Twenty Years He Called Me Bald. Then My New Hairdresser Lifted My Wig And Stopped.
For fifteen of those years he had me convinced I deserved it. Then a hairdresser I had never met lifted my wig, stopped, and asked me who told me that.
Twenty years I stayed with a man who called me bald and ugly every day, and for fifteen of them he had me convinced I deserved it. By forty the band of scalp on my head was wide enough to see from the door. The only reason I did not give up is one question a woman named Denise asked me from behind her chair.
Hair Facts
4.9 | Joined by 80,000+ sisters | 90-Day Guarantee
Twenty-Nine, Edges Laid, Hair Down My Back
I married Curtis at twenty-nine.
Edges laid. Hair down my back, swinging every time I turned my head. I was not worried about one thing on my head.
Year five I got a little thin at the temple. It was after my second baby.
He seen it before I did. Said there it go.
That was the first Saturday he ain't come home.
When he finally walked back in, he said if I had something worth looking at, he would stay.
It Is The Same Words Every Day Till They Yours
Bald. Ugly. Every day. Even back at twenty-nine when my edges was laid and there was nothing wrong with my head.
Weekends he was gone. Every weekend. And I put up with it.
It is the same words every day till they yours. Till you the one saying them in your own head when he ain't even in the house.
Fifteen years in, I was not defending myself no more. I agreed with him.
I left him twice.
First time at thirty-eight. Nine days at my sister's house. He called every night. Said go ahead, see who want you with them edges. I went back.
Second time at forty-four. I had the bags in the car. He ain't even come outside. Said you know don't nobody want you like that.
I unpacked the car.
It is the same words every day till they yours.
By Forty I Bought A Wig And Started Locking The Door
By forty the band of scalp was wide enough to see from the door.
So I bought a wig.
And I started getting dressed with the door locked. Wasn't nobody else in the house half the time. I locked it anyway.
He seen it on my head the first day and laughed. Said there go my bald wife with somebody else's hair.
Pulled it up off my head at the cookout in front of his boys.
Held his phone up and recorded me doing my edges in the mirror.
Anytime I said one word about my hair, he had the same answer ready. That's what I get for letting myself go.
I started getting dressed with the door locked. Wasn't nobody else in the house.
Four questions Denise asked me
- Do you leave the house before the sun is fully up, and get home after it is down?
- When you stand out in July, do you come back fine while the next woman comes back burnt?
- Do you spend most of your daylight hours behind glass - a windshield, an office window?
- And when is the last time a doctor tested your Vitamin D? Not asked about it. Tested it.
If that was yes, yes, yes, and never, you are almost certainly running the same deficiency I was. And if you are thinking but I get plenty of sun - it is bare skin that makes Vitamin D. Most of ours is covered most of the time.
I Had Started To Look Like Every Word He Ever Said
One night I stood in that bathroom and looked at myself.
Took the wig off slow.
And I had started to look like every word that man ever said.
That is the part I need you to hear. Not that he said it. That somewhere in there, I started agreeing with him.
I had started to look like every word that man ever said.
Let Me Tell You What Letting Myself Go Actually Looked Like
Six months of biotin. That jar is still half full in my cabinet right now.
Castor oil every Sunday night. Grease on my pillowcase and nothing on my edges.
$350 a month. The wig and the install, over and over, for nine years.
That is not a woman who let herself go. That is a woman paying rent on a hiding place.
Then I finally went to my doctor about it.
Two minutes. Two. She never looked up off the chart. Said that's normal at your age.
I sat in that parking lot after and I finished the sentence for her. The way Curtis would have.
I deserve this.
It is not your age. It is not your genes. It is not your edges being weak, and it is not anything you failed to do.
76%
of women are low on Vitamin D - and almost none of us have ever been tested for it
Cooper Institute
The research finding
Dr. Marie B. Demay, Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital
Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2007
When researchers removed the functional Vitamin D receptor, hair follicle stem cells lost the ability to renew themselves, and the follicle could no longer start a new growth cycle once the old hair shed. The result was not thinner hair. It was the growth phase failing to begin at all.
Read that again, because it is the sentence this whole industry has been building around instead of into.
Without that receptor switched on, the hair does not come back thinner. It does not come back.
See what Denise set on her station >
I was trying the whole time. I was just handed the wrong thing to try.
Then I Switched Shops And Met Denise
I switched shops that spring. Couldn't look my old stylist in the eye no more.
New woman named Denise. Twenty years doing hair. Seen every scalp in this city.
First time in her chair she lifted my wig to start my install.
And she just stopped.
Said who told you you deserved this.
I said nobody.
She said somebody did. I can see it on you.
Said I seen a hundred women go back to a man from this chair for the same reason. Ain't one of em deserved it.
I almost cried right there in her chair.
Who told you you deserved this?
She Ain't Say Another Word About Him. She Set A Pack On Her Station.
She ain't say one more word about Curtis.
Reached in her bag and set a pack down on her station.
Said my client who's a nurse put me onto this. It ain't the oils. It ain't the TikTok stuff.
Then she said the thing I have repeated to every woman who has asked me since.
Said twenty years like that will wear on a woman. But he ain't the reason your edges gone. And he sure ain't what's keeping em gone.
Said what's keeping em gone is that every single thing you been handed was built for somebody else's head. The pink one off the shelf. The jar the doctor waved at you. Years of that.
Said that's a switch, Monique. And a switch you can turn back on.
He ain't the reason your edges gone. And he sure ain't what's keeping em gone.
Hair Ain't Made On The Outside. It's Made A Eighth Of A Inch Down.
Everything I had been buying for years, I was putting on the outside. The oil. The grease. The serum from the beauty supply.
Denise said hair ain't made out there. It's made about a eighth of a inch down. At the root. Out your own blood.
And a root can fail four ways.
One. Nothing arriving. The building material never reaches the root, no matter how much of it you swallow.
Two. Nothing telling it to run. The signal that switches a follicle into its growing phase is missing.
Three. Something shrinking it. A hormone your body used to keep in check starts crowding that follicle smaller every cycle.
Four. The blood to it cut off. The little vessels feeding that root tighten up, so even what does arrive can't get in.
She looked at me and said I see all four in this chair every week. And I see all four on you.
Hair ain't made on the outside. It's made a eighth of a inch down, out your own blood.
Your Skin Blocks The Sun. That Is Its Whole Job.
Melanin protects you. I want to say that part first, because it is a gift.
It also blocks most of the UVB your body needs to make Vitamin D from sunlight.
So you can stand in the same sun as the next woman and make a fraction of what she makes.
76% of women run low on it. And don't nobody ever test us for it.
Here is why that matters for your edges and not just your bones. There is a receptor for Vitamin D sitting right on the hair follicle. Research on follicle biology indicates that receptor is required for the follicle to cycle back into its growing phase.
Without it, the follicle don't die. It goes quiet.
Quiet ain't gone. Quiet is off.
And the standard recommendation is 600 IU a day, set back in 2011. That number was written for everybody and it was never adjusted for skin tone. Not once.
Which is why LUMIN carries three times the standard dose. Not because more is a gimmick, but because a shelf dose was built for a woman whose skin makes her own.
Then She Told Me Why The Biotin Never Got There
Failure one, nothing arriving. Loose biotin barely makes the trip. Years of relaxers, heat and installs build a wall a cheap bottle was never getting through. It was never that biotin don't work. It's that it never reached the root. Bound to silica it gets there forty times deeper. That is a delivery problem, not an ingredient problem, and it is exactly why my jar is still half full and my edges still wasn't back.
Failure three, something shrinking it. After forty your estrogen starts stepping back. And estrogen was the only thing holding DHT off your follicles your whole life. When she steps back, DHT walks right in and crowds each follicle a little smaller every cycle. Saw palmetto keeps it off the root.
Failure four, the blood cut off. In a 2015 trial published in SKINmed, rosemary extract was found non-inferior to 2% minoxidil. It is in there for the blood supply, not for the smell.
Do all four, Denise said, or don't bother.
Then she said the sentence I still hear in my head.
Monique, a man can take twenty years. He can't take a root.
A man can take twenty years. He can't take a root.
What she set on her station
Built For Us. Not The Pink One For A Twenty-Five-Year-Old.
Black women getting they crowns back in three months. Soon as they take something that was built for them.
Not the pink one off the shelf for some twenty-five year old who ain't never lost a edge in her life.
Built for us.
Two gummies a day. That is the whole routine. Nothing to rub in. Nothing on your pillowcase.
It turns the switch back on
Vitamin D is the signal that starts a new growth cycle. A shelf dose was built for a woman whose skin makes her own. Ours carries three times the standard dose.
It keeps DHT off the root
After 40 your estrogen steps back, and estrogen was the only thing holding DHT off your follicles your whole life. Saw palmetto keeps it off, right at the root.
It reopens the blood supply
The tiny vessels feeding a root tighten up, so even what arrives cannot get in. Rosemary extract was found non-inferior to 2% minoxidil at six months in a 2015 SKINmed trial.
It actually gets the material there
Decades of relaxers, heat and installs build a wall a cheap bottle was never getting through. Bound to silica, biotin gets there 40 times deeper.
Everything else on that shelf makes one of those four moves. One. That is the whole story of why nothing you tried ever did anything.
Two gummies a day | 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee | Joined by 80,000+ sisters
I Took It Home And Hid It In My Sock Drawer
I said Denise, ain't nothing fixing twenty years of this.
She looked me dead in my eyes.
Then she said something no stylist says. Said if it don't work, she would do my installs herself, free, for a year. Said I don't say that to nobody.
I want to be straight with you about that part. That was Denise's word. Hers, out her own pocket, because of who she is. It was never the company's.
The company's word is ninety days and your money back. I never needed either one.
So I took it home. Two gummies, every morning, like she said.
And I hid the pack in my sock drawer so he wouldn't have one more thing to say about my head.
I hid the pack in my sock drawer so he wouldn't have one more thing to say about my head.
Six Weeks In. Just Me And The Bathroom Light.
Month one I seen nothing. That is the month most women quit, and it is the month the root is doing work you can't watch.
Week six there was less of me in that shower drain than there had been in years. And I felt the first baby hairs at my temple before I could see them. Just me and the bathroom light. I ain't told nobody yet.
I called Denise from my car that same week. Said why is this working when nothing else did.
She said because it was never your hair.
And it was never you.
Said you got a switch that got turned off, and something moved in behind it.
It was never your hair. And it was never you.
Three Months She Turned My Chair Around
Three months I sat down in Denise's chair for my install.
She lifted that wig up and just stopped. Same as the first day. Different reason.
Turned my chair round to the mirror and said girl, look.
Said you don't need this no more.
And I looked at that woman in the mirror. Edges filling in. My own hair. No wig.
And she ain't look like nothing he ever said.
That Saturday He Left For His Weekend. I Packed Two Bags.
That Saturday he left for his weekend like always.
I packed two bags while he was gone.
Wore my own hair to my sister's house.
First time in nine years.
Sunday I Wore It To Church
Sunday I wore it to church.
Woman at the next sink in the ladies room, about my age. Hand up under her wig, trying to make it sit right.
Tugging it down over edges that wasn't there.
Same thing I used to do with the door locked.
She caught my eye in that mirror and said my husband say I let myself go.
I said he lying.
I said it's a switch.
She pulled her phone out right there at the sink and ordered it.
I said he lying. I said it's a switch.
A Man Named Gerald Waited For My Answer
Man from my sister's church named Gerald. Fifty-four. Widowed. Kind eyes.
Walked me to my car after service.
Asked could he call me sometime.
Then he waited for the answer.
Twenty years and nobody ever waited on my answer.
Curtis Came To The Door. Third Time.
Curtis showed up at my sister's door two weeks later. Third time that man came to get me.
Looked at my hair a long time.
Said damn, Monique. You look.
And he stopped.
Twenty years I waited on that man to stop mid-sentence.
I ain't say one word. I tucked my hair behind my ear. And I shut the door.
First time in twenty years I ain't go back.
He texted that night. I left him on read. Then I blocked him.
Twenty years of that man and it took one thumb.
Cereal Aisle, A Month Later
Seen him in the grocery store a month later. Cereal aisle.
He started talking before I even turned around.
Monique, you know I ain't mean none of that. Said I look good. Said he changed. Said his mama been asking about me.
I picked up my cereal. Checked the price. Ain't heard a word of it.
Then Gerald come round the aisle with the cart.
Looked at Curtis and said you lost her, bro.
And Curtis got quiet. Looked Gerald up and down and took a step back.
Twenty years that man had a mouth on him. Took one look at Gerald and found his manners.
That's what they are. Loud with a woman. Quiet with a man.
We paid for our groceries and left him standing there.
Loud with a woman. Quiet with a man.
But The Moment Wasn't Him Looking At Me
The moment wasn't him looking at me in that aisle.
It was me in the mirror. Finally seeing myself.
For twenty years my edges said what he said. Bald. Ugly. Look at her.
Now they say she still here.
I ain't need Curtis to see me.
I needed to see me.
For twenty years my edges said what he said. Now they say she still here.
Easter, And His Mama Asked Me What I Been Using
Seen Curtis at Easter. Hairline moving back. Crown going thin at fifty-one.
His mama pulled me aside and asked what I been using.
Said her son been asking.
I said tell him it's a switch.
And he ain't never gon find it.
I said tell him it's a switch. And he ain't never gon find it.
He Took Me To Dinner And Ain't Said One Word About My Head
Gerald took me to dinner that Friday.
Ain't said one word about my head all night.
Twenty years I had a man with plenty to say about my head. This one had nothing to say about it and everything to say to me.
Then at the car he said you got beautiful hair, Monique.
I said I know.
He said you got beautiful hair, Monique. I said I know.
I Know Where You At Right Now. I Was There.
Maybe it's a man laughing at your edges.
Maybe it's just the mirror.
Maybe you left and went back because somebody said nobody else gon want you looking like that.
He lying.
Or maybe ain't nobody said nothing at all. You just quit going places.
You tried the biotin. You tried the castor oil. You got your two minutes with the doctor and she told you it's normal at your age.
So you told yourself you deserve it.
You don't.
So you told yourself you deserve it. You don't.
It's A Switch. And A Switch Can Be Turned Back On.
Black women getting they crowns back in three months. Soon as they take something that was built for them.
Not the pink one on the shelf for some twenty-five year old who ain't never lost a edge in her life.
Built for us.
Now let me say one honest word about the waiting, because I am not going to do to you what was done to me.
Denise said they run out. I ain't telling you the sky is falling.
But a root that sits quiet don't sit still. Every cycle it comes back a little finer. The longer it stays off, the more there is to bring back.
The wig will always be there. That door never closes. This one closes slow and quiet and nobody sends you a letter about it.
It costs less than one install.
Over eighty thousand sisters on it now. Ninety days, and if your hair ain't changed you get your money back. That is the whole condition.
Twenty years I got laughed at for this. Now I'm the one telling you how to fix it.
He can call me whatever he want now. He just can't call me.
I ain't listening. I'm looking.
Two gummies a day | 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee | Joined by 80,000+ sisters
What Actually Happened, And When
I am going to be honest about the pace, because anybody promising you faster is selling you something.
- Month 1Nothing you can see. This is the month most women quit, and it is the month the root is doing the work you can't watch.
- Week 6Less of me in that shower drain than there had been in years. And the first baby hairs at my temple. I felt them before I could see them. Just me and the bathroom light.
- Month 3The full change. Denise turned my chair to the mirror and said you don't need this no more. This is also the point where other people start saying something before you do.
Why Don't Nobody Tell Us
Denise said it's two reasons, and ain't neither one a conspiracy.
Can't nobody own it. You can't patent Vitamin D. Ain't no molecule to protect, ain't no twenty-year head start, so don't nobody spend a dollar telling you about it.
And we wasn't in the room. The research that built that shelf was done mostly on white scalps, on bodies that make they own Vitamin D walking to the mailbox. Build a whole aisle around a body like that and you never stop to ask why the women whose skin block that signal ain't getting nothing back.
They ain't hide it from us. They just never bothered fixing it for us.
That ain't a gap in the market. That's a gap in respect.
What 80,000+ Sisters Are Saying
"I've been using the Lumin Hair Growth Gummies for about 2 months now, and I can honestly say they really work! My hair has grown a lot - longer, thicker, and much healthier. Even my edges, which are usually very stubborn, are starting to show progress. They're not fully where I want them yet, but I can definitely see improvement. The gummies taste good, are easy to take, and truly deliver results. I'm very happy with my hair growth so far and highly recommend them to anyone looking to strengthen and grow their hair."
Venice R.
Verified Buyer
"I love this!! I feel the difference in my roots they are very thick. Thank You. I saw another product and I was wondering if you made it as well it's lumin. But it's square and bigger than the gummies do you make these as well????"
Gladys M.
Verified Buyer
"Edges improving - thank God for this product"
Yolanda K.
Verified Buyer
"This product did everything it said it would. My hair is so thick now, the courseness has change, i had to purchase a different type of comb.. ooowee! Super product!!"
Winnifred T.
Verified Buyer
"Well I'm starting to see some improvement in my edges so thank God that there is some type of product that can help grow your hair back especially for us black women especially when we losing to run our edges but that comes from all those harsh chemicals that we use so thank God for you guys keep up the good work and as I approve I will definitely continue to contact you thank you very much appreciate you guys God bless"
Edie L.
Verified Buyer
"Spectacular! My hair is flourishing. Thanks A Million!"
Cleopatra J.
Verified Buyer
"I can see a little growth and it taste good"
Janice P.
Verified Buyer
- Biotin-Silica Complex absorbs 40x better than biotin alone.
- Free Mystery Gift
- Free Shipping
- Formulated for daily intake - just 2 gummies a day.
Meet Your New Everyday Hair Essentials
Your crown awaits, Queen. It's time to get your edges - and yourself - back.
If your hairdresser can't tell the difference in ninety days, you don't pay.
Joined by 80,000+ sisters
Questions I Get Asked Most
How long before I see anything?
Month one you will not see anything, and that is the month most women quit. Around week six you may feel the first baby hairs at your temple before you can see them. Month three is the full change, and it is the point where other people start saying something before you do. Anybody promising you faster is selling you something.
Did twenty years of stress take my hair?
A hard twenty years wears on a woman. I am not going to pretend it doesn't. But it is not what kept my edges gone, and it is not what is keeping yours gone. What kept mine gone is that every single thing I was handed was built for somebody else's head. A pink bottle for a twenty-five year old. A dose number written in 2011 for everybody and never adjusted for skin tone. Two minutes with a doctor who never looked up. That is the thing that has to change, and that is the thing you can actually change today.
I already take a hair vitamin. Why would this be different?
Most of them make one of the four moves a root needs. Usually they add biotin and stop there, which does nothing if that biotin never reaches the root in the first place. This is built around all four at once, which is why it is a set and not one ingredient.
Can I take it while I'm wearing a wig or in a sew-in?
Yes. It works from the inside, at the root, so nothing about your protective style has to change while you wait. Plenty of us start it under an install and take it down three months later. That is exactly what I did.
Is this only for Black women?
It was formulated around what our scalps and our hormones actually need after forty, which is not what the shelf was built for. That is who it is designed for, and that is who it was made with.
What if it don't work for me?
You have ninety days. If your hair has not changed, you get your money back. That is the whole condition.
Verified Results:
31
44
27
52
19
23
16
12
29
9
38
Individual results vary; this is one customer's account and not a guarantee of results. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult your physician before use if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, and keep out of reach of children.