Monat Mo' Problemz

Ever since I started my blog, I’ve received a steady flow of DMs from women who sell Monat. For those of you who don’t know, Monat is the MLM of the hair care world. All of these DMs are nearly identical. “Hey girl! I came across your profile and love it! I work for an exclusive natural hair product line that has helped women with alopecia...etc etc etc.”  At first, I wasn’t super bothered by it. I’ve been there. I used to be a beachbody coach and I know allllll about how this MLM world works. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I still feel icky about the messages I sent people to get them to buy product and/or join my team. BARF! Can we add dipping my toe into the MLM world to the robust list of things I regret from my 20s? Somewhere in between plucking my eyebrows down to tiiiiiny lines and frat boys.  

Anyways back to Monat. Guys, I’m annoyed. Not so much at the people who message me, but more so at Monat for feeding these lines to these women who have NO CLUE (sorry in advance for the caps lock yells) what alopecia truly entails or feels like. Say it with me…Alopecia is an autoimmune disease and THERE IS NO CURE FOR ALOPECIA (screams with a quivering lip and tear). Spontaneous regeneration can always happen. Meaning your immune system can calm the F down and your hair can grow back. It happens all the time. It’s the reason why I have a random wild turnip of hair growing on the back of my head while the rest of me is as bald as a Beluga Whale. Even the medical treatments are not a cure. Instead they suppress your immune system which can cause your hair to grow back. There is no guarantee though, and the only medication that has shown consistent results requires you to take it for the rest of your life. Otherwise say bye bye to your hair all over again. 

Which means if Monat actually did a damn thing to help women with alopecia, literally every baldie I know would keep gallon jugs of it in their bathrooms. It is so hard though. When you have alopecia, there can be a long period of frantic cure searching. It is a deep rooted desperation to get your hair back at all costs. Monat is coaching its sales peeps to prey on this. Plain and simple. Sure, they may have a handful of “testimonials” from women who claim they got their hair back because of it. Sure, they probably have a doc or two who got paid to talk about how it is the cure all! Truth is, those are the outliers. Those are the youtube videos they will send you to get your hopes up and wallets empty. I mean you guys, I used to sell shakeology and the number of times I shared videos about how shakeology cures XYZ is just so embarrassing. At the time I believed it. I believed that these videos had to be true and would help me grow my biz into a massive cash cow. SMH. 

Now truly, this blog isn’t here to bash the living poop out of MLMs. I can respect the hustle. What I can’t respect is sliding into the DMs of someone who is so heartbroken and devastated by their hair loss and preying on that to make a quick product sale. The ick factor of that is NEXT LEVEL.

All of this to say, leave your local baldies alone, go sell to your friends who have hair, and if I get another voice message in my DMs from a Monat sales person, I may flush my phone down the toilet. That is all friends. That is all. 

PS on a completely unrelated note, I accidently burned pasta today. So that happened…womp womp!

She Came, She Saw, She Conquered

A couple months ago I had this crazy ass thought. Go to work without my wig. Now granted, this thought has popped into my head before. Mostly on days where my wig is hot, itchy, pokey, or just plain annoying. However, on those days it was never a serious thought. More of a, “UGH I SHOULD JUST RIP THIS DUMB THING OFF” knowing very well I’d rather give up reality tv for life than show up at my work with my scalp exposed for the world to see. It was a shock, even to myself, when I started considering it seriously. It’s honestly very possible I was abducted by aliens and the normal scaredy cat Supriya is locked in a space ship while this alien Supriya who has a tiny smidge more of confidence has replaced me. The jury is still out. When Alopecia Awareness Month rolled around, I knew it was now or never. The first week of September I went on Amazon and ordered a couple alopecia shirts with the intention of having bald Friday occur on 9/6. The delivery dates had other ideas and my plans got pushed to 9/13. Friday the 13th, full moon, and my big bald head! I mean some would say that is the perfect trifecta. I told a few people knowing the more people I told, the less likely I could back out. On 9/12 I fully committed to the cause. I sent an email to my friends at work and told them my plans and to wear blue (alopecia blue to be exact) if they wanted to show support. I knew once I sent the email I was locked in. I pressed send and started shaking and sweating. This was it. It was happening.

Trying to keep my cool on the ride in. Emphasis on trying.

Friday morning my alarm went off and my nerves kicked in. Its funny because I can actually feel those same nerves now as I re-live that day. It is still all so surreal. I showered, threw on my nifty alopecia awareness ribbon shirt, slapped on some red lips (the perfect accessory to a bald head if you ask me), said a prayer I wouldn’t poop my pants in fear at work, and headed out the door. Many people asked me if I was going to keep my wig in the car, and the answer is no. I was ALL IN! Until I got into the parking garage that is. Then I was ALL NERVES. My heart was racing, the shakes were back, and I was so scared. What did I commit to?! I normally get to work pretty early so I was able to speed walk into the building without seeing many people. I sat down at my desk and waved hello to two of my teammates. They were in blue smiling excitedly at me. My heart was literally racing a mile a minute. I started to compose myself. “You can do this Supriya. You can do this” I kept telling myself over and over and over. All the meanwhile I was starting to sweat through my shirt, my hands were a quivering mess, and I was realizing just how cold office AC can be when you don’t have a wig on your head to keep you warm and toasty. 

Then it started happening. The trickle of blue. Tameka, Dan, and Greg! High fives, hugs, photo op. They were so excited for me. The trickle quickly turned into a stream. Wyatt, Kanchan, Sujay, Casey, Taylor, Greg, Haley, Genna, Hosanna, Brandon, Marie, Wes, Melinda, Rachel, Ashleigh, Colleen, John, my entire team, and so many others were wearing blue in support! Then it turned into a river. Friends off site were sending me pictures (Venrick, Ashley, Tiph, Jordan, Zigs, Andrew), friends who used to work with me were sending me pictures (Kathryn, Eddie), friends who couldn’t be there that day were texting me. Everywhere I looked I saw more and more blue and my world was taken over by an army of support. At lunch time it was apparent that my river was a massive ocean. My friend Rachel arranged to have us meet outside for a group photo. I expected a handful of people to show up tops. I stood on the patio and waited. I had completely underestimated what was actually going to happen. I was in complete shock witnessing the number of friends pouring out of the door in support of me and alopecia!!!!! I looked to the left and saw Amy (who is on maternity leave!) walk in with a stroller and her new born Decker in his blue! I could not believe how many people were out there with me. I still cannot wrap my head around it. If I named everyone, this blog would turn into a never-ending list of names. While I stood on the photo with all of these amazing humans, I felt such an overwhelming sense of emotions. I’ve never known what it is like to receive this type of love and support. I can only imagine that this is what Taylor Swift feels like every single moment of her life. It is a moment that will be engrained in my memory forever!

My ocean of Alopecia BLUE!

As the day went on, I got to sit down and have conversations with people about what it is like to have alopecia. What the struggles feel like. What triumphs feel like. I’ve worked at my company for 8.5 years. 4.5 years with hair and 4 years without. For the first time, I was able to just relax and have open honest conversations about the things I’d spent so much of my career hiding. For the first time, I was able to be me. I didn’t whisper about my wig. I didn’t worry people would hear me say the word wig. I didn’t have to worry that people who didn’t know about my alopecia would realize I was wearing wig. For once, I didn’t feel embarrassed and ashamed to be the person in the office with alopecia. For the very first time, I felt empowered to be the person in the office with alopecia. There are moments in life that will change your life forever. Full harvest moon and Friday the 13th of September 2019 is a day that completely changed my life. I’ve always loved the quote “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. It is safe to say my life began on Friday.

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So, what is next? Will I quit wigs and embrace being an alien head going forward? Full time--Definitely not. I love my wigs and don’t plan on giving them up! Part time though, I’m not sure! This day was meant to be a challenge. To see if I could grow a pair big enough to accomplish the task at hand. Now that it is over and done with, I realize that I can do whatever I want and that is wonderfully freeing. I can wear my wig, I can go bald, I can wear different wigs, and everything in between! It is so wild that I can literally just LIVE and so LIVE is what I will do.

“The comeback is always greater than the setback” ~Mike “The Situation” (Don’t judge my love for Jersey Shore guys!)