Naomi Campbell Suffers Bald Spots From Extensions

At a recent photo shoot, Naomi Campbell’s stylist pulled back her hair for second, just to adjust some of her clothing. But right as she did, she revealed some large balding spots above Naomi’s ears, a disastrous layer of skin that looks peeled and irritated.

What Caused Her Baldness
But her condition of baldness, known as traction alopecia, is not a genetic condition. It’s a result of a lifestyle shaped by the needs of today’s glamour society. As a supermodel, she’s worn weaves, hair extensions, and other cosmetically-focused hairstyles that put stress on the scalp’s hair follicles. Tightly-worn braids and ponytails can also cause the same damage.

The hair follicles eventually respond to the irritation and stress of constantly having their hair pulled on by shutting down, sometimes for very long periods. Even a moderate case of traction alopecia can take months to heal after the damaging stimulus has been removed. However, in advanced stages, like with Naomi Campbell’s history of wearing weaves for decades now, it can become “permanent and irreversible.”

How Naomi Can Fight Her Problem
For Naomi, the only real solution would be a drastic lifestyle change combined with a huge amount of hair transplantation. If her illness had been addressed earlier, she could have stopped wearing braids, weaves, or treating her hair. But in the career she holds, she probably didn’t consider this an option.

Now her best bet would still be an immediate hold on her current beauty methods, but that wouldn’t be enough. Naomi would probably have to have hair transplants. Unlike simpler methods that involve a prescription pill or a lifestyle change, hair transplantation can cost many thousands of dollars, and it’s time-consuming and painful to boot.

Do We Have Unhealthy Expectations of Beauty?

I can imagine how differently Naomi’s hair would look today if she’d been part of a culture that encouraged her natural look as beautiful. Instead of wearing wire-straight hair extensions for years and years, she could have let her own curly hair grow out, and her scalp would be a lot healthier for it.

Of course, that’s not to mention the innumerable young women who wouldn’t be following in her path. If the same people we set on pedestals as emblems of perfection also happen to be losing their well-being because they actually achieve the look we all aspire to, maybe something is wrong with our expectations. Naomi’s hair loss is painful already, and ridicule from the media is not the kind of attention she deserves.