Steroids, wigs and disinfectant: Afro alopecia needs research, not ridicule

Hair loss is a particular social stigma for black women, and the shame involved is compounded by a worrying lack of awareness of the varying ways in which alopecia presents itself in afro hair. Kuba Shand-Baptiste talks to fellow sufferers and hears how a recent genetic breakthrough may point the way towards a solution

‘How could something be happening to your body and you don’t have any control over it? And specialists can’t help me?’ (Getty/iStock)

You can tell a lot about a person by their hair, or so tradition has led us to believe over the centuries. Just look at the lengths we’ve gone to to reframe what is, in the most basic sense, a mass of dead protein that grows lifeless from our scalps, into an emblem of the most vital and intimate parts of our identities.

The enduring social significance of hair has served as a cross-cultural marker of everything from affluence and power to spirituality, sexuality and fertility across a number of civilisations.

From ancient Greece’s reverence for hyacinthine and golden hair, to the lengthy, shiny, ornamental tresses of traditional, 15th century Wolof women in Senegal, right down to the observance of kesh in Sikhism – for centuries, hair is, and has been, everything. But what of those among us who no longer have it?