Hair Loss and the Ripple Effects on Confidence - With Kate Holohan

Hello and welcome to the podcast Building Confidence. My name is Sue Reed and I am your host. In this podcast, I discuss a topic relating to the area of confidence with a guest every week and so, with no further ado, let's jump in. Hair loss, for whatever reason, can be absolutely devastating. After all, your hair is part of your identity. My guest, kate Hollahan, is the founder of Hair Therapy. Hair Therapy specializes in Trichology. Now, kate has a background in hairdressing and education which spans over two decades. Kate combines her love of learning and self-improvement with her hairdressing and teaching skills to help people with their hair and scalp issues. When Kate realized that many hair salons don't have a trichologist or a hair specialist, she created her own dedicated course, hair and Scalp Salon Specialist, and the course aims to grow stylist confidence and understanding when facing hair and scalp problems their clients might need help with. So welcome to the showcase. It's lovely to have you here. Thank you, nice to be here. Really really interesting subject, I think. But first of all, could I just ask my normal question, which is what would you say your definition of confidence would be?

For me. I think it's probably changed quite a bit over time and I think my definition now it's more of like a kind of an assured feeling within yourself. So I would probably say if you asked me years ago, it would be someone who was a certain way like loud or brash or not afraid to kind of talk to people and go into a room and do things. But now I kind of feel like confidence is more of like an internal kind of knowledge within yourself. There's like an assurance there because just because you might be extroverted or willing to put yourself out there, sometimes the most extroverted people out there actually don't feel confident at all inside. They're just good at faking it or, you know, adopting that essence when they don't really feel it. So actually sometimes it can be someone very quiet that's not the one that's centre of attention that actually still can have that confidence. And I think it's more about a confidence in yourself and being happy in yourself and being content, rather than if you're trying to convince everyone that you're confident really, then probably you're really not.

I think that's just so true. Yeah, I'm so true, and actually something popped in my mind as you were saying that I was thinking about the other day that I was because I've always thought of myself as being really shy and I was quiet when I was young and I was shy did that mean I didn't have any confidence? I think everybody told me I wasn't confident and I think I believed it and I know like I went through a bad marriage as I say a lot on my podcast episodes and I know that did like really not my confidence, but I think had I felt more confident to begin with, I would have probably handled my marriage a lot better. But it just struck me a couple of days ago that I think it wasn't that I didn't have confidence. I think I did. It's just that I believe what everybody told me, that because I was quiet, I must be really shy and I must be really, you know, lacking in confidence, and I think you believe what you are, what you believe, and you believe what you're told basically. So, yeah, I totally agree and I also agree that sometimes the loudest people in the room are the people that are trying to convince you and themselves that they're confident when they're really not. They're really shaken inside.

Yeah, and I think that, like I say, over the years that's probably really changed for me. I've always really felt like a really confident person and yes, I am that person that if I go somewhere I'm normally the one that is networking with everyone, chatting with everyone, putting myself out there doing stuff. But that's more a personality trait for me and if you're an introvert or an extrovert, that might change over time. I think as people get older they might get a bit more introverted or more comfortable, maybe staying at home or more comfortable just in their own company. But I think confidence is completely different and it can change. It can grow or it can shrink, depending on who you're with, how they treat you, what they tell you, what you do believe yourself, which is a bad thing, but then also obviously a really good thing, because if you lose it you can always work to kind of build it back up.

So Definitely, yeah, definitely, and I think I've proved that that you can definitely Right. So, going back to your career, then I think a lot of people listening will be thinking what's a trichologist? I've never heard one of those, so what does that actually mean?

That's one of the reasons why I like to come on people's podcasts and try and kind of spread the word, because even when I began studying trichology, I used to say, when I'm training in trichology, and everyone would be like what's that? And to be honest, as you said, I mean I've now been hairdressing for 25 years. Probably for 18 years of that I'd never heard of it either so it's all around the study of the hair and scalp. So hair loss, hair and scalp concerns issues and going that little bit deeper. So you don't have to be a hairdresser or have any hairdressing background to be a trichologist. However, for me, I found it amazing, massive advantage to have had all that experience and all that understanding and just have had all that time seeing people's hair and scalps the whole time. I now feel that when people come to me with issues, I can actually give them answers as well.

And so what sort of issues do you deal with? What problems do people have?

Well, it's another really great aspect of the job. For one thing, you never know what you're going to get day to day, but you can literally see people from kind of one to 110. It's amazing, and it can be a lot of different aspects. So To me everything's kind of as important. So even someone came to me just because they had something like dandruff or a flaky scalp. You'd be surprised at how much that can impact someone's life. I mean, you talk about confidence. I've had patients come to me with seemingly insignificant issues like scalp flakes that they can visibly see in their hair beautiful, long, dark, thick hair telling me I can never enjoy my hair. I can never have my hair down because I'm always so self-conscious of it. So I've had everything from seven-year-olds with big bald patches alopecia areata to kind of 79-year-olds that have had problems with hair shedding to kind of everything in between. So if it's a scaling, scalp condition, an infection, hair loss, even hair condition. But quite a few ladies of a certain age come to me to say that, as their hormones are changing, their hair condition is either they're losing their hair or their hair condition is deteriorating rapidly because of all the changes that are going on. Yeah, so you know it's never a dull moment to me.

No, sounds really interesting. So I mean I was also thinking to myself, well, what sort of hair problems you know would really get to me? And I thought, well, if your hair falls out, you can wear a wig, and wigs, especially for women, are a lot better now than they were years ago. So I think I probably I mean, I don't want to lose my hair but I probably would be able to get over that, be able to manage it. I think so. I think the worst thing that I could possibly think of is if I had like really bad dandruff and flaking scalp and it was like all over me. I think that's kind of made me think well, that's something I would dread if I had that. So is that a problem you?

see? Yeah, absolutely, and especially things like psoriasis. You can have that. It can come right down your forehead seborrheic eczema or dermatitis. People get crusty eyebrows and flakes on their face as well. There's a lot of conditions. And there's another condition, which is called piti-riasis amiantacea, which comes from other scaling conditions, where it's almost like kind of adult cradle cap, where you get huge clumps of scaling that really kind of map your hair together and it's really obvious. So things like that I mean for a trichologist although we would hate to see it, in a way, we're like fabulous, we can really do something with this. So when someone comes in, we're like low key, like really excited, even though we understand it's not what the patient would want to have, because you can really do something about that. And I do feel for a lot of people, especially with things like psoriasis, because it's so visible and it must be so irritating kind of day to day. It's itchy, it's sore, you can have flare ups. You have to really kind of be conscious of maybe things you eat or your stress levels or what you do to try and manage it, and because of things like the state of the NHS and the fact that people are not aware of people like trichologists or even dermatologists, or they have maybe tried, or gone to the hairdresser and the hairdresser's gone. We've got this one shampoo and that's it. If that doesn't work, we don't know what to do. Unfortunately, a lot of people do end up suffering with things that are treatable just because they've not able to find the right solution. You go to Superdrug. You end up with a whole box full of products that don't work and you just think, well, this must just be my skin now. This is my life, this is how I have to live, and so it's amazing for people like me that can come along and go well. Actually, let's see if we can do something to change Something like psoriasis. I'm not going to be able to magically remove that from you forever, but we can certainly treat it to a point where it's not a daily issue for you and such a big concern and it's not the be all and end all of your life.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think something like psoriasis would be something I would really be upset about if I had that. So if I do, because my initial reaction, if I had a problem like that, my initial reaction would be to go to my doctor. Would a doctor then send you to a trichologist, or would they just give you a medication or something?

I would love that. I would absolutely love for doctors to even consider to refer someone to me or even recommend, or even mention the word trichologist would be amazing because, let's face it, it takes the pressure off them anyway If they can refer. Unfortunately, trichology is not hugely or widely available on the NHS, but we are here much like physios, osteopaths, you know, and other service providers where we can see people. We can see people quickly. We can spend a whole hour with someone really getting to the bottom of things. We can look at something in a lot more holistic way anyway that the doctors don't have time to do. If you're very lucky and you have a skin or scalp condition, you may get referred to a dermatologist if you're lucky. But from my experience with a lot of my patients, if they've been to the doctors for any hair loss or scalp issue I mean one patient in particular had two phone appointments for hair loss. They diagnosed her over the phone without ever even looking at her scalp or her hair. The first time the doctor said try this antifungal shampoo. And then the second time, when that hadn't worked and she went back again and they said oh no, we can only speak to you over the phone they said I'll try this steroid cream. So there seemed to be quite a kind of hidden hope approach to it, Whereas obviously, if they even said, well, look, do you know? I mean, I'm sure they do it with a lot of things If you went in with a frozen shoulder, they probably would say, oh, we can put you on the hospital waiting list for 18 months. They wouldn't necessarily say have you thought about in the meantime physiotherapy, yoga, you know, spa treatment or whatever. There's many, many different other options that they really just don't have the time to kind of explore with you or suggest to you. So a lot of people, by the time they come and see me, it's normally by default because they're in desperation. They've been searching around trying to find things. I would love to get to a stage where there's a lot more collaboration with people and I get more time as well, because I do. You mentioned wigs. I do cut wigs as well and I can help people select a wig, buy a wig, fit a wig if needs be. Anything toppers hair pieces, so I can give advice and help with that as well and make them a little bit more personalized to you. But eventually I'd love to build more relationships with people like hospices, oncology wards, cancer wards. It's more the charities that I find are open to collaboration and working. So there's charities that look good, feel better for people that have cancer, that would connect you with people that can help and support you, but unfortunately not only the doctors, because I've been in my local doctors and tried to give them some flyers and we all know what the doctors receptionists can be like. I felt like I might as well have turned my hands and thrown them in the bin myself because that's what she was going to do. So I have tried and it is getting better, but I still feel we've got a long way to go before a lot of kind of complementary therapies or treatments are actually even mentioned, which is a shame.

It is a shame, yeah, yeah, and like you say, well, at the moment, because of the state, the NHS doctors don't have time to talk about anything. Really, you get 10 minutes and you end up with a prescription. Yeah, 10 minutes. If you actually get an appointment in the first place, you end up with a prescription. So really it is a matter of self-help for people. I mean, obviously, with cancer, you have your chemotherapy and radiotherapy and you know your hair is going to fall out at some stage, so that's something you're expecting it. But with things like alopecia, as I understand it, then it's mainly caused by stress. Am I right there, or are there other causes?

So alopecia is kind of like a blanket term really for all types of hair loss. There are many, many different types of hair loss that happen for many, many different reasons. A lot of alopecia are multi-atealogical. So, although stress can be a huge factor, many times there are several things going on with a person in order for hair loss, and this is one of the actual shame about the fact that doctors don't always really take hair loss seriously, and I understand that there is not much provision for it on the NHS. However, to me, most forms of hair loss are a signal that there is something wrong in the body. So, be it high levels of stress, be it thyroid, be it a nutritional deficiency, hormonal imbalance, there could be many things that are happening in the body that have triggered hair loss. You don't just wake up one day and your body goes. I haven't really got the energy to make hair today. I don't think I really bother, you know, although in essence that's kind of what happens, it's because the body is depleted or there's something going on in another area. So if the GPs took things like psoriasis, flare ups and hair loss seriously and said, right, ok, well, this is actually probably a sign that there's something wrong. A lot of things then would be prevented. So say, for example, if you did have a really low B12 or iron levels, that can be. If you start to have hair shedding, that can be an example of, or a signal that that's happening. So, rather than it gets to the stage where you're literally can't get out of bed because you're so anemic and weak, that could be an early warning sign. So the fact that we kind of a lot of the time it gets dismissed as always only hair it's not important, even if it is from stress. Again, unfortunately, the doctors advice on that tends to be have you tried being less stressed or can you avoid stress, which is really helpful? However, that in itself, would you rather find that out at the point where you've lost some hair or would you rather find that out in five years time when you've had a heart attack? You know, it still is a signal that, for whatever reason, your body is not happy and that needs to be addressed. And really and I've had to force quite a few, we're not force, but suggest quite a few of my patients to actually go back to their GPS and ask for blood tests or ask for different blood tests or just not accept when they say all your tests are fine. Well, let's really have a look at those tests. Are they fine? Or are they on the very low level of what you consider manageable? Because to me I would rather have optimum levels, not just within normal range, or although you're not going to die from that.

Yeah, not, okay, this is all right, you're going to live. But what they should be saying, like you say, is they're on the low end. How can we manage that upwards, no matter where it is? How can we make that better? Which is where the holistic practice comes into it, absolutely, and also it would save the NHS money if they're making a referral Prevention.

Yeah, but unfortunately there are many, many, many areas where, with the NHS, where we don't have those measures in place to prevent things that we then end up having to really really pay for on the back end, even things like cervical screening. I got a letter through asking me to book one. I messaged my doctor. They said, oh, we've got no clinics running and available, we're too busy with short staffed, right. So if we're not being looked after on that front end and the problem is as well, which is again why I try to publicise as much as possible and let people know that I'm here hair loss is not something that you can leave and hope that it goes away, because there's normally only one resolution to that and that it's going to get worse. And so if it is met with early it's the same with skin conditions the earlier you can get something and treat it and manage it. Even I can't claim to cure everything absolutely not but in a lot of cases, the earlier your diagnosis is, the better your prognosis. It would be amazing if we could do that on every level, but sadly not at the moment.

So if people are taking care of themselves more than because I think we just rely on healthcare too much and I think we're getting to the stage where we should not be relying on doctors because they don't have the time, we need to kind of get to the bottom of it ourselves and get our own treatment. So what are the things that people should be looking out for and be doing as a matter of course anyway, particularly going into the winter where you've got the cold, harsh air on your hair?

Well, there's many for me within my clinic as well. If I'm going to give anyone advice on kind of hair care and looking out for stuff, what I always try and do is recommend small, manageable, achievable changes. So, even though on their own they may not seem much, the cumulative effect of doing lots of small, incremental, little changes that you can sustain is far more important than me saying, right, well, for optimum hair health, you need to do this and this and this, and you need to completely overhaul your life and change absolutely everything. There are many things that I would recommend. That would be the ideal. You know, if I thought right, what would my ideal person looking after the hair look like? There's many different things, but some things are not that important to some people or they don't want like not everybody wants to spend 20 pounds on a bottle of shampoo, so I understand that. But there are lots of things that you can do that that are achievable, that are easy to put in place, like drinking more water. That's something I always moan at most people about, because most people don't drink as much water as they could or should. So that's a really easy one, especially so what you may notice now with your hair as we're coming into colder weather is that your skin and your scalp might get drier, it might get a bit more irritated, it might get a little bit more itchy, and that again it can be for many things. So it can even be as simple as people might start wearing a woolly hat all the time and then they notice that their scalp's getting itchy, it's getting dry. Wash your hats occasionally, yeah. So a lot of people that wear woolly hats and they'll say, oh, my scalp's getting really itchy and there's a bit of buildup and I'm like how long have you been wearing that hat and how many times have you washed it? And the answer is normally months.

Wash it, yeah whatever.

Yeah, yeah. So you know. Consider things like that. If you're wearing a baseball cap all the time and it's rubbing on your scalp and you're sweating, that bacteria is ingraining itself into that material. So little small things like that. Silk pillowcases is another one. We all deserve a bit of luxury in our lives anyway. So silk or satin pillowcases will help stop the hair getting tangled or matted. It's also good, apparently, for your skin, for aging. So when again, a very small, easy change, you also would probably be a good idea to consider that your hair needs may change. So with shampoo, it's not really the case that you can be like well, I've used this for the last 20 years, so therefore it must work now because it did work then. Just as when you age, your needs for things like vitamins and supplements might change. What you should be eating might change your hair. In the winter maybe it might need a little bit more moisture, it might need a little bit more protection. It might be nice to do, maybe, a hair mask once a month on it just to protect from all the cold weather, or use a leaving conditioner or hair protector or even a very light kind of hair oil on the ends. But in the summer, maybe you wouldn't need to consider those things. So there are a lot of small changes to make. I could talk to you about shampoo and good shampoos and bad shampoos, and good ingredients and bad ingredients all day, but I would definitely say if you can invest in a professional brand of shampoo, even if it's on a lower end of the budget, a professional shampoo, rather than something that you buy in Tesco's on your weekly shop, will just have a lot more good ingredients, a lot higher level of the ingredients that it's marketing to you it's got in it and a lot less things like alcohol, sulfates, parabens and things that aren't generally good for us anyway, even if you feel that your hair's okay.

So is it like with food when you look at the ingredients on a tin of something, and if there's a whole load of things that you've never even heard of, then stay away from it? Would that be the same with shampoo?

Yeah, I kind of end up using this analogy all the time about sausages, which I apologize in advance. But I remember me and my friends last year we went on a holiday and we were shopping for food and she said, oh, I'm really trying to up my protein levels. So I was like brilliant. And she said, oh, should we get these sausages for breakfast for the morning, because we wanna get our protein up? And they were Richmond sausages and I said they're not high in protein. And she was like there's sausages, what are you talking about? And I showed her and I said to her look, I normally buy black farmer sausages. And I said, look, they're 97% pork. Richmond sausages are 43% pork. And she was shocked because what is it called A pork sausage? And she was shocked and she said, well, what's in there then? And I said wheat, filler, rust and a lot of other carbs, things that you don't want and you don't think you're consuming by buying a sausage. And yeah, it's exactly the same. So, on my course, we do about an hour on how to read a product label, how the marketing will spin that. So, like you say, if you look at a product label and it's got 27 products on it. And the 27th ingredient is argan oil. On the front of that bottle it will say argan oil shampoo.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and all natural ingredients yeah. Natural doesn't mean natural necessarily, does it.

No, and it's really difficult because it's really confusing. And then you do kind of think well, I haven't got time to go and stand in Tesco's and look for hours. But, like you say, if there's tons and tons of words on any product that you can't pronounce or understand or read, I mean to me natural doesn't end in OID or Ennardine, or it doesn't have a long enough name that I can't pronounce it. So that's a good idea. Also, a wonderful tip if you're looking at shampoos is most shampoos contain sodium chloride as a thickener Right, and they normally contain around about 2% sodium chloride as a thickener. So if you look on a bottle of shampoo and it says aqua because obviously it's normally 90% water, aqua, sulfate, perfume, sodium chloride and then 20 other things All those other ingredients are going to be less than 2 percent of that product. Sodium chloride, really the thickener Any active ingredients are going to be way up closely on that list. If they're not, then they're not really in there in a big enough amount to even do anything, unfortunately. So they do take advantage of that. There is quite a fun app that you can download called UCAR Right. You can actually scan food and products. Although it doesn't do wine currently, it will refuse, just as well it will not endorse wine, but you can scan products and it will tell you more. so they don't really tell you if the like a shampoo is good or not, but it will tell you if there's any harmful chemicals in there, what kind of risk there is to your health by using that product, and it can also then suggest other products that have a better level of safer ingredients. So it's quite fun to just go around and scan everything in your house and see how good it is.

Yeah, yeah. So what was that called? Why UK? Hey, you come. Why UK? Ok, I shall put that in the show notes.

There's a couple. I think there's one called think dirty or something which is very similar OK.

OK, I'll put that in the show notes. Yes, so another question I was going to ask you quickly was there's obviously there's a lot of people having cold showers now because it's the latest trend in in health. Is that good for?

your hair. I mean, it's not something that I would enjoy, however. So what happens? What we recommend actually, even when you're learning shampooing at a very, very basic level, is very, very hot water is not actually good for color longevity. So what actually happens is warmer hot water. The surface tension on the water actually lowers. So the reason why it's good to clean things in hot or warm water is because it lowers the surface tension of the water. So it means surfactants, so things like sulfates that you know, or detergents that can help you clean things, clean things more effectively because the water has got a lower surface tension. So it's not so resistant to kind of helping you clean something. So it's important when you wash your hair really to use warm water to get it cleansed effectively. But cold water can actually close down the pores and in your skin and the cuticles of your hair. So we do normally say at the end of a shampoo to cool the water down and just give it a bit of a rinse. It can actually add a bit of shine onto the hair and close all the cuticles down. So it can help with the shine and also a bit like detangling as well. So if you can face it, then I wouldn't say it was the worst thing to do. Supposedly it's very good for you. It's like I say, especially on a Monday morning it's not really something I'm interested in when it's cold already On a winter's day. If you can face it, it's supposed to be very invigorating, so go for it.

Yeah, I have just started actually, which is why I asked, and it's a shock when you get first get in, but actually when you get used to it, it's quite nice. It's quite nice and it's a bit, probably a bit masochistic, but I quite like getting really cold and then putting my clothes on and then warming up Because you're putting your nice warm clothes on.

Yeah, so if you've got time to get cosy afterwards, isn't it? Then it's good for you. Yeah, yeah.

OK, so you've won some awards recently, I understand.

I have indeed. Yes, thank you. So congratulations. Yeah, so I've. Most recently, I got the Bronze Award at the Health and Beauty Kent Awards. I got a health and beauty champion, which is amazing. Obviously, I'm still going to strive. I possibly will enter again next year, if I'm lucky enough to get nominated to try and get silver or gold. But again, I thought it was an amazing thing for not just me but for the profession of tricolourgy to start being recognised in the Health and Beauty Awards, where it's mainly things like hair beauty, aesthetics and hair loss doesn't really get considered. So it was amazing to be there and to be able to start to integrate with everyone else and kind of again, kind of be like I'm here, I can help people. What I love about tricolourgy is that a lot of the other people that were there so there was a medical massage lady there there are a lot of people that do a lot of medical tattooing, so things like areola tattooing, microblading, but for hair loss or cancer patients, not just for vanity. There was lots of people that were supporting people that had maybe been very ill or suffering. That worked really well with me so we could collaborate a lot and work together with people. So that was really lovely. Then, august, I attended the World Tricology Conference and there I was actually presented with an award from the Institute of Tricologists for the rising star, up and coming social media one to watch. So because when I started to study tricolourgy and everyone said what's that? I also decided to do my own podcast, which is the Hair Therapy podcast. Surprisingly, it's very hair based and I wanted to really give people an access to that information and also a kind of a resource so that if someone was, for example, experiencing hair loss and they felt that they couldn't even talk to their husband or their family about it and they felt really lonely and they were devastated and they didn't know what to do and they felt that they were going through it all on their own, that they could put the podcast on, sit in the car with their headphones on on their own, in secret, no one even know they needed to do it, listen to someone else who had gone through similar to what they were going through and maybe had come out the other side a better person for it. You know, listen to a bit of advice, get a bit of help and know that they're kind of not alone and that there are other people out there. So it was really really nice as well to get this recognition. I didn't even know I was going to get the award and to get the recognition for something that I was basically doing anyway, just to help people. So it was really nice to see that all the board of directors from the Institute of Trichology actually voted for me to get the award just because of me trying to kind of help people. So that's up on my shelf.

Yeah, it's amazing. First of many.

Well, second first two of many.

So if somebody needs to talk to you or wants to talk to you, listen to your podcast would be a good idea, so I'll put that in the show notes. And you're based in Kent, yeah, so you've got your clinic in Kent so people can always see you there, and then on social media as well. So what social media channels have you got? Pretty much everything.

I think. So I've got my website, which is hairtherapyukcom. I'm at Hair Therapy UK on Instagram and Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn as Kate Hollahan, I think, or Katie with a Y Clubhouse Threads anything If you look up, look me up you will probably be able to find me. I spend most of my time on Instagram just because it's more visual and I think most hairdressers love a visual aspect, and my mum's on Facebook as well. So I tend to not be on there too much because you know so. But, yeah, I'm happy if people do have any questions or anything, you can email me. You can have a look on the website, see what we do. I can do consultations over Zoom. If it's impossible for people to get to me, I can do it virtually. It's obviously much more effective to really be able to get my hands on someone's hair, but I can do a certain amount virtually. Some of our education as well. We do online and face-to-face training. So, depending on your location and preference, but people, if anyone wants to message me, then I will. If I see it, I'm more than happy to answer.

So, yeah, any way you can find me, you can message me, yeah yeah, so that message goes out to people that may be worried about their hair, maybe have hair problems, maybe just want to know how to look after their hair better, or hairdressers that are thinking gosh, this is something I need to know about. They can contact you as well.

Yeah, absolutely, and I've even set up a little Facebook group as well now for hairdressers that maybe don't want to go in. I mean, two and a half years of study is a hell of a lot and I get that some people just want to cut hair and make people look fabulous and be happy and that's enough. But I really do think that the amount that we are taught and the confidence that most hairdressers have in even mentioning to their clients if they see a bald spot or a skin condition is not enough and it can be helped. So I've got a little Facebook group that you can join if you're a hairdresser, if you're interested, where you can kind of in a private space, post up a client's you know a photo of a client's issue and kind of say what can, is there anything I can do? What can I tell this client and start to grow their own confidence? Because again, I think, coming back to your original question one of the things that gives us more confidence is knowledge and experience. So, and a lot of the reason with hairdressers why they don't want to approach any hair or scalp problems is because they don't have that education around it.

Yeah, yeah, because if they mention it then the client's going to say, well, what do I do? And then they're stuck because they haven't got a clue what you do. Yeah, You're a doctor.

Yeah. So and, like I say, even just knowing. So, I was actually discussing this the other day with my fellow graduates and we said, you know, if you say to a client, say a client has got alopecia patches, and they say, well, what do I do? And you say, well, I'm really sorry, but I don't know, I don't have any answers for you, if you said to that client, I'm really sorry, I don't know, I don't have any answers for you, but I know that there's a trichologist called Such and Such who you should go and see. You're not giving them any more help or information yourself and yet it still makes you look like a knowledgeable professional because you're able to sign post someone. So it's not about having all the answers or having all the knowledge and knowing everything, but I don't think there's any harm anyway, especially if you're in a salon or business, to build a network of other local complimentary professionals. So, as a hairdresser, it would be really good idea to know someone who maybe does wigs if you don't do it or hair extensions. It would also be maybe a good idea to even know a nutritionist, you know, because nutrition plays a far bigger part in hair health than we sometimes like to admit there's nothing wrong with knowing even a dermatologist. You know if you've got, if you get a lot of clients that come in with skin complaints or scalp issues and you happen to know a dermatologist that's really nice or knows a lot about the scalp, then you're not actually physically doing anything more for that client. You're just not leaving them out there to fend for themselves with you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's a much better service as well. At the end of the day, much better service, brilliant. Well, it's been absolutely lovely talking to you. I've learned a lot myself, so I'm sure the listeners will have yeah, so thank you very much for being here. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening today and your continued support. Please come back next week for a new episode. You could also subscribe if you want to, and then you won't miss any future episodes, and you could also follow me on Instagram at suread1905. Thank you.