Words: Emma Sothern (Lady Alopecia)
Life can be pretty unfair.
If you’ve lost your hair to alopecia or chemotherapy, you’ll know that already.
But it’s a real bummer when the solution you’ve been told will help your confidence, a headscarf, suddenly won’t stay on because you don’t actually have any hair.
Yep. This is a real thing.
It’s pretty discouraging in the early days to follow a fabulous Instagram tutorial, stride out confidently in your new headscarf, and then feel a breeze on your scalp…only to realise your scarf fell off half a block ago.
So what can you do? Remember these tips, and your headscarf should serve you well.
This is massive. The material your scarf is made from does more than half the work. More than tying styles, wig grips or undercaps, we’ll get to those later.
Soft fabrics with a bit of texture tend to grip much better than shiny, slippery fabrics that may look stunning but frankly don’t have the staying power.
Silk is beautiful. Silk headscarves feel incredibly luxurious. But if you’re rocking a shiny dome, silk is also one of the worst offenders for slipping off. I still wear silk scarves as occasional statement pieces, but they’re not really cut out for everyday life.
Cotton is much better. Much grippier. And bamboo is better still because it combines texture with that super soft, breathable feel. It took me a while to discover it, but once I did, bamboo became my everyday go-to.
Real life, as we’ve already established, is messy. And sometimes that beautifully tied headscarf is still going to slip…or come off completely.
At the beginning, every little scarf adjustment felt catastrophic. I’m naturally quite a flappable person, highly flappable in fact (I should have a warning label). So this would stress me out no end.
In my other life, I’m a yoga teacher living in Vietnam and a mum of two. Which means:
So how do I stop my headscarf slipping in these situations?
Honestly, I don’t. And you don’t need to either.
You can either readjust, which is where simple styles and good fabrics become your best friend, or you can take it off entirely and let your scalp enjoy the light of day for a while.
One very simple way to avoid constantly retying your headscarf is to get a pre-tied one. Lots of women with hair loss wear them, and they work great.
I tried a few early on myself, and they’re especially useful if you simply don’t have the energy to tie your own, which can be very important if you’re going through treatment.
They lower stress and have virtually no learning curve. Just pop them on and go.
They still slip from time to time, obviously, but the readjustment takes seconds.
So why didn’t they stick with me?
Well, they felt a bit limiting. Less adaptable. I never fully felt like myself in them. And no matter what I did, many of them seemed slightly the wrong shape for my head. A little bit… helmety. Not enough volume.
The ones I tried didn’t take kindly to tropical Vietnamese heat, either.
That said, loads of women swear by them, especially for busy mornings, treatment days or when energy levels are low. See what works for you.
If you’re new to the world of hair loss and headscarves, you might not realise that there’s a whole industry devoted to stopping your replacement hair or head coverings from blowing down the street.
Wig grips, velvet bands and undercaps can definitely help, especially in the beginning when you’re still building confidence with headscarves.
Velvet wig grips in particular are surprisingly effective, particularly with silkier fabrics that love making a dramatic escape attempt.
Personally, though, I’ve always had a slightly complicated relationship with grips and undercaps. Actually, scratch that. It’s not complicated at all. I hate them.
They bring me straight back to my old days of desperately trying to hide my hair loss. I still remember walking through the front door and immediately ripping off my wig, clips and grips the second nobody could see me anymore. They gave me headaches. They scratched my bald scalp. Hence my hatred of them.
So I never really embraced these things with headscarves either. The idea of putting an underhat underneath my scarf in this heat fills me with dread.
That said, plenty of women find them genuinely useful.
Like most things with headscarves, it’s really a matter of trial and error and figuring out what feels comfortable for your life. For me, though, finding simple, easy-to-tie scarves that stay on without extra support will always be my preference.
Which brings me to my final point: simplicity.
When I first started wearing headscarves, I became a little obsessed with elaborate styles I found online. Mostly in an attempt to give my head some volume.
Unfortunately, it turns out I have regular dumb fingers and not those of a street magician. I also kept losing the endless supply of safety pins and bobby pins that these styles seemed to require.
Over time, I realised that there’s usually a sweet spot between what looks the best and what works the best.
That’s now the tying style I use.
It takes less than a minute, gives me some of the volume I originally craved, stays reasonably secure without feeling brain-constricting and, most importantly, can easily be redone in a café bathroom…even if it doesn’t have a mirror.
You’ll eventually find your own way of tying your scarves. Honestly, most women do. And once you stop chasing perfection, everything becomes much easier.
If you want to skip some of the trial and error on the fabric front, the bamboo scarves I wear every day are here.
At the beginning, my headscarf game was a mess. Whatever the opposite of graceful is, that was me
Now, though, I barely think about my scarf most days. Apart from choosing the colour, obviously.
Every so often, my husband Andy will meet me in the coffee shop I’ve been sitting in for an hour and immediately point out, “You’ve got ears,” which means the top of my scarf is sticking up. So what do I do? I poke it back in. Easy.
You’ll figure out what works for your head, your lifestyle and your climate. And eventually, instead of constantly worrying about your scarf, you’ll probably just get on with your day in it.
I mean, that’s really the goal.
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