now that I am out of that mindset, I realized like why would they care, if anyone thought less of you for having alopecia, that makes them a bad Person, not you that would be so horrible for someone to act and think that way, and that makes them a shallow person. But when you're in that mindset of insecurity, it's hard to remember that at the time so yeah. That was a very amazing experience for me to kind of see that nobody was going to think I was weird or like anything negative for having alopecia if anything people were extremely supportive. So at that point, even though I was open about it at that point, I it still took me a couple of years before I was comfortable, changing wigs all the time and regularly, because I was confident enough to put it out there in social media. But I was still really really nervous talking about it in person. I hated even saying the word alopecia, because for some reason that would just make me so nervous, because I just had such anxiety about the whole thing that it took me a long time to get myself used to talking about it. I think something that really helped me personally was making my YouTube channel talking about alopecia, because I would just talk about it to a camera and that got me comfortable talking about it to other people. So I think that made a really big difference for me, but another wig that I want to show that was another go-to wig. So when I was in high school, my two go-to wigs were Cody for the most part and then, if I wanted to wear long hair, it would be Shiloh. So the two I was wearing before and I would just kind of pass it off as my normal hair and then my Hair Plus extensions, I would have switched between these two, so my equivalent of like long hair but for Tatum. I kind of did a similar thing. When I had Tatum is, I would wear Tatum as my go-to and then I would wear Stevie as like the longer version and again, if I ever felt uncomfortable for talking about it, I would just let people think it was extension or something so the Stevie that I wore in college was actually in coffee latte, which is a darker brunette, but with blonde highlights, but this is a wig that I wore all the time in college as well, and I absolutely love this style. This is a style that all four of these styles that I've shown so far are ones that I will always want to keep in my collection, even if I'm changing wigs on a regular basis. These are just my favorites. Ah look at this. I just gon na very gently kind of Comb it a little, but I just love this style. So much particular color is one that I've never actually tried before. This is the color uh toasted Brown. It is so gorgeous. I really love it. The color that I used to wear in college was coffee latte, which was a dark brunette with a little bit of blonde. Highlights it's such a funny story as to how I ended up wearing that particular color is because, like I was saying before, I would get like two wigs per year that my parents would buy for me, and I didn't ever have like multiple wigs in my collection. At the same time, because I pretty much only got a new wig when my old one was like ready to be replaced so every once in a while. I would like strike a deal with my dad where he would buy me my new wig, and if there was like a sale going on on the wig website, and sometimes it would be like buy one get one. Fifty percent off I'd be like hey Dad like. If you're buying me the wig, can I like get in on that and like I'll, buy the second wig, but like can I use the 50 off? So I would do things like that to like strategically get other wigs in my collection and it's so funny to look back on that now. As someone who has a very large wig collection - and I love changing up my style but to think back to when I was in high school and college, I like never really had multiple wigs at the same time and so the wig I got as my secondary Wig ended up being Stevie at the time, which I was absolutely in love with and wore for so many years, and the the whole reason I ended up getting coffee latte was because that color was on sale so funny how it comes down to like okay. Well, that ended up being like the color, and then I ended up loving that color so much, but it's just a funny story as to how that ended up being the color that I chose, but I love it in this toasted brown color. So this is another style that again has the monofilament wig cap very realistic. Looking can change the part I love wearing this one in braids, I'm not going to do it now. I was just about to, but it'll probably take two times too much time for me to put this in braids that I want to make you guys sit here and watch me braid, my hair. I guess I can do it while I'm talking right um, but I do want to switch to other wigs anyway, because now I'm getting to the exciting part of the story where I finally started to get confident enough to change my wigs on a very regular basis. So going back to the story, when I first opened up about having alopecia on social media, it still took me a long time to get comfortable, actually changing my wigs on a regular basis, and I was still going to classes at the time. Things like that and going to class in a different wig seemed so daunting for me, because, even though my friends all knew that I had alopecia now, like all my acquaintances, anyone I was friends with on Facebook. There were still plenty of people in my classes who I didn't know very well. Who might ask me questions that I was uncomfortable with at the time I remember going to class. So again, Tatum was my go-to wig at the time in uh, dark, chocolate or cappuccino. I would kind of switch between the two and then one day when I was getting a new Tatum wig, I decided to be adventurous and go with Tatum in Strawberry swirl, which is a blonde color instead of Tatum and dark chocolate. So it was such a huge deal in my mind at the time to wear the same wig style in a different color. It'S so funny how that was like a huge deal to me and wearing it to class. For the first time I was so nervous and I remember getting there and I was very tempted to just let people think I dyed my hair and just tell people I dyed my hair because of course when I walked in everyone's, like oh, my gosh, your hair Is different? I really wanted to just tell people like oh yeah, I dyed my hair yeah, you like it um, but I did. That was the first time I really was like determined to just tell people. It was a wig tell people. I had alopecia and I just remember everyone's reactions were so supportive again um like oh, that's, really cool, that's interesting like it's. Never they never have a negative reaction, and usually it ends up just being an interesting like conversation, starter and an opportunity to kind of to help inform people about a condition that most people don't know about, and that's why I love being able to open up and Talk about it on social media, because it is just about raising awareness for something not to say everyone with alopecia should feel obligated to raise awareness for it. That'S obviously not the case either. If you don't want to talk to people about it, that is completely an option. That'S completely valid as well, it's all about whatever you're comfortable with, but that is also definitely something that helped me become more confident speaking about. It is realizing that on social media I can make videos, I could post photos relating to alopecia and help somebody out there who was less secure about it or was in the place that I used to be at because growing up. I was extremely insecure about it and something that helped me come to terms with it and be more confident about. It is seeing beautiful people and just like beautiful, sweet, happy amazing people on social media with alopecia and looking at them and being like they're. Confident, like I can do that too um, so yeah and now seeing that I can do that myself for other people, this uh. It really helped me to open up about having alopecia, because it kind of got me out of my own head and being so nervous about it and took me to a place of like oh hey. I can use this interesting life experience that I have to help other people and that really just changed. My mindset about the whole thing, because again it is alopecia awareness month. So I really do love um speaking about these topics. Now I did actually on my own Instagram um Abby andrew.yt. I did post an Instagram story asking for like q, a questions that I would answer on. The live stream at the towards the end or notification come up on the screen, so I hope um. I didn't pause for all of you guys, but I I do have a couple more wigs to show because I do want to get into the part where I got to start trying all sorts of different wig, colors and stuff, because that's the fun part about wearing Wigs and one of my wigs is actually let me just grab, but I also did get some q a questions on my own Instagram as well. That I wanted to just answer really quick. If you guys don't mind them also just going to plug in my phone really quick, it was charging for so long before and then I think uh going live kind of drains your battery a little bit faster. So sorry about that guys um. So I ended up going to just address some of these q, a questions I got as well. So let me just read: through some of these um someone said: why do I feel more intimidated wearing a wig than going bald um? That is totally valid, so some this person is saying that they actually feel more nervous to go out wearing a wig than they do going out bald, and I think it's really just about what you're used to personally. If you already are comfortable and used to going out without a wig, then it would make sense that wearing a wig might be a little um might make you a little nervous at first, just because you're not used to it and you're not sure how people are Going to react with it, so if you are nervous going out in a wig just try and if you do want to wear wigs, of course, everyone who's bald doesn't need to wear wigs. Needless to say, plenty of people choose to just rock the bald head and they look awesome. I love rocking the bald heads, sometimes um, but if it is something you want to do and you want to learn how to get comfortable wearing wigs, then I would recommend just getting a wig style. You like and just wearing it around the house and just seeing um just starting to feel confident when you're by yourself wearing it and just getting used to wearing it yourself. Just seeing the different ways you like to style it as well and then once you're comfortable wearing it at home, then you can start wearing it out, and I think it would be a similar experience to the experience I had when I was first starting to change. Wigs it made me really nervous at first and then once I got used to it, I realized it wasn't that big of a deal for me, so I think maybe it would be the same experience for you if you're just starting to wear wigs. I think once you start wearing them, you realize that it might not be as scary as you think at first once you get used to it. Somebody asked: do you use regular, shampoo or conditioner to keep your scalp clean? So that's a good question for um alopecia hair loss, um kind of care how people care for their heads. I think it's different for everybody and it used to be different. I used to because I do have hair patches that I used to let grow longer and now I tend to keep them shaved. But when I did have those patches I did use shampoo and conditioner for the patches, but now I kind of just use face wash. I think everyone kind of does a different thing, so I'm not sure just kind of whatever works for you. Let me see any other of these questions. Someone said recommendations for wavy looking hair. So if you want to find wavy looking wig Styles, I'm not sure if you meant long, hair or short hair. But if you want to find some wavy looking Styles, you can go on to reneeofparis.com and just kind of search through the styles on there. I think there is like a wig finder option where you can look for you can filter by length. You can filter by color and just kind of browse through there and see what's available for daily go-to wigs. I really do love the Amore collection for Alopecia. So there's definitely some gorgeous styles on there, like Ivana, is a really great style Ivana with the mono calf. It'S a really gorgeous shorter wavy style that I would definitely recommend and then, of course, in my favorite styles from the Muse collection is lavish waves. That is so beautiful. It'S just this long, wavy style it is heat friendly. So you can change the waves um. So that's a lot of fun, but now I just wanted to go into the final kind of phase of my wig journey is when I finally started to get comfortable wearing all types of different wigs. So I just kind of kept doing it and kept kind of fighting through what made me nervous until I got comfortable doing it, and sometimes it's gon na be like that. Sometimes you might be nervous at first, but once you kind of power through that nervous feeling, then it's very, very freeing. And personally, if you guys aren't familiar with me, I also love dressing up in costumes. I love getting dressed up for Halloween and I also love cosplay and that really helped me personally get used to wearing all sorts of different wig, colors and styles, because if I was nervous to change wig Styles like just going out on a regular day, that was One thing, but to wear a drastically different hairstyle on Halloween or for a costume event, is totally normal, so it didn't give me that same nervous feeling as changing up my wigs on a regular day. So if I was to wear a wig for a Halloween costume, nobody would think anything of it and that's kind of what got me used to changing my wigs more often so now, I'm just going to show some of my other favorite wig, colors and styles, that I wear now as someone that wears all ends of the spectrum. I love long hair, short, hair, curly, hair straight hair, blonde, brunette and blue. So this is one of my favorite wig styles of all time. This is Posh from the Orchid collection. I'M just gon na slightly detangle it a little bit um. This is one of my favorite wig brushes by the way from Renee of Paris it just it folds like that with the little styling tail at the end, but this is something I always keep in my purse, because it's really great for on the go. If you are new to wigs, if you get synthetic wigs, you should definitely make sure you're using a brush. That'S designed for synthetic wigs to keep them lasting longer. Okay, so here's the style. I don't know if it goes with my shirt too well, but this is an example of another style that I love to wear now. I totally will change my makeup drastically, depending on what wig style I'm wearing. I feel like when I'm wearing bright colors, I like to kind of make my makeup a little more edgy, maybe wear some darker eyeshadow, maybe a little more eyeliner and then, when I'm wearing the more natural looking colors. I just. I typically wear a little bit more simple makeup, but here's an example: this wig is great because it has a lace, front and Lace part. So it's very, very natural. Looking as well, and this color is aqua Paradise. This wig does come in plenty of other colors as well, if you do like more natural colors, but now that I'm used to changing up my wigs all the time that is like such an amazing fun, part of my life now is getting to change up. Wig Styles and wig colors that I'm so sad that I deprived myself of that for so long and again, that is a personal thing. Not everyone needs to feel obligated to change their wig and hair style if you are a wig wearer on a daily basis. But for me that is like such a really great experience for me now as someone that loves getting dressed up and all sorts of different looks and fashion styles. This is one of the new Muse collection, wigs, which I love. This is mod Sleek in the color grape burst. This one is so much fun and you know I already had to wear this for a um Raven Teen Titans Cosplay, because it's so perfect for that. But what I love about the um Muse. Well pretty much. All of the fun bright colors from Renee of Paris, that's something that I never really saw. Much as a wig wearer growing up like from 10 plus years ago, is, I feel, like I didn't, really see as many um bright fun colors and if I did ever see them on wigs, they were like costumey, wigs that didn't look realistic and what is so Fun about these bright colors with Renee of Paris that they've been releasing over the last couple years, is that they're, bright and fun, but the hair texture is still amazing, realistic, looking quality and it's not like super shiny or anything. So these could totally pass for like your own hair dyed, and if I had that when I was in high school or younger, I would have been so happy and now that I have it as an adult like I just love wearing all these fun bright colors. So again, this is a grape burst from the new Muse collection uh. This is mod sleek, so yeah that is kind of an overview of my own personal wig and alopecia journey. I hope this was helpful to any of you watching or um. Maybe it can give you some tips if you are someone that has alopecia and you're nervous talking about it or you're nervous, changing up your wig style. I hope anything I said in this. Video might be helpful to you in the future kind of getting yourself used to changing up wigs or just coming to terms with alopecia and anytime. If you're someone watching this - and you do want, advice - feel free anytime to reach out to me through my DMs on um Abby andrew.yt on Instagram, I also have my own personal YouTube channel talking about alopecia related topics which is just Abby Andrew and then of course, Here, on Renee of Paris, with our Instagram and our YouTube channel, we make all sorts of wig tips and tutorial videos. I post videos from the YouTube channel regularly as well so and if you ever want to hear more about a topic that you haven't seen US post about, definitely feel free to leave a comment below and if um. If there's a video topic that we don't have right now and it's something you'd be interested in, we'll probably add it to our list to make a video for in the future. So um always feel free to DM us here. Dm me personally, um Abby andrew.yt on Instagram and yeah. I hope this was helpful to you guys leave a comment below which of the wigs that I showed in this video was your favorite again. I will always have such a soft spot in my heart for the wigs that were my go-to wigs before I was comfortable talking about alopecia, because these are the wigs that everyone thought was like my own real hair growing out of my head, um Cody from Amore And Tatum for more, and it was just so nice. I remember one more quick story before I end this video. It is the funniest thing like I was saying before when I was in college and I wore Tatum, and I let everyone think it was my own hair. I was like trying really hard to open up to my one of my best friends at the time about it because she didn't know yet, because we had just met um that freshman year I like was in her room, and I was sitting with her and I Was so nervous because I was just gon na be like okay, I'm wearing a wig like it was such a big deal in my head, so I like built up the courage to be like okay. I want to tell you something I wear wigs and she just stared at me for a minute. She was like okay, like like for cosplay like where, where are the wigs like, where I haven't seen these wigs, she didn't get that I meant, like I'm literally wearing a wig right now. She thought I meant just like oh yeah, I wear wigs of times for fun, because my wig, in her mind, was so realistic and natural. Looking that, even though I was literally telling her I'm wearing a wig, she like didn't believe me. So that was a really nice experience and it was at least very um validating to know that, even though I was literally telling her in the moment, I'm wearing a wig. She still didn't believe me, so it's nice to know that there are such realistic, looking wig options. If you don't want to talk about it and you don't want people to know you're wearing a wig, there are these amazing options where you don't need to. Let people know, and if you do want to open up about it, that is amazing as well so again, if you ever need advice or have questions. Definitely DM me DM is here, send us comments about video requests and things like that and we'll be happy to make those for you.