While I know having a blog and Instagram pretty much highlights the highlights of life, I’ve been trying my best to keep things pretty real as much as possible – sharing the highs, lows and everything in between. And to be honest, I’ve been having a hard time with stress lately with work and beyond, and I’ve seen it’s nasty effects on my health and happiness over the past few months. I’m trying to stay positive and not be a bummer to any readers – but I do think it’s important to talk about the things that aren’t so glamorous, especially since I know I’m not the only one going through it too!

When work and life get overwhelming and stress starts taking over my life, my body’s reaction is to always start losing my hair. When I graduated from college many years ago and had my pre-quarterly crisis, I was so stressed out that I lost almost half of hair. And when you don’t know what’s going on after a slew of doctor’s appointments, it’s really pretty scary not knowing what to do. After a few months of my hair falling out (and inevitably cutting my hair shorter and shorter until I was rocking a pixie cut for the first time!), I was told I have stress-induced alopecia, which essentially is caused by a trigger that stresses out your body – and can last anywhere from 3-6 months depending on how bad your body is reacting. It was definitely a wake-up call for me, and it still happens at least once a year to remind me how important it is to take care of yourself, take a step back from the grind of the everyday, and give yourself the self-care to relax. About a month ago, my hair started falling out again, which I can chalk up to a new job and some stress I’ve been going through in my personal life. For stress induced alopecia, an event can occur months before you start to see your hair actually start falling out, so it’s hard to always know what the trigger actually is. And while every time it happens again it’s hard and adds a little more stress on my plate, I’m starting to get better systems and solutions to cope with it (and I’m learning that it’s not so uncommon, especially with women).

When Keranique approached me to share my hair loss story, I was a little hesitant because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to talk about something as sensitive as hair loss, and if that was putting myself out there a little too much. But I remember when I first started losing my hair how scared and freaked out I was – and how I searched the internet for hours to try to see if there was anyone else who was experiencing the same thing too. And believe me, blindly searching “hair loss” on the internet doesn’t yield the best results….don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom! So now that I’ve found a few things that work for me, I’m excited to try out Keranique in the next few months and I will share the progress I’ve made.  And I promise to share 100% real reviews of the improvement I see (if any!) and what other things I’m trying out to mentally relax to help the root of the issue too. Because being mentally healthy and happy is just as important as making sure you’re treating your hair too!

I’m hoping for any of you who’ve experienced hair loss in the past from stress can relate to this a little bit, and know that you’re not alone. And if you have any questions or need advice – I’m always here to lend and ear and share what’s worked for me in the past. And I’m excited to share my honest thoughts about Keranique in the next few months, so stay tuned. I’m hoping I have good news to share J xx

A special thanks to Keranique for sponsoring this blog post series! As always, all options are honest and my own.