My long blonde hair snapped off at the roots. What’s a girl to do?

The Superficial Saturday experiment. Episode 1.

Several years ago, my hair all snapped off at the roots after an “incident” at the salon.
I mean broke off completely.
I mean, I was bald, except for the occasional spike of snapped, brittle bleach-blonde hair protruding from my ugly, bumpy head (who knew I had such an ugly scalp?).
It was the front right side, about a quarter of my total hair.
Poof. And just like that, my beautiful blonde-real-hair-that-takes-forever-to-grow was gone.

How did this happen?
Do you remember pre-COVID salon days?
The hustle, bustle of the jam-packed salon. Your hairdresser jumping from woman to woman, back & forth, seemingly like a magician, remembering who was having what, and for how long. I never knew quite how she, he, or they did it without breaking out into a cold sweat.

My hairdresser was fabulous and always booked out for several months in advance. I could only see her once every fourish months or so to get a Saturday daytime appointment. I liked drinking daytime wine & looking fabulous for the weekend after a long workweek.
On this particular day, she was overbooked and had her assistant apply the colour, or in my case, bleach. I trusted her completely, and using several assistants was normal practice.
Ms barely 20—the assistant—was going through an earth-shattering, life-defining breakup. I listened to her tell me all about it. I didn’t think anything of her spilling all the deets at the time — it’s what happens in the salon; girl code and all that. It’s the place where we spill to each other.
Knowing what I know now, I would say, ladies, gents, and gender-neutral loves listen, please, if the woman doing your hair is going through a breakup and applying bleach, ASK FOR SOMEONE ELSE.
She overlapped the colour, and in less than an hour, one-quarter of my hair was gone. Forever. I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.

I had to have a full-on comb-over just to cover up the raging bald spot. For three years.
There is no undoing this.

I have long, blonde hair.
I always get my hair done at a salon; have done since I was 17 years old.
I use salon products.
I take vitamins for my hair.
I forgo other things in my life in order to take care of my hair.
So when my hair broke off at the roots— through no fault of my own —
I knew the time to regrow it was going to be 6 to 7 years.
And the expense would significant.

Ever since then, I’ve been a next-level conscious consumer of products that enhance the long-term wellbeing of lusty, silky, long, non-snappy hair. And, um, regrow bald spots.
But it can be so expensive, and tricky to work out what the right products are to use, and whether they are worth the ROI (return on investment).
Clever marketing, fandango lingo, and useless confusing metrics have made it challenging to know which things to invest in, and which things we can leave.

One of the things I’ve been using for quite some time is a silk pillowcase.
It supposed to be beneficial for both hair and skin.
Anti-aging.
Helps with wrinkles.
It helps what hair not snagging and breaking.
It helps to keep beautiful, silky, smooth locks.
They also last a really long time if you look after them, and I’m someone who does really take care of things.

Today as I was changing my sheets and pillowslips, the zip broke on one of my pillow slips. Doh.
I don’t have spare silk pillowslips lying around, so I googled to find replacement options, and wowsers; there are a plethora of options on the market. I mean, in Australia, the silk pillowslip market seems to be flooded.

But, are they even worth it?
Research and data on whether they measure for reals is scarce.

Benefits/Claims of Silk pillowslips include—

• A reduction in bedtime wrinkles — from tossing & turning throughout the night.
• Anti-aging — a reduction in the appearance of wrinkles, crush wrinkles and wrinkles caused by long-term tossing & turning throughout the night.
• Less friction on skin and hair prevents irritation or damage, and the slippery smooth texture of silk will prevent tangles and frizz. This can cause less breakage long term, vs other cotton or other types of pillowcases or slips.
• Have a cleaner sleep surface.
• Silk is moisture-wicking, so less drying for skin and hair.
• Silk keeps skin and hair hydrated.
• They are hypoallergenic

Guess What? I accidentally found an alternative to silk pillowslips when I was googling. A MUCH cheaper alternative.

Silk vs Satin

What’s the difference? Is there one?
Let’s start with the $$ difference, obvs.

An average silk pillowslip here in Australia retails for about $70 per slip, the most popular ones on the market being—
Slip — The Original Silk Pillowslip $95 per slip
Ecosa RRP $89, but currently $71.20 per slip
Lilysilk $62 per slip

The price for satin?
Two pillowslips for $9.95, including next day delivery.

The reviews on satin pillowslips are outstanding (4.5 stars for 62 reviews). They don’t have quite as many claims on product benefits vs silk slips, but at 1/20th the cost, we wouldn’t expect that, right?

Welcome to my first ever Superficial Saturday experiment.

I’ve ordered satin pillowslips to go up against my current mulberry silks slips.
All are white.

I’ll take before and after photos of my hair and face sleeping on each, daily, for a period of 2 weeks.
I’ll also describe how each slip performs, including results, wear and wash — whether they discolour, whether they are more suspectable to products, sweat etc. I’ll be totally honest with you and share the results, and some photos of your truly. Be prepared for first-thing-in-the-morning-non-filtered-beauty.
For each brand/co of satin or silk slip, I’ll extend the experiment (2 weeks per brand, adding regular updates on my insta-story).

I’m so glad my life is full of first world, serious, problems. An intense, serious, investigative, reporter-style research. I’m basically a humanitarian. You’re welcome. I’ll report back here soon with results.