Hair, Hormones & Honest Talk

The baby cards say plenty about the baby. They say less about standing in the bathroom, looking at your hairbrush and wondering what is happening to you. In this episode of Hair, Hormones & Honest Talk, Esmael Gilis makes room for the questions and feelings that can accompany postpartum hair shedding. We explore the usual timeline without turning it into a recovery deadline, the practical supp...

“It’s just hormones” sounds like an explanation. For many women in perimenopause or menopause, it is where the useful conversation stops. In Episode 11, Esmael Gilis explains why menopause can be part of the hair-loss story without being a complete diagnosis. He separates sudden shedding from gradual thinning, shares the questions he asks at the salon chair, and gives you four calm actions for thi...

Camouflage buys you a Saturday. Cure buys you a decade. There is a whole beauty industry now built around one word — invisible. Invisible fibers. Invisible root touch-up. Invisible scalp make-up. And it is genuinely useful — on the wedding day, before the interview, before the anniversary. But if concealer is the whole plan, we are quietly choosing the Saturday over the decade. In this episode, Es...

When your mother is diagnosed with something, the phone rings. When someone you love dies, the flowers arrive. When your hair thins in your forties — silence. Nobody asks how you are doing. Nobody notices you have stopped wearing it up. Nobody sees you standing in the shower after a wash, holding a handful of it in your hand. Last week's episode was the checklist — the five red flags of menopause...

She sat in the chair on Thursday afternoon. Fifty-three years old. Eleven-year client. And she said, "Esmael, please be honest. Am I imagining this — or is my hair actually different?" She was not imagining it. Her part was wider. Her temples had receded. Her ponytail was thinner. Her hair was growing back finer. Her doctor had told her, "It's just menopause; it happens to everyone." Her previous...

She walked into the salon last Saturday with a printed list. Three pages. Sixteen scalp products bought in four months. Seven hundred and forty euros. And she looked Esmael dead in the eye and said, "My hair is not any thicker. What am I doing wrong?" She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was doing what half of women on scalp-care Instagram are doing right now — reacting to the biggest beauty trend...

She was thirty-eight, fit, successful — and she pulled off her sunglasses in Esmael's chair last Tuesday and said, "My mother is seventy-two, and she has more hair at her temples than I do. What is going on?" The answer took one question — "How do you wear your hair every day?" — and one honest laugh. Slick ponytail for the school run. Slick bun for the gym. Slick low pony for meetings. Every sing...

She lost eighteen kilos on Wegovy. Her doctor was thrilled. Her husband said she looked ten years younger. And she was crying in Esmael's chair before he'd even lifted the comb — because her hair was coming out in fistfuls, and nobody wanted to talk about it. She isn't one woman. She's now three or four consultations a month at HEADS. Different women. Different drugs. Ozempic. Wegovy. Mounjaro. Ze...

Three messages hit the inbox this week. Different women. Different countries. Near-identical wording — one five weeks into oral minoxidil, one seven weeks in, and one a full year in, doing beautifully, suddenly shedding again. Each of them wrote a version of the same sentence: "Please tell me it's worth it." In this episode Esmael Gilis — founder of HEADS – The Art Of Hairdressing (Belgium, 1998),...

If you've watched your part widen, your ponytail shrink, and your hair behave as if it belongs to someone else, you're not imagining it. Perimenopause hair changes can feel sudden, even when the underlying shift has been building for years. In this episode, Esmael Gilis — hairdresser of 28 years and a two-time nominee at The Hairdressing Awards Belgium — walks through why the change can feel so ab...

Two weeks after starting minoxidil, the brush is fuller. The pillow is worse. The shower drain is a horror movie. And somewhere on Reddit at 2 am, another woman is asking the same question: "Is this normal, or is it making me worse?" In Episode 2, Esmael walked through who oral minoxidil is for. Episode 3 is the follow-up nobody warned you about — the shed itself. What "worse before better" really...

Every few years, a "breakthrough" hair-loss headline lands, and the number of questions in chairs triple overnight. This week, it's oral minoxidil — the pill version of the treatment most women already know as a foam. The press is calling it the biggest breakthrough in decades. Women in menopause forums are quietly asking if they should be next. In this episode, Esmael Gilis, with 28 years behind...

A new podcast for women navigating hair loss, thinning, and menopause hair changes — and for the partners, daughters, and friends who want to understand.   I'm Esmael Gilis. I've spent 28 years behind the chair at HEADS — The Art Of Hairdressing in Aarschot, Belgium, and I'm a two-time nominee at The Hairdressing Awards Belgium. This podcast is the conversation I've been having with women in my sa...