With confidence and support, more women are redefining baldness as beautiful

NEW YORK– NEW YORK (AP) — “Being bald is sexy. It’s an attitude. It’s a luxury. It’s a lifestyle.”

That’s how Brennan Nevada Johnson, who voluntarily shaved her head 14 years ago, opens the video podcast she launched last November to celebrate the benefits of choosing a bald look.

Sensual, confident and glamorous are not the adjectives generally attributed to women with shaved hair. For centuries, many cultures have viewed long hair as a symbol of femininity, health and fertility. But more and more women are defying these traditional beauty standards and finding their power in showing off their faces.

“Once you do it, it brings all this confidence into your life,” Johnson, 34, said. “Any time you see someone who’s bald and not wearing a wig, just know that they’ve fully embraced themselves, and I think that’s a really hard thing to do.”

His initial decision to go bald was practical. Johnson played competitive volleyball in college and discovered that the sweating she did on the court affected the expensive hair straightening treatments she often had. Once she started shaving her hair, she was hooked. She was relieved to save money on trips to the salon.

Johnson now owns a public relations firm in New York. “Bald and Buzzed with Brennan,” the video podcast she posts on YouTube, was an attempt to fill a void in social media content that affirmed bald people, especially women. She says she always thought baldness was sexy.

“It’s a real fashion statement and a really powerful look,” Johnson said.

Other hairless women, whether voluntarily or due to health issues, have also sought ways to support each other, attending conferences, joining “bald” groups, and exchanging hair and scalp care tips.

“We’re a whole community,” said Dash Lopez, a content creator who posts a weekly video series about her shaving routine called “Fresh Cut Friday.” “We need to talk about it because we find comfort, empowerment and beauty in what some people find weird.”

Lopez said her family members praised the long, curly hair she had growing up. Some of her friends played around with different hair colors and styles, but Lopez said she didn’t have the same freedom. And she didn’t like detangling her hair or spending long afternoons at the salon.

As soon as she turned 18 and could get an unauthorized haircut, she cut her locks into a pixie cut. Then she razed it all during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It makes me feel empowered in the sense that I’m able to detach myself from the things that people put so much emphasis on,” Lopez, 29, said. “I’m not sitting here planning, ‘Oh my God, when am I going to have my next color appointment? It’s going to cost me $300. Oh my God. I have to get my hair done before I go to this event.'”

Lopez signed a contract with a modeling agency in 2020, at a time when brands wanted to highlight diversity, she said. At the time, being bald suited him professionally.

“We appreciated quirks and if you had a gap in your tooth, if you had a bald head, if you had a face full of freckles, that’s what casting directors were looking for,” Lopez said.

She noticed the tide had changed last year, when her bookings for modeling jobs dwindled. “Let’s be honest, the odds were against me in the modeling world,” Lopez said. “I was 5′ 4″, 5′ 5″ on paper, no hair.”

A client suggested she wear wigs to get more work. Lopez didn’t want to do that or let her hair grow. Her modeling contract ended. She has since shared glimpses of her life as a bald woman on Instagram and TikTok, where some of her videos have been viewed millions of times.

“I feel powerful in the sense that I make my own choices,” Lopez said. “I do it to empower myself, I do it from my own clarity, for a deeper understanding of what I value, a deeper understanding of what beauty means to me.”

Many women are faced with how they define beauty when they lose their hair due to health conditions such as alopecia or during chemotherapy treatment for cancer.

Felicia Flores, a flight attendant who lives in Atlanta, was diagnosed in 2001 with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. Six years later, all his hair was gone. At first she wore wigs.

Then she came across a group called The Baldie Movement on Facebook. “The ladies really inspired me,” Flores, 47, said. “They really helped encourage me and give me strength…and they were so confident.”

She finally decided to stop wearing wigs and accept being bald in 2015, after a breakup. “I was tired of lying. I felt like I was hiding something. I felt like I wasn’t myself,” she said.

To help uplift and inspire other women, Flores founded an annual conference called Baldie Con. The fourth drawing drew more than 200 participants to Atlanta last month for a fashion show, guest speakers, a jazz brunch and a black-tie gala, she said.

Aicha Soumaoro, who works in Philadelphia as a nurse during the week and as a mechanic on the weekends, said some of her patients call her “sir” instead of “ma’am,” but she doesn’t let that bother her. “It’s new to them, bald girls.”

Soumaoro, 27, said that after shaving his head, his mother told him that most men would not want to marry a woman without hair. Instead, she focuses on the compliments she’s received in public, including “You wear it with confidence” and “Your face looks beautiful.”

“Being bald is like a confidence boost that comes out of nowhere,” said Soumaoro, who cuts his hair every Sunday. “It’s like a new skin, a new layer, a new personality. I just feel fresh. Like I’m born again.”

She also goes hiking on Sundays, relishing the feeling of cold breezes on her scalp. “Having this connection with the Earth is incredible,” Soumaoro said. “I feel like I hear everything more clearly. It’s like I have a clear state of mind when I have a bald head.”

Tiffany Michael Thomas, an Atlanta-based artist who goes by the name Amor Lauren, shaved her head in a show of support when her mother was undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer.

After his mother’s death, Thomas continued to receive compliments from other women. She decided to keep the bald look.

“Once I started really embracing it, I felt like I was unstoppable,” Thomas, 37, said. “I don’t have anything to hide behind anymore. … It’s forced me to face all my insecurities.”

If you’re considering shaving your head, don’t hesitate, advises Thomas. Women tell him they worry that their head is the wrong shape, or that they have a lump or scar. “Do it without thinking,” she says. “Do it with fear. Everything in life, do it with fear. The best way to overcome that fear is to actually do it.”

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