Emily Hough

For those who are unable to view the video, prefer to read, or who have difficulties in hearing, this is a transcription of the video

Emily

Hello, my name's Emily and I'm sharing my story for the Lucinda Ellery True Beauty campaign.

The reason I'm sharing my story really is because it's a sort of confidence boost for me to be able to share something like this. It's something that I've always hidden throughout my life - the only people who really knew about my hair loss was family and close friends. And I just sort of think why should it be hidden - at the end of the day it's a part of me. It's not something I can change, it's not something that I can just click my fingers and grow it back. It's stuck with me for life and I suppose it's time to start being comfortable with that sort of fact.

Thankfully I've always had a Lucinda Ellery Intralace System, so basically none of this is mine, and I've had that since I was 17 and I'm 24 now. And the only reason I actually ended up getting it is because my mum was reading one of her really old magazines, and she said "look at this advertisment, I've seen this, do you think they could maybe do it with your hair?" and I went "Oh god, I doubt it - nobody else can help me through it, nobody else has offered any support."

You know I'd been to my GP and he sort of went
"Yeah you've lost your hair"
and I was like
"is there anything you can do?"
and
"no, nothing we can do"
and I was like
"great, back to square one".

And I came for a consultation with Lucinda and I was like, I was blown away - how on earth are they making these ladies' hair look so nice, and even sometimes when I was getting it done I was in disbelief, like "it still won't look as nice as their's - it won't look as real as their's", and when I very first got the system on I said to my sister "it looks like a wig doesn't it, it looks like a wig" and my sister was like "are you insane?"

I suppose losing my hair for all those years really did knock my confidence, and now that I've grown with the Intralace System I'm like "how ridiculous were you , back then, thinking that this looked unreal?" when it did look unreal but in a different way - it was beautiful, it's still beautiful.

My hands are a bit shaky - I'm not used to recording myself really - so I'm doing something new.

I suppose when losing my hair, one of the hardest things was the bullying that came with it. I was only 13 when I lost my hair, so obviously 13 is a hard enough age anyway for young kids and then also throw in hair loss with that was just, it was just naff it really was. I used to have kids who would come up behind me and they'd pull my hair, just to see if it would come out. I look back now and I think I hope you realise who you were - it was so cruel to do that to a kid, but you know I came out the other side of it, and it happened, there's nothing I can do about that, life's changed and now I've got this sort of new-found confidence which is just amazing really.

One thing I would say to women, everywhere, is that your hair definitely doesn't define your worth. You know if you have lost your hair there is absolutely no shame in it - lots and lots of women do - there's no shame in having an Intralace System, there's no shame in using root cover-ups to try and cover patches that you might have lost, there really isn't. For quite a lot of women it is normal, it is something that unfortunately does happen to even young girls, young women, young men. It happens to a lot of the population and you wouldn't realise what - you're not alone is what I suppose I'm trying to say.

One other thing I did really try to combat was the taboo of wearing a hair system - I was like "I can't wear false hair" I used to think I can't wear a wig, but then I was like "it's not a wig and there's nothing wrong with wearing a wig either" but then I thought, well how many girls have hair extensions? How many girls have hair thickener put in, they have like little extensions put in to thicken the root, and we're always striving to make our hair look nice so why should I feel such shame accepting help for it? I can't even answer why because I just don't know, I just did.

One thing I would say is don't be scared to seek help - like I said lots of people do lose their hair, it's just something that happens, and seeking help is sort of the first stage, because you might find some things that can prevent your hair loss or prevent it getting any worse, it could even be like a medical imbalance. It really does need seeing to because your bod is such an amazing thing that even the slightest little small imbalance can cause problems like that. So definitely do seek help.

One other thing I would defintely say would be the absolute new-found confidence I have - it's not new-found now, I've been wearing the system for about 8 years now, but the confidence I have in it is unbelieveable, I mean I'm an MMA fighter, I do, I'm amazed is basically what I'm trying to say. I'm not necessarily a fighter as such 'cause I'm not that good, but I do boxing, I swim, I'm quite a active person and I absolutely love holidays to the beach and going in the water and dipping your hair under it - it's something that I've never had to stop doing; which I think is just so important because keeping hobbies and stuff, especially in the current climate is really important to do.

My final kind of pointer I would say is, well my final thought, is I just wanted to show you how good what I have actually is; you can see all the way round my head, just absolutely beautiful, and this is the Manchester studio by the way, I can't thank them enough. Even when I come in and say "guys, please I want my hair dyed purple" and they're kind of "oh, god, not again!" they're so accepting and so kind and I still come out of the salon feeling normal and feeling like I really had a good pampering like any other woman would in a salon, and that is also really really important.