(relaxed music)
- My whole saying is: Different is dope.
If there's something that makes you stand out,
if there's something that makes you not blend in,
be about it.
(gentle music)
I was born in a very small town in Montana.
I was just entering freshman year of high school.
And then one day in the shower,
I just started noticing handfuls of hair
kind of just fall out in the shower.
And it was shocking.
It was just confusing.
Like, "Why is this happening?"
It turns out that it was alopecia totalis.
So that is an autoimmune disease
where all of the hair follicles on your body
kind of fight themselves accidentally.
And then within about two months,
yeah, all my hair was gone.
It was wild.
It was really wild to go through.
Today there's an amazing, massive community of others
who have gone through this
and who we can connect online
without even really saying much.
I know that they know what I've been through.
At that point in time when I was really going through it,
there was nobody that I knew who looked like me.
I was a complete alien in my community.
Oh yeah, getting that tattoo.
So you can see the back,
that's what it was like.
It's a standard pattern with alopecia,
that it falls out along the sides first.
And then also down along the back of the head.
It was kind of this acceptance I think for me,
and it was the blowing of the dandelion leaves
was just like me,
I was getting ready to spread my wings
and leave my hometown and go off to college
and kind of like create my own path.
Makeup was a huge part of my life back then,
because I was trying to find a way to express myself
that was normal or that felt normal.
And to try and connect with some form of femininity,
because I did not feel that without my hair.
I always had had this passion for makeup,
and I was completely unsure
about how to kind of turn it into something real.
So I did some research,
and I completely fell in love
with John Casablancas Institute
in Vancouver, British Columbia.
In makeup school was the first time
that I had ever really seen an opportunity
for makeup to be taken seriously.
I had finally found this passion of mine,
and I had learned how to pay my bills doing what I love.
Like what else can you ask for?
In Vancouver, I met my soulmate.
I met Wade and he changed my life.
Wade is a host and adventure personality
and just all around incredible human.
He and I were working together,
just creating constantly, nonstop.
So in my life,
I was so happy.
My hair had grown back
over the past 10 years since high school,
and I had really gotten used to myself with hair again.
Good morning, guys.
It's about 4:00 AM in New York City right now.
I woke up at two o'clock in the morning
to get ready and head over to Fashion Week.
I got the opportunity to work at New York Fashion Week,
and I was really, really excited about it.
It was kind of one of those career pivotal moments.
But internally, I was completely freaking out
because my hair was starting to fall out again.
Having my hair grow back for that period of time
was kind of,
I won't curse,
but it was kind of a mindfuck.
When my hair fell out the first time,
it was really just the hair on my head.
And it kind of evolved
into this form of alopecia called alopecia universalis
where it takes all the hair on your head,
your eyebrows, and your lashes;
even the hair on my arm completely fell out.
Me being a makeup artist,
marketing myself as this, look,
as this person who was talented;
book me, here I am.
And then I was slowly losing that identity.
(Abby sighs)
This is just a two-clip weft.
And I'm just adding that right on top of that foreclip.
I think, for so long when I had fair
my success was also associated with how I looked.
And it's ironic because during that time
I was also so self-conscious.
I was so worried that someone would see the bald patch,
or the extension would kind of slip
and they would see the track in my hair extension.
And I was so worried
that it was just going to completely destroy me.
And little did I know,
it would change my whole life: my whole path.
- Hey, everybody.
So this week's a big week
because the love of my life,
what are we doing?
- We're shaving my hair off. It's time.
I have alopecia,
and it is just getting to the point
where I'm tired of hiding it.
So we're just going with the bald life.
- And we're gonna take some shots to cheers to it.
Hair or no hair,
Abby's gonna rock it like an absolute champ.
So yeah, let's shave it off.
- Wade was the one encouraging me to shave it.
He was like, "It's just hair. Who cares?"
And I felt the same way.
He took the clippers and cut a big piece off the top.
And I was like, "Oh man, we're committed."
And yeah, he shaved all of it off.
And immediately after that,
I felt more like me than I really had ever before.
(pensive music)
I was bare.
I was completely vulnerable and out there.
And it was a different phase of this relationship
that I had with alopecia.
It is a part of my journey, my story, my life.
It's a huge part of me.
So let's embrace it.
When we moved out to Los Angeles,
it's a weird city filled with lots of different looks.
And I was absolutely inspired
to just be my truest self and to not hold back.
But it really wasn't until 2020 when the world shut down
that I started really leaning into doing makeup on myself.
(upbeat music)
And that was also at a time
when I was really growing into my confidence with alopecia.
I wasn't wearing any wig.
I wasn't wearing a scarf.
Even, I was never covering my head up.
I was just kind of out there for the world to see.
I started to really express myself
through my artistry and my bald head.
I started to paint my head
and paint the sides of my face and down my neck.
And that was how I was communicating these emotions
and this whole experience with alopecia
was through my artistry.
And because of social media and the whole internet,
now I had this way to do that.
I began to teach online workshops.
I began to just offer my services
to people with alopecia for free too,
just to connect with them
and to chat through our experiences.
And I really started to form this community online.
I intentionally create all of my looks bald.
I don't use any wigs.
I try not to use very many hats or anything like that,
because I'm really trying to be a beacon of representation
for the bald community.
Through this online community and through social media,
I'm able to reach so many people
that I didn't even know existed before this.
And I had no idea anyone else even looked like me
or went through a similar experience.
And now here we are together.
Through losing my hair with alopecia,
I have really really come to understand over the years
that we're not meant to blend in.
That's really what I'm trying to do,
is to reach more people
and to show them that standing out
and being unconventional is really awesome.
I'm so happy with the woman that I've grown into today.
And I'm so proud of overcoming those challenges
that there's no turning back.