I've spent thousands of dollars trying to love my hair.

When I actually stop and think about that sentence, it's almost laughable. Thousands. Not hundreds. Thousands. Hair extensions. Color appointments. Deep conditioning treatments. Expensive shampoos. Supplements that promised thicker hair. Hair masks. Heat protectants. Volumizing sprays. Texture sprays. Root lifters. Dry shampoos. You name it—I probably bought it, hoping this would finally be the thing that made me feel pretty.

The funny part is that if you asked me what I actually wanted, my answer was never outrageous.

I didn't dream of waist-length Disney princess hair.

I didn't need hair so thick I couldn't get a brush through it.

I just wanted... average.

Medium-density hair that could hold a curl for more than twenty minutes.

Hair that didn't immediately separate into tiny little pieces the second the wind blew.

Hair that didn't make me strategically choose every haircut because I already knew what it couldn't do.

Hair that didn't constantly remind me of what I didn't have.

It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.

But if you've ever hated something about yourself, you probably understand exactly what I mean.

Because this article isn't really about hair.

It's about wanting what we don't have.

I think that's one of the strangest parts of being human. We can spend years staring at ourselves in the mirror while mentally editing every feature. The girl with curly hair wants straight hair. The woman with straight hair spends forty-five minutes trying to curl hers. Brunettes want to be blonde. Blondes decide they'd rather be brunette. Women with thick hair complain it takes forever to dry, while women like me would gladly accept that inconvenience if it meant having a little more volume.

It's almost like we're hardwired to believe someone else won the genetic lottery.

I've certainly spent enough years believing that.

My hair has been baby fine my entire life. Not "kind of fine." Baby fine. The kind of fine hair that refuses to cooperate with almost every hairstyle you save on Pinterest. It doesn't hold curls. It falls flat within hours. If I cut it too short, it looks thinner. If I grow it longer, it can start looking straggly. Every color choice has to be carefully considered because darker colors sometimes make it appear fuller, while lighter blondes can make it look even thinner. Even after more than twenty-four years in the beauty industry, I still have to work with the hair I was born with.

And honestly?

Sometimes I hate it.

That isn't the polished ending people expect from someone who's worked in beauty for over two decades, but it's the truth.

I wish I could tell you I've reached complete acceptance.

I haven't.

The irony isn't lost on me either. I've spent most of my adult life helping other people feel beautiful while quietly struggling to feel that way myself.

If you've ever sat in my salon chair, you've probably heard me say something positive about your hair. I genuinely mean it, too. I love helping people find styles that make them feel like themselves. But somewhere along the way, I became much kinder to everyone else's reflection than I was to my own.

Maybe that's why this article feels important to write.

Because I don't think hair is ever just hair.

Hair carries identity.

Confidence.

Culture.

Femininity.

Youth.

Memories.

Some of our happiest moments are attached to our hair. Wedding days. Senior pictures. The haircut after a breakup. The first gray hair we discover. The haircut we immediately regret. Hair becomes part of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Mine has certainly been part of mine.

Over the years I've tried almost every type of hair extension you can imagine because I desperately wanted thicker, longer hair. Tape-in extensions were probably my favorite because they looked the most natural and caused the least amount of damage. Sew-in extensions were a completely different story. My hair is so fine that braiding it tightly enough to support the wefts created constant tension, and once the weight of the extensions was added, the breakage became impossible to ignore. I also discovered that having someone accidentally stab your scalp repeatedly with a weaving needle isn't exactly what I'd call a relaxing self-care experience.

Then there were beaded extensions.

If you have silky, baby fine hair, let me save you some money.

The beads slip.

A lot.

Gravity wins.

So does frustration.

Glue-in extensions?

Never again.

Removing them felt like my hair was participating in a hostage negotiation it didn't agree to. By the time they came out, I had breakage, thinning, and enough regret to last me until the next beauty trend convinced me I'd finally found the answer.

The only extension method that never actually damaged my hair was a halo extension because technically it isn't attached to your hair at all. It simply sits on your head. The downside? It's heavy, it makes my scalp itchy after a while, and eventually even that expensive piece of hair starts looking tired. Spending hundreds of dollars on something that slowly loses its magic isn't exactly the confidence boost I was hoping for.

The cruel part is that every time I removed extensions, I felt uglier than I did before I got them.

Not because the extensions were gone.

Because my own hair had suffered in the process.

For a little while afterward, it always looked thinner. Weaker. More fragile. I'd spend months nursing it back to health, promising myself I was done chasing thicker hair.

Until I wasn't.

Because hope is funny like that.

You convince yourself that maybe this next method will be different.

Maybe this next product will be the one.

Maybe this next appointment will finally give you the hair you've been dreaming about since you were a teenager.

Looking back now, I realize I wasn't really chasing thicker hair.

I was chasing the feeling I imagined thicker hair would give me.

There's a difference.

And I think that's where so many of us get stuck.

We convince ourselves that if we could just change one thing—our hair, our body, our skin, our smile—then confidence would finally arrive.

But confidence has a funny way of moving the finish line.

You finally become blonde...

...and suddenly you wish your hair were thicker.

You finally get extensions...

...and now you're worried people will notice they're extensions.

You finally grow your hair long...

...and then it breaks off because you've bleached it one too many times trying to achieve the perfect blonde.

Ask me how I know.

Because I've lived every single one of those chapters.

The blonde chapter was probably my biggest lesson.

I've wanted to be blonde for as long as I can remember. There was something about those bright, beachy blondes that always caught my attention. So I highlighted it. Then highlighted it again. Then again. Every appointment got me a little lighter, and every appointment took a little more from my hair. Eventually I got exactly what I'd been chasing.

I was blonde.

I was also breaking my hair off.

There's a strange irony in finally getting what you want only to realize it came with a price you weren't willing to pay. I couldn't have the long hair and the blonde hair my naturally fine texture couldn't support. Eventually my hair became so compromised that I had no choice but to cut it. Not just a trim. A real haircut. The kind where you look in the mirror afterward trying to convince yourself you love it while quietly wondering how many years it'll take to grow back.

That's the downside of having slow-growing hair.

Most people say hair grows about half an inch a month.

Mine apparently didn't get the memo.

Every haircut feels permanent.

Every mistake feels like a long-term commitment.

Every experiment requires patience I don't naturally possess.

I've joked for years that my hair grows at the speed of government paperwork.

If I decide I don't like a haircut, I'm going to be living with my life choices for quite a while.

Ironically, the only upside to hair that barely grows is that my gray roots don't show as quickly. Friends are scheduling color appointments every six to eight weeks, while I can sometimes stretch mine to three or four months.

It's not because I discovered some magical secret.

It's because my hair simply refuses to grow.

I'll take the financial savings, but I'd still rather have faster-growing hair.

Then there's the gray hair conversation.

Oh boy.

This is where the internet usually splits into two camps.

One side says, "Embrace it."

The other side says, "Color it."

I'm going to be honest.

I can't embrace it.

Maybe someday I'll change my mind, but today isn't that day.

I've had people tell me gray hair is beautiful, empowering, natural, and something to celebrate. I genuinely believe all of those things can be true for someone else.

For me?

Not yet.

Coloring my gray hair isn't about pretending I'm twenty-five.

It's about feeling like myself.

People often say, "You should just let it go gray."

What they don't realize is that beauty choices aren't always about vanity.

Sometimes they're about mental health.

Sometimes they're about confidence.

Sometimes they're simply about recognizing the person looking back at you in the mirror.

The funny thing is that gray hair does have one unexpected advantage. As hair loses pigment, it often becomes coarser. For someone with naturally baby-fine hair like mine, that means I could eventually gain some texture and body I've wanted my entire life.

So yes... my gray hair might finally decide to give me the thicker texture I've been asking for since middle school.

And I'm probably still going to color it.

Life is funny like that.

One thing working in the beauty industry has taught me is that almost every person sitting in my chair wanted something they didn't naturally have.

The brunettes wanted blonde.

The blondes wanted brunette.

The curly-haired clients wanted sleek, straight hair.

The straight-haired clients spent forty-five minutes curling theirs every morning.

Women with thick hair complained it took forever to dry, while women with fine hair dreamed about having enough hair to complain about.

Nobody seemed completely satisfied.

Including me.

I think that's because the issue usually isn't our hair.

Hair simply becomes the thing we project our insecurities onto.

For some people it's their weight.

For others it's their skin.

Their nose.

Their height.

Their smile.

For me, it was always my hair.

It became the thing I believed stood between me and feeling pretty.

Looking back now, that's a lot of pressure to put on a few thousand strands of keratin.

The biggest lesson I've learned over the years isn't a styling trick.

It isn't a product.

It isn't a magical supplement.

It's actually the exact opposite.

Leave your hair alone.

Seriously.

The healthiest my hair has ever been was when I stopped trying to force it into becoming something it wasn't. Every time I constantly changed the color, switched products, experimented because I was bored, or chased another trend, my hair paid the price.

My boredom probably caused as much damage as bleach ever did.

I'm a cosmetologist.

Hair is my art.

When you're creative, your own head becomes the easiest canvas to experiment on.

I'd color it.

Tone it.

Highlight it.

Change it again.

Then wonder why it wasn't healthy anymore.

Eventually I realized my hair didn't need another experiment.

It needed peace.

When people ask me what actually helped my hair recover, my answer usually surprises them.

First...

Leave it alone.

Second...

Use products that actually rebuild the hair instead of simply coating it.

I've tried countless treatments over the years, but if there's one product line that genuinely impressed me, it's Olaplex. There are other good products on the market, but Olaplex was one of the first that made me feel like I was actually repairing damage instead of temporarily hiding it. Combined with fewer chemical services and a little patience, it made the biggest difference I've personally seen.

And patience…

Well, that one is still a work in progress.

I wish I could end this article by telling you I've finally learned to love my hair exactly as it is.

That would make for a beautiful ending.

It just wouldn't be true.

I'm still jealous of thick hair.

I still wish mine held a curl.

I still occasionally look at extension photos online and think, "Maybe one more time."

Then I remember how I felt after taking them out.

I remember the breakage.

The thinning.

The disappointment.

The money.

The hours.

The hope.

And I close the browser.

Maybe that's what getting older is.

Not suddenly loving everything about yourself.

But finally knowing which battles aren't worth fighting anymore.

Hair has never just been hair.

It's been identity.

It's been confidence.

It's been creativity.

It's been frustration.

It's been insecurity.

It's been thousands of dollars.

It's been years of chasing a version of myself I thought existed on the other side of thicker hair.

I'm not completely free from that thinking yet.

Maybe I never will be.

But I'm getting better at recognizing the difference between wanting healthier hair and believing different hair would somehow make me a different person.

Those aren't the same thing.

And maybe that's the real beauty lesson.

Not that we should stop caring about our appearance.

Not that we should stop coloring our hair or buying products that make us feel good.

But maybe we should stop believing that confidence is waiting on the other side of the next appointment.

Because if there's one thing I've learned after more than two decades in the beauty industry, it's this:

Almost everyone wants the hair they weren't born with.

Very few of us realize we've been worthy all along.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is baby-fine hair so difficult to style?

Baby-fine hair has a smaller diameter than thicker hair types, which often means it struggles to hold curls, loses volume more quickly, and can appear flat or limp.

What helped your damaged hair recover the most?

Honestly? Leaving it alone. Fewer chemical services, less heat, patience, and using Olaplex consistently made the biggest difference for me.

Do hair extensions damage fine hair?

They can. While every method is different, fine hair often struggles with the added weight and tension. My tape-ins caused the least damage, while sew-in and glue-in extensions were the hardest on my hair.

Will you ever stop coloring your gray hair?

Maybe someday. Today isn't that day, and I'm okay with that.

~Tj🩷