Post-pregnancy hair loss is a topic you don't hear celebs discussing on a daily basis. But actress, author and singer Naya Rivera isn't like most stars. She's not afraid to keep things 100 percent honest, especially if she feels it can help others. The Glee star recently became the face of Nioxin and has used it as a platform not only to share her own hair loss struggle but to empower other women who have experienced the same.
Read more ¿Qué más?: 5 Ways to deal with post-pregnancy hair loss
Hair loss after pregnancy is a lot more normal than you'd think. In fact, 40 to 50 percent of women experience it. Naya Rivera is one of them. "There's a real post-partum hair-thinning issue, and nobody talks about it because women are so embarrassed to admit they're losing their hair," she told Elle.com. "But it's a real problem. The good news is, it has a really easy solution. You just have to know about it."
Naya admits that her hair started changing during her pregnancy but not in the way that she had originally expected. She didn't get that thick, luscious pregnancy hair that everyone talks about.
'"I have naturally curly hair and growing up it was really thick and unmanageable. During and after my pregnancy I started to notice changes. I definitely didn't get the luscious mane of hair that everyone said you'd get while I was pregnant," she told Latina magazine. She opened up even more:
After giving birth, in combination with breastfeeding and a major drop in hormones, I noticed thinning in certain areas at the front of my hairline and breakage at the ends of my hair. Like many women, I wasn't expecting my hair to change so much post-partum and it was pretty scary. I didn't feel like myself and my confidence definitely suffered because of that.
It doesn't help that Naya has been heat-styling her hair for years. Her signature Cheerios ponytail on Glee really took a toll on her strands. "I would be working 16 hour days and my hair would be in a tight ponytail that whole time," she said in an interview. "Above my ears, it looked like it had been burned off with a hair iron. And my scalp was so dry from heat styling."
Naya had literally tried everything under the sun from tea tree oil, coconut oil, to a slew of home remedies.
"I could never find a shampoo that wouldn't break and dry it out," she confessed. "Finally, I got to the point, where if I knew I was doing a ponytail day, I would basically coat my hair in coconut oil the night before." But not even coconut oil was enough after she went into post-partum.
Naya started experiencing serious hair loss after giving birth to her son Josey. That's when a friend told her about Nioxin. After seeing that the products actually worked for her, Naya agreed to become a spokesperson for the brand. She wanted to be a voice for other women who have also struggled with hair loss. As she put it, "There are so many women dealing with this but aren't really sure what to do. When I started using Nioxin products, that's when I really started seeing results."
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