Hair loss can be a sensitive subject for anyone, including hairstylists. Nobody is spared – men, women and children can all experience hair loss, and their confidence is equally affected by a thinning mane. If you ever faced hair loss in your chair, you’ll know exactly what it can do to your client’s self-esteem.
During this time the client may be searching for answers as to why their hair may be falling, and frantically looking to their stylist for solutions.
What is your go-to solution for hair loss? Does it work?
As a Cosmetologist the first step may be to cover it up, maybe a trim or a hairpiece will make the problem disappear. Maybe a change of style will make the problem less obvious.
But it’s timeout for band-aid fixes.
We all know that these ‘solutions’ only last for a little while and – let’s face it – they don’t really fool anyone. Covering up a receding hairline brings no lasting results, and over time the problem will only get worse.
So what can you do as a beauty professional? The unfortunate reality is that cosmetology alone does not properly equip the stylist to accurately analyze and pinpoint the cause of clients’ maladies.
This will lead to the downfall of an uneducated stylist.
According to the article “A Deep Dive into Thinning Hair and Hair Loss” by ModernSalon, a poll calculated that some professional hairstylists expected their clients to get help with their hair loss by researching on google, while the clients expected the stylist to be their main source of help. These findings paint a good picture of what hair loss sufferers can expect on their quest to a restored mane:
Confusion, short-term fixes and disappointment.
Your clients are desperate to find a beauty professional who will understand their problem and treat it effectively. To become part of the solution instead of maintaining the problem, you’ll need to dig deeper and look beyond the superficial techniques. In today’s climate it’s essential to have a deeper understanding of hair and health to better serve the client.
In a survey of 307 professionals and 867 consumers, only 41% of professionals believed that they had some knowledge of scalp and hair health, while these same professionals expressed that over 40% of their clientele is suffering from hair loss.
Are you equipped to help nearly half of your clients fighting hair loss?
Hair loss has become a pandemic that is spiraling out of control and will continue to do so until there are either no more clients, or stylists decide to level up in their education to become part of the solution.
The solution begins with studying the paramedical field of Trichology. Trichology is the study of the hair and scalp and their maladies. The basis of this science lies in the premise that no symptom (hair thinning, hair loss, and other scalp maladies) shows up individually, for no particular reason.
The symptom is always caused by an underlying issue, and it’s our job to find it. That’s why Trichologists examine and treat their clients through a holistic approach that examines the mind and body as a whole, and focuses on healing the body naturally. Getting to the root of the issue is the only way ill clients will fully recover because hair loss almost always points to an underlying, larger issue.
Having the skills to help restore the health of ill clients is rare expertise, especially today. Trichology not only increases the knowledge of a Cosmetologist, it also sets them apart. It adds more tools to your beauty professional’s toolbox so that you can serve your clients more effectively.
How to become a Trichologist
To become a Trichologist it is important to find an accredited institution offering a quality course that will cover the scientific foundation of hair and scalp health, as well as practical skills and up-to-date techniques to fight off hair loss and other scalp maladies. Here at the American Academy of Hair and Scalp Diseases we designed our Functional Trichology Certification course to take you from baseline to the finish in about a year and a half. You get to learn from top trichology experts and soak in their decades of experience, so that you can implement the knowledge into your practice right away.
To sign up you must first be a licensed Cosmetologist, and when you complete the course you can add the Trichology Certificate and Holistic Health Practitioner to your references and set up your own hair loss practice. For more information about becoming a trichologist download our free guide below.