"I will leave it short and grey, something I have never before wanted to do."
This is the hairstyle decision that “Legally Blonde” actress Selma Blair announced in the caption of a new Instagram post featuring a bird’s eye view of her post-chemotherapy hair growth — a look she describes as a “thinnish, patchy, charcoal head.” The new hair is a far cry from the long, brown, color-treated locks that Blair had before she lost it all during the course of chemotherapy she received to treat her multiple sclerosis.
Hair loss is one of the most emotionally difficult (and most talked about) side effects of chemotherapy. There are countless support groups and social media accounts devoted to wig recommendations, and researchers are working hard to develop new scalp-cooling technologies to prevent hair loss in the first place. As hair grows back after chemotherapy, it’s texture and color often changes, and, for many survivors, this can be challenging. But for others, like Blair, it can also be liberating. The actress points out in her post that the highlights and lowlights she used to get were expensive and time-consuming, and that she’s okay with letting them go. Unless, she adds with her usual good humor, "some fancy pants company with a thick checkbook wants to entice me out of dye retirement."
In the post, Blair also recounts the cycle of her hair loss and regrowth, and the ways her attitude has changed over time — from accepting her shiny dome and the sadness she felt as it first grew back in far thinner than before, to, as it grew, her failed attempt to dye it brown and, then, her liberating decision to go for a buzz cut.
Why is Selma Blair Getting Chemo if She Doesn’t Have Cancer?
Blair has been receiving chemotherapy as part of a treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease, in which the immune system attacks the body’s central nervous system. The MS treatment, called “Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation,” or “HSCT,” involves taking stem cells from the bone marrow or blood, wiping the immune system clean with chemotherapy, then reintroducing the cells to "grow" a new immune system. The treatment has U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for MS, and according to the National MS Society, “Publication of the outcomes from well-controlled clinical studies of HSCT therapy will encourage greater acceptance and use by the medical community.”
