Articles

Holistic Hair Care – How to Minimise Hair Loss and Optimise Hair Health!

me&my health up podcast episode #51 – Transcript

Anthony Hartcher 0:01
Welcome to another insightful episode of Me&My Health Up with your host Anthony Hartcher. A healthy man according to his kids, aka clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist.

The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being, and today we’ll be chatting with hair specialists, Shauna Casey and Danielle O’Carroll on hair loss. So you may be thinking, why hair loss on a health podcast? Well, let me share with you why it’s not self service because I’ve lost all my hair. It may be that I don’t want you to lose all your hair or simply the hair plays an important role in our looks, detoxification, scalp protection, whatever it is, it is for you or someone you know, enough of this justification. Let’s get on with the show because I know Shauna and Danielle will entertain you with their passion for your hair.

Welcome, Shauna. Welcome, Danielle.

Shawna Casey 1:03
Thank you.

Danielle O’Carroll 1:04
Thank you.

Anthony Hartcher 1:07
You’re welcome. I don’t know a lot about these two except they’re hairdressers or previously hairdressers, and now in a different space of holistic hair care. I do know they’re Irish. So it will be fun. Just because you’re chiffon provided I’ve got the Irish part, right. Yeah, and so we may need subtitles at times, but it should be, It should be good for the guys so let’s, let’s get Shauna and Danielle to share why they’re doing what they’re doing today.

Shawna Casey 1:43
Yeah, thanks a million for having us on, we feel very privileged to be able to speak on your podcast today, and just in time for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. So I’ll say a little bit about myself.

I’m Shawna Casey, and I’m a hairdresser I trained in Ireland, in 2007. I did my training course in college in Waterford city, in Ireland and um I, I came out to Australia over 11 years ago now, and I just found that within the hair industry that we weren’t doing enough in the hair salons for hair loss clients, me myself, I have polycystic ovaries, which one of the side effects or conditions or symptoms of that can be getting fine thin hair and I was always looking for more volume with my hair.

So I was always searching the market for either products or extensions, you know, for my own insecurities really around my hair, and then I was looking over at Europe and Ireland and the UK, on what they were doing for hair loss clients within the hair industry, and they just seemed to be much further ahead on looking after hair loss clients and then I ended up finding a company in Denmark, where we have products here where we educate other hairdressers on how to make safe spaces, first of all in the hair industry or in the hair salons and be able to give more services for our hair loss clients, and then I’ll let Danielle Introduce yourself.

Danielle O’Carroll 3:40
Similar background on hairdressing for over 16 years now I’ve trained in Ireland and kicked Australia in 2008, and, again, I found that there were no solutions in the salon, I felt really stuck at times and I don’t do anything unless I believe in it. So I’m not going to recommend something unless I know it has results. I am very holistic and my approach to things and Shawn and I bought work the company that way.

We’re really holistic and I too have polycystic ovaries, but I have too much hair. So I actually have the reverse problem to Shawna. So it was interesting that we can both come together and approach this the way that we like to approach things the way we’ve done things ourselves, and so yeah, that’s kind of how I got into this and Shawna founded in two and a half years ago and brought me into the company last year and I been loving it. It’s just so rewarding to actually change someone’s life to hair and that’s literally what we’re doing. I love the hairdressing aspect of it, but this is extremely rewarding.

Anthony Hartcher 4:50
Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, just from that people get very self conscious when they start to lose hair, and I think what I’ve really connected with In terms of what you guys do is how you mentioned the word holistic and very much, I’m a holistic practitioner, and so I would really like you to share with the listeners as to how you take that holistic approach around hair, hair loss and hair care.

Shawna Casey 5:16
So, basically, what we always say is mind, body, hair connection, and we feel like in the salon that we can be first point of call, where we spot things and you know, like, main causes of hair loss can be stress, and we know with stress-related, it can be reversed. It can be hormone imbalance, it can be, you know, it can be just a multitude of things where we can take a holistic approach to it in the sense of, you know, our foods like people become allergic to things like dairy, a lot of the time we look at where, you know, we’ve seen studies before, where very was caught out of a child’s diet and hair started growing back.

So that’s really important was we can actually simplify it down, where someone doesn’t need to be taking as much medication and we are doing a combination of both, but looking at the mind, and the body aspect of what’s going on with our hair, because it has a massive connection as a whole, and, you know, this is why I trained as a hypnotherapist I am, you know, just constantly educated myself more on how the mind works, and how that can have such a massive effect on, on our hair and, yeah, we’ve just been introducing that into the hair salons as well on how we can reduce stress like meditations and food and just taking an easier, more holistic approach to getting healthy hair really.

Danielle O’Carroll 7:06
To train zones and Reiki like Sean and I are both trained and having that awareness when you are behind someone that is going through a lot to protect yourself and protect your client. So that’s another approach that we like to use with this as a year.

Anthony Hartcher 7:21
So I’ve actually never interviewed a Reiki practitioner and you’re both Reiki practitioners. So that’s a really good subject to touch on at this point, and you know, to explain to the listeners, what is Reiki how it works.

Shawna Casey 7:37
So Reiki is energy work. So we’re all we are all made up of energy, everything is energy, and our bodies, we get lots and we’ve got chakras in our bodies, and we can transfer energy between each other, and when we’re in the hair salon with somebody for such a long period of time, you know, somebody who’s got like a really low level of energy, or they’ve got a lot of blocks in their system.

You know, it could be from traumas it can be from, it can be from a multiple of things and it’s just protecting your own energy or being able to, you know, give energy work to your, your clients as well to help with those blocks, which, you know, overall, then will make you feel healthier, not just what your hair, you know what your skin, your energy levels will be better and so that’s what we want to like, make sure that we’re teaching our hairdressers that they know that we’re, we are giving our energy while we can be so drained sometimes, like not just from physically working, but people taking our energy from us during the day.

So that’s where we trained in. In Reiki, we really believe like I get energy worked on all the time and, you know, it just really does work.

Anthony Hartcher 9:00
Yeah, because I can imagine as a hairdresser, you, you hear a lot of issues, right that people are experiencing, and they share those issues and, and hence why you need to protect yourself from taking on too much of that energy because it will obviously affect your energy as a result of that. So how does Reiki actually work in this energetic space? I’m intrigued.

Shawna Casey 9:26
So with Reiki, it’s been around for thousands of years in the sense of, you know, I feel like we oversee the transfer of energy and you know, a lot of people will think our people that don’t understand it will think it’s woo-woo in a sense, but if you start working on your own, on your own self, you’ve got to first heal your own self and work through your own blockages.

I actually started my journey with energy work in the transformation from within and Maru bruh it was a lady called Alackey where she started working on some blockages, energy blockages that I had and started working on my chakras and, you know, their seven chakras, both up to 12, and if they get blocked, or like, you know, so you’ve got a heart, your heart chakra and if your heart chakra is blocked, and just releasing the blocked energy around that, when you train as a practitioner, you can help your client to work through their blockages and from that, then they start getting results.

So it’s a transfer of energy.

Anthony Hartcher 10:40
And it’s it doesn’t require touch, right? It’s done at a distance is that right?

Shawna Casey 10:45
You can do both, it just depends, but you can do the distance. Reiki, once your client is in agreeance of that, you can do distance Reiki, or you can do with touch well.

Anthony Hartcher 11:01
So with respect to distance, I was thinking it’s the hand not actually touching the skin, or were you thinking of the telehealth sort of Reiki.

Danielle O’Carroll 11:12
So you could do both. So I just think for in the salon, when it comes to hand touching, like at the head massage basement, that’s your best place to really connect with your client in terms of doing Reiki, and they’re giving you at least 15 minutes, and they’re very happy to have their head massage 90% of the time.

So in terms of if people are uncomfortable with touching you, that can be your opening, to extracting them on their journey, and then you can continue to do it in the chair with or without touch, but making always making sure that they’re aware of what’s happening, and never doing it under without any consent.

Anthony Hartcher 11:48
And that head when you’re working on the head, I assume that’s head chakra, right? A crown is it and what implicates that and so you know, what could cause a blockage in the crown chakra.

Shawna Casey 12:04
The crown, in particular, the Crown heart, you’ll see, we are normally always in our head because we’re speaking all the time. So you know, you can see we’re like, you know, we’ve, we’re just in such a fast pace of life, especially in Sydney here, you know, it’s such a fast-paced life, and there’s so much demanded from us now, whether it’s from, you know, kids, or work or whatever it may be.

So you can imagine how much pressure we put on our brains and our crown chakra that, you know, and just releasing some energy around there, and just overall de-stressor and the same with the heart chakra, you know, it’s such a powerful, like, our hearts are such a powerful thing. It’s like our second brain, and, you know, when our chakras do get blocked, it shows up in our life in, in different ways and, you know, it’s different for everyone.

So, you know, just working on your overall energy has a major effect on your hair, and, and like, like we say, our, your mind body hair connection, you know, it’s, it’s huge, you know.

Anthony Hartcher 13:21
And what have you seen in your time off, you know, supporting clients holistically. So, in terms of, you know, have you got a client success story to share?

Shawna Casey 13:33
As in, in, in what sense like that has been having, say, energy work, or because we do just such a multitude of things. So, I’m just with energy work in particular,

Anthony Hartcher 13:46
Yeah we’ll start with energy and we’ll just talk about some other integrative care where you’ve done Energy, plus products, you know, plus other stress management techniques, or yeah, just, you just share a client. Now, it could be personal, or it could be a client that had great success through this holistic approach that you take.

Shawna Casey 14:11
So basically, the first thing that we find really important at the moment is appearance, recovery, like our hair has become so important to us and we find with the hair that we can give back to our clients and the appearance recovery and can give back confidence, and it can give people back, it can really change somebody’s life where you know, by giving them the confidence they can go out and live a normal life, which overall will have a massive effect on their body so it will distress them from stressing out over their hair, and what we’ve seen is when you can de-stress somebody by just giving them hair initially for the appearance recovery, and it is de-stresses them which has a knock-on effect like ripple effect for everything else and we’ve got like so many stories.

Danielle O’Carroll 15:05
We know, one lady that particular this, I mean, none of her family even know she has hair loss, we’ve created a custom made piece for her. So that she doesn’t have again, this is appearance recovery isn’t mean the energy work it is mainly the hair, but just in terms like she flew from Perth to Sydney and back just to get this hairpiece, but she can’t get it anywhere else, and this has changed her life because she can swim with this piece on, she never has to take it off, that was a big thing for her.

So these are small things, but that swim is your daily routine, that’s your cup of coffee like that’s something she needs every day, we’ve given her the ability to swim every day without taking her hairpiece off cos when she took it off, she’s she was reminded every time that she’s got hair loss. So to be able to have that like that was really touching for her in terms of appearance recovery.

Shawna Casey 16:06
Status, like even if we weren’t giving somebody hair, it’s creating that safe space for clients to come into the salon. So you know, we’ve got another young girl that has had Alopecia since she was a child and she has some hair left, or, you know, we say to her, why don’t you leave that go on, that’s not forever, we’re like, maybe you can have some color services done and we just gave her some funky colors, and, you know, just having fun, like actually letting her come in.

Like, that’s what we say whether you’ve got hair, or you don’t have hair coming in, and having these services can make you feel so much better in a hair salon. So, you know, even if you don’t have hair come in and be able to still get your head washed, and, and you know, that’s honestly that’s one thing that all our clients are always saying to us, this is my favorite part, you know, it’s their favorite part, bringing them to the break and to the base and, and getting them to sit there and take 10 or 15 minutes and I know it might sound like a lot of time, but honestly, people don’t give themselves 10 or 15 minutes to just relax and let somebody you know, massage them or you know, give them some energy work and, and that in itself can be life-changing for clients.

So like what we want is because there’s not enough of myself and Danielle to go around, what we’ve done is we educate other hairdressers and hair salons to a very high standard of creating safe spaces within the salon so that clients will feel comfortable to be able to go into the hairdresser and approach them with their concerns about their hair or, you know, like we our hair therapists at the end of the day, calling us therapists for many years, but we genuinely are.

So even if it’s just to come in and have a chat with the hairdressers and like that can just be an off sometimes for some of the clients. Like Danielle was saying, you know, some of them, some of the clients that we’ve had, don’t feel comfortable taking or taking a hat off in front of their husband or their wife our kids are, and we’re there to support them if they want to just come and have a chat.

You know, we’ve done we had another lady that gave us a testimonial not that long ago where she wasn’t even in the same state and we just got on a zoom call with her and you know, she just cried the whole way through the consultation or she said it was the first time she’s in her 50s It was the first time that she’d actually spoke to anybody about her hair loss and it had been going on for years.

You know, and that’s just very touching to us. The people are reaching out to us for help when we can train other hairdressers so that you know we can have these clients just feeling safe that they can come to us for help.

Danielle O’Carroll 19:12
And one of our salons come in and she wasn’t ready to have a hairpiece. Yes, I think it was our first time ever speaking like that. It’s like zoom called anyone and she physically came in with someone, but even opening that conversation for her like she wasn’t ready to have a hairpiece and I don’t even think she was really ready to talk about it much, but the fact that she knows she can go back there again.

She’s already been there once it’s just opening opportunities and they don’t feel so alone and that’s really what our aim is, is to have safe spaces for anybody with any type of hair loss.

Anthony Hartcher 19:48
Fantastic, and I really like this term safe space, and I guess my next question is going to be in relation to how you create that safe space because it’s, you know, really effective and terms are how you connect with your client and help them at that deeper level and really support that energy healing, so to speak because you get them to come out with the problem, and you start working with the problem, as opposed to suppressing it, and therefore, you know, suppressing our energy.

So, I’m really keen to find out, because I mean, this is not only in the context of hair loss, this is, you know, with mental health is so important that we are able to create safe spaces. So please share how you generate that safe space in practices and how you educate other hairdressers to create that safe space?

Shawna Casey 20:39
Well, first of all, we don’t give our products, to anybody unless they’re educated first. So that’s keeping a high standard, and we also pick the salons that we want to have the product in and store our hairpieces in what we do is in level one, and level two, of our education, we make sure, first of all from, from having those meetings, before they do our education, you know, we need to make sure that they’re in alignment with our core values in the company and our core values.

Number one is the client experience, I said, you know, there’s no point in having anything there to give to the client, if they don’t feel welcome when they come. So, you know, it might seem like common sense, but you know, we’ve all encountered bad customer service before and we want to make sure that the hairdressers really want to be passionate about listening to what’s going on with the client.

So, you know, training the hairdressers on, you know, if you do have a really busy salon, then maybe you need to open it and open your salon on a different day to give privacy.

So maybe it’s before hours or after hours or on days that are close, you need to have certain times that’s one way of creating a safe space where a client doesn’t feel like they’re going to have to walk into a really busy salon and talk in front of you know 10 other people, not because when we talk about hair loss, we don’t talk about just say Alopecia, you know, and we do a cancer care program as well.

And it’s like, you know, is making sure that we’ve got our hairstylist or hairdressers equipped with as much as, as much knowledge as they can, not putting your problems on to the client, you know, letting the client quiet and talk and, you know, expressing whatever they need to express without having any judgment or matter what it is and, you know, there’s, there’s just so much in our education, where it all comes back to then it is a safe space.

You know, it’s all those tiny little elements of giving the privacy and being a good listener and, you know, referring your client out if you can’t do anything, you know, we’ve got referral partners, and, you know, we pick a referral partner, and we scrutinize them too, like, we’ve had many meetings with refer and partner before, you know, we work with functional medicine practitioners try colleges, and, you know, picking holistic people that if we don’t have the answers, working with experts in the field being like, Okay, we’ve created a safe space in the salon and we won’t have the answer, because, you know, we don’t have the answer for everything.

Well, you know, we also work alongside these people that, you know, they might be able to help them pass them into the right hands of people that are in alignment for what we do. So that’s how we’re creating the safe spaces in Salon.

Note, is there’s anything you want to add to that, because yeah, you know, there’s there is so much more, and I could probably talk all day, what it does seem very simple, what I’ve said, but that’s the key factor of, you know, not feeling like your client is an annoyance or just someone that you’re going to force a product down their throat, that’s not what it’s about, we genuinely like I said, want to make sure that the whole client experience, even if the client walks out and you couldn’t give them anything that day, you can just create that safe space for 10, 20, 30 minutes for them to come in and express themselves that will have a massive part to play in their journey of their hair loss.

I’ll give you one example of a child of creating a safe space. We had you know really traumatized 14 year old going through hair loss and she was after getting scissors and like just cutting massive chunks out of her hair and you know she’d been actually, I was after giving the parents I’d had meetings with the parents and her and, and she used to be like ringing me or texting me like 12 o’clock on Saturday nights and you know, all of a sudden she’d like got to the stage of where like she just wanted to shave her head and you know shaving somebody said can be quite traumatic.

So I went and picked her up because she had reached out to me for my help I checked in with her parents, you know, was it okay? You know, to maybe shave her head that day, I don’t like going against what the parents don’t want but I, I brought her in and you’re not taking a razor and just turning that on and she started freaking out looking in the mirror, she started freaking out cuz she was wearing a hat, which take her hat on, she started freaking out.

So like, I covered the mirror, you know, and watching your client and making sure that you’re, you know, assessing the situation because every client is different, they covered the mirror she didn’t want to look at herself, I when I turned on the razor, she started freaking out, you know, when I had removed her hat, like she butchered her hair so much that it was gone beyond saving anyway and I was just asking her, like, how she felt when she did this and, you know, like, just wanting to know more about as she could remember, she said she felt numb, you know that to me.

Like she was like going into a state of shock that was trauma she couldn’t remember, like that was just mind-blowing for me that, you know, her hair was after doing this to her. And, you know, she wanted it gone, you know, and that was going to give her a release and but it was listening to what she needed. So she didn’t want to hear the razor. So we said we turn on some music, she got to pick the music that she wanted.

So we blasted Rihanna through the roof, you know, so that she couldn’t hear the razor and we shaved her head and honestly, I could feel that energy lifting and she felt so much lighter after we just took her hair off and she wanted to look at herself in the mirror, and you know, follow up from that, like, her dad met up with me and he cried and he was just like, she just had a new lease of life, she is gone into getting an apprenticeship.

She’s getting out of the house. Like she said some fears weeks now and you know, that’s what creating a safe space is, is, you know, knowing that the client isn’t a hindrance to you. Like for me, I get as much out of that, as the client is getting out of that and also as a company training, other hairdressers, we want to make sure that, you know they’re getting as much out of it as the client is that it’s not a one way transfer of energy that that success story of her now having a new lease of life and really owning her Alopecia is really important to us on why we create these safe spaces.

Anthony Hartcher 27:48
I totally agree, Shawna it’s, it’s very much what we don’t have enough of in this world is you know, people’s ears and people actually giving you their attention, like so as much as I agree with you, it’s very simple, but it’s not happening.

So, it’s so important that you share this education that, you know, if you really want to connect with that person and allow that person to open up so you can better understand what’s going on in their life is just, you know, spending time with them sitting with them and allowing the silence to be silent, and eventually, you know, when they’re ready, they’ll come out with it.

It’s I think it’s often you know when you’re sitting down, you’re looking at the watch looking picking up the phone that person perceives or you’re too busy to hear what’s really going on in my life, and, and hence I don’t share whereas you know, what you did, for this 14-year-old girl was actually slow down, slow her down and address all her fears and phobias, and take that away, remove that and it was like, you know, unpeeling the onion, you know, first of all, you know, you gave her a safe space through, you know, slowing down and really just connecting with her and then, you know, there were all these layers of you know, she couldn’t look at the mirror, or the sound of the clippers, and you just remove those, like, all those barriers essentially allowed to that deeper connection and hence, you know, as you said, it’s given her a new lease of life, and, you know, it sounded like a real turning point for her.

So, yeah, I really commend you for taking, you know, this approach with your clients because I think you know, with this busy world we live in, there’s just not enough of this space where it’s you go in and it feels peaceful and just conducive to wanting to open up as you said, you know, you walk into a busy hairdresser.

You just think ah you know, if I start talking to them, I’m going to hold up the next appointment and you know, there’ll be late and you know, and they’re just chopping away and we’re You know, if you create that space for the client by having a longer appointment with them, you know less people in the salon, so they feel an element of privacy, then that allows them to really open up and allows you to do your holistic work, otherwise, you would struggle to get to the root cause of what’s driving that, you know, lack of positive self image or self esteem and, and you know, you’re able to get to that, through your work of, you know, taking the time and addressing it holistically.

Shawna Casey 30:34
And, like, you know, I suppose we just look at it, like, everyone’s got this inner child, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s, you know, a 14-year-old, or, you know, 30, 40, 50-year-old man, everyone has this, like, inner child that we all crave that nurturing, and, you know, it’s just about like that, creating that safe space, so that you will listen, and you can nurture the person, and it’s just about nurturing the soul, and it doesn’t matter, like what age is, you know, it just doesn’t matter, anything, it’s just about being there to listen and nurture.

And, you know, it’s like, other things that are really important is touch, like, touch for us is like, really important and that’s what we do as hairdressers, it’s, you know, we’re in the industry of touch like some people don’t ever get, like, what What have they got touched in maybe a long time and, and that touch contact at the base and with the permission of your clients, you know, can be really rewarding for your clients.

So yeah, we feel very privileged in, in being able to share what we do with others, you know, so that we can create these safe spaces and offer clients more.

Anthony Hartcher 31:47
Yeah, I think it’s great and eraser, you know, to really good points, there is that element of touch, which has been lost through COVID and I’m thinking that earlier points around stress, you know, you know, as causation of hair loss, that’s also exacerbated because of COVID.

So I’m seeing that hairdressing and people taking the time for that self-care and seeing the hairdresser in this salon that you’ve trained and, you know, really skilled them up in terms of how to create that safe space for that client, I can see that really resonating at this point in time because of what’s going on.

Shawna Casey 32:25
And you know, what, as hairdressers, we become very close with our clients, you know, you’ll see clients that will be coming back to you year after year after year, like you might actually see your clients more than you actually see family members, you know, and you gain this, like trust and communication that they would share more with you than they do with anyone else, you know, and it’s, it’s just really important for us now, at this day and age, and especially out the back of COVID that we’ve got more salons like this, you know,

Anthony Hartcher 32:58
I agree, and that you mentioned the word hair Hair therapist and that’s truly what you are a Hypnotherapist. So um, just on, you know, like, I guess sort of closing remarks, I’m really keen to get the top tips for preventing hair loss because a lot of us like to, you know, think, well, if we’re holistic thinkers, we like to think how can we prevent such things happening? What are your top tips to prevent hair loss,

Shawna Casey 33:24
So preventing hair loss, and, you know, like de-stressing what it’s very easy to just recommend to de-stress to somebody or, you know, self love and self care. So like, even just meditating for five or 10 minutes every day, if it’s not every day, once a week, like find somewhere in your week, where you just get into this rhythm, like download an app and just give yourself more self love.

You know, like we do look at it as a whole, like eating better exercising so good for the mind that can help and it’s in itself and like that, if it’s the case that you’re you’re really struggling like looking us up online. So we’re a secret hair solution and Instagram, or the secret hair shop and having a look on our website and coming to one of our salons that we’ve got trained.

So, you know, you, you get our contact details, they’re giving us a call and we can kind of steer you in the right direction of, you know, where you’re at in your journey and it’s so different for everyone. So like one person, it could be food, another person de-stressing another person, it could be, you know, a product that they need on their head and we’d be able to tailor something like that for you in the salon.

Anthony Hartcher 34:47
Fantastic and I totally agree with you, you know, this sort of care or you know, hair therapy needs to be tailored to the individual because everyone’s unique and different. So an individualized approach is the best way to ultimately get the best care for that, that person.

So, I’ll certainly share those contact details in the show notes. So where wherever people are listening to this, they’ll have direct links to your social media and your website. So I just really wanted to thank you know, Shawna and Danielle today for, you know, sharing and a lot of their wisdom around how they treat her hair holistically and how they really care for their clients and get the best outcomes for their clients because of that holistic, individualized approach. So, thanks so much for your time today.

For the listeners, you know, please You know, if you like the episode, please like it and share it with others that will benefit anyone that you know that it’s experiencing hair loss, anyone that you know, that’s going through cancer or any condition that’s leading to rapid hair loss, and you’re seeing your friend, really, you know, big get starting to get really self conscious and this is a fantastic episode to share with them because not only they’ll get some great information, They’ll get direct contact with these fantastic hair therapists and all the hair salons that they’ve trained up in terms of this hair Hair approach.

So certainly share it with others and stay tuned for more insightful episodes and may and Me & My Health Up. Thanks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai