Responses ranged from ‘Are you OK?’ to ‘You’re so brave; I could never pull that off!’ writes Arianna Sholes-Douglas, pictured. Arianna Sholes-Douglas
“About Face” is a column about how someone changed their mind.
For decades my hair was the way I expressed my Blackness, my boldness, my defiance—or whatever mood I found myself in. I’ve gone from Grace Jones-inspired razor cuts to braids, weaves, locs and everything in between. This was exhausting. I’ve spent more hours in salons and braiding chairs than I can count.
I tried to save some of that time by turning to wigs, which gave the illusion of a beautiful head of hair. But this came with its own costs. Windy days were stressful. I learned to gently bat away massage therapists who reached for my head. Exercise, or anything high-impact, had me holding on, praying I wouldn’t end up on a blooper video on someone’s phone.
In 2021, after 11 months in lockdown, my patience with everything—including my hair—was thin. I needed something new, probably something radical. I stared into the mirror one night and thought, “Just shave it off.” It was a private experiment, a quiet “let’s see if I look like Sinead O’Connor or Gollum” moment. None of it would matter because I had my wig ready to slap back on—no one would ever know.
I shaved it all off.
Staring at my bald head, I’d decided that no one would ever see me this way. Then my brutally honest 17-year-old walked in and shot me an approving smile. I was shocked. Also buoyed.
The next day, I decided to take my bare head to an outdoor Zumba class. It was exhilarating. I danced, jumped and sweated with the most incredible sense of liberation. No hair adjustments, no fear of a runaway hairpiece, just me and my bald head, living our best life.
I braved other places, wig-free. Responses ranged from “Are you OK?” to “You’re so brave; I could never pull that off!” After months of reassuring folks that I was not battling cancer, I realized that women were genuinely taken aback by the courage it takes for a woman to voluntarily remove her “crown of glory.”
For the first time in my life, the focal point in the mirror was my face—just me. No hair framing my features, nothing to hide behind. Every morning felt like I was meeting myself for the first time.
The truth is, it took weeks before I felt comfortable. Some days, showing up without hair felt like showing up naked. It took months before I embodied the courage and confidence everyone assumed I’d had all along. But I got there. After years of using my hair to express myself, I found I could just express myself, with no wigs, weaves or apologies.
Dr. Arianna Sholes-Douglas is an obstetrician-gynecologist and author of “The Menopause Myth: What Your Mother, Doctor and Friends Haven’t Shared About Life After 35.”
