Hair Loss and Hats

“For a young girl, in a school uniform, hair is usually the only defining feature indicating femininity. At least my old blue hat had a bow, which screamed: ‘I am a girl’.”

Children have varied comforts or things they attach protection to. For many, it’s a teddy bear or some other sort of comfort. But for me, since I was about 7 years old and started a new school, it was hats. I don’t think anyone expected my attachment to be quite so distinct, but from the age of 7 to 11 it was, until I found a new protective solution. For over 4 years I wouldn’t be seen in any public place without my hat. Literally, I even competed in school swimming competitions with my hat on. Back then swimming caps were not cool to wear! I remember one of my teachers offered me $50.00 (basically $1million to a young child) to remove my hat for one minute, but I was smart and I knew that if I removed my hat briefly, I would have to remove it all the time…or maybe it was the fear of having to remove my hat that prevented me from doing it! I like to think that even at a young age, I was smart enough to not be lured to do something for money.

My Experience:

For the ages of 7 to 11, I attended a small country school, along with my older brother and sister. I think because it was a small school it allowed me to get away with wearing my hat everywhere.  I must’ve driven my teacher’s nuts, especially every school photo day, where my hat would stand out.

During this time I basically had two different hats (and many duplicates of the same hat, of course). For years I wore a blue denim full brimmed hat with a denim bow on the front. The second hat was a black velvet woven hat with a thin stuffed brim. It was more like a beanie (toque if you are Canadian) than a sun hat, and a desperate purchase because no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find a new denim hat, to replace my very worn and loved previous denim hat.

I remember hating my black hat, it fitted my head extremely well, I recall once pissing my teacher off, who responded to say “sometimes I would like to take your head and kick it down the field, your head looks like a ball”. Another time, I was fetching the mail, and the local mailman called me son. Son! I was rightfully annoyed and equally scarred. For a young girl, in a school uniform, hair is usually the only defining feature indicating femininity. At least my old blue hat had a bow, which screamed: “I am a girl”. I am a bit of a hypocrite and around the same time the mailman called me “son”, I asked why boys were wearing skirts to school- The boys wearing skirts were actually girls who became good family friends, and whose mother had shaved their blonde locks off because they were harvesting nits. Hair is an international symbol of femininity, and growing up without it, even briefly can be scarring. If you’re like me, you always avoid stating what gender a baby is because it is so easy, and offending, to get it wrong. I recommend doing the same with children where their gender is not obvious- spare them some scar tissue!

While I am far less reliant on hats now, I still wear them and use them to cover up my bad hair days or to add a bit of style. Hats allow you to keep hair around your face, so you don’t look bald….unlike the many headbands I wear, which pushes the hair away from my face sometimes leaving me to appear bald (especially my favourite tan one!). It may go back to my ingrained feelings from when I was a child, but I feel that I look much better with a hat on my head.

The faults with Hats:

Hats, however, aren’t without their faults. I have lost count of how many times that hats as a solution has gone wrong and been down right embarrassing, or bought me to tears. When I was younger, my hat would be pulled off by kids, trying to be cool, or just curious about what I was hiding. Almost every time it would make me cry. Some days I would try and be prepared for it, and style what hair I had with hair gel, or I would stain my hair with food coloring or pastels- however, kids never seemed to take my hat off on those days. Even now, with years of experience, I still get caught in awkward situations, however, I usually laugh (while dying slightly inside haha) instead of crying. For example, I wore a black velvet Panama hat out to the pub one night. They were all the rage and I thought it looked great with my outfit. It fit snug on my head, on top of my wig. While on the extremely packed dance floor, someone grabbed my hat. A very common move on the dance floor and one I have used on others many times to start a conversation or whatever….except one doesn’t usually expect a wig to come with it. In this situation it did. It all happened so quickly, yet I can see it in slow motion. The safe snugness that was tightly wrapped around my head was gone, my arms flung up to stop it, but they were too slow. His face was in pure shock. My hat and hair were on the ground. I just blinked. We stare at each other shocked, for what feels like forever. I can feel others steer also. I bend over and shove my hat and hair back onto my head. I briefly laugh, grab a friend’s arm and run straight for the bar. I laugh about this situation now and also use a tonne of bobby pins to better secure my wig to my head, but it is definitely an experience I would not wish upon anyone.

If you want to read more about my experiences growing up with alopecia, check out my previous post ‘Introducing Alopecia Alicia’.

Hats are a great partial solution, but best when teamed up with other solutions.

What ‘interesting’ stories have you had with hats? C’mon share them, I would love to hear them and how they compare to the many others I have.

Hats for hair loss make a great partial solution. Hats for costumes. I love hats. The dilema’s of wearing hats for hair loss. Hair loss issues with hats. What you should know before relying on hats as a hair loss solution. Hats for alopecia.