‘Getting their glow back’: How Baldilocks is changing the narrative around hair loss
‘Getting their glow back’: How Baldilocks is changing the narrative around hair loss
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When Dan Newman walked past a barbershop in his hometown of Bridgend just over a year ago, he didn’t expect the moment to spark the creation of a social enterprise that would soon be making waves across the UK.
“I’d love to have that experience again,” says Newman, co-founder of Baldilocks. “I remember that although I started losing my hair when I was 18, I’m now 43, there was a period where I had a great head of hair. And unfortunately for me, we’d often complain about it. So, you live and learn.”
Newman, who has alopecia, recalled how much confidence he gained from going to the barbers as a teenager. “Where I used to get my confidence out of being a very introverted teenager would be going to the hairdressers and feel better about myself,” he explains. “So, when I started to lose my hair, I started to lose that connection to that space.”
That sense of exclusion, he says, was a catalyst. “I felt like a dog outside of butchers. Looking in and having no place there. But I thought: ‘nah that’s not right. That needs to change.’ So, I sat with that for a time and thought how can I get Baldies back in the barbers?”
Baldilocks was founded to “help people get their glow back, should they be suffering any kind of psychological trauma with premature hair loss,” says Newman. This can be caused by alopecia, cancer treatments or other illnesses. “Every six minutes, someone is losing their hair through some kind of illness,” he adds. “You shouldn’t lose your dignity just because you’re losing your hair. So that’s what we’re about.”
Newman says the company’s core values of connection, empathy and humour were shaped by his lived experience. “I saw a guy with alopecia who was serving in Domino’s… I approached this guy and said, oh, you got alopecia like me, haven’t you? And it was as if I just crushed his soul,” he recalls.
That moment reminded him of how difficult it was to face the world when he was first losing his hair. “Although well intentioned, I did lose my sense of empathy in that moment in not recognising actually, do you know what, you might not be that enthusiastic to talk about a condition that he’s trying to contend with.”
Humour, too, has become a central part of Baldilocks’ approach. “Humour encourages a sense of candidness, a sense of openness and ownership,” says Newman. He credits the name Baldilocks to a light-hearted exchange with one of his children’s friends. “He came back and he said, shut up, Baldilocks… It was so sharp. I thought ‘I’ll take that. You’ve won this time, but also I’m going to take that and apply it’.”
Baldilocks is a profit-for-purpose business, Newman explains. “Our profits will fund wellness experiences for those people to indeed get their glow back,” he says. A recent campaign video shared on social media encapsulates the company’s mission. “There’s these four ladies with various degrees of alopecia and we take them into a spa,” he says. “Honestly, at the beginning, you can see they’re looking very uneasy, but by the end, they’re sat in a restaurant with their hair systems off and they’re smiling.”
The video demonstrates the power of visible inclusion. “One of the ladies had said if I saw a Baldilocks sticker on a window of a salon or a spa, then I know I would feel understood and welcomed,” Newman says. “The brand strength is powerful because of its story, because of its mission.”
Baldilocks generates revenue through a diverse range of services and products. “We get to support a number of people in a number of sectors,” Newman says. “Our services and products, ranging from corporate massages, corporate wellness days, I’m starting to do speaking to young learners and employability centres around empowerment. And we’re also starting to develop products… pin badges, T-shirts, caps, and also the Baldy Box is about to be launched, which is our wellness package.”
Newman’s passion for Baldilocks stems from a lifetime of navigating the challenges of hair loss and its social implications. He recalls the disconnection he felt as a young man. “This notion of disconnection, isolation we can experience these things regardless of any particular visible condition,” he says.
He explains that his teenage years were already marked by anxiety and depression. “I started to go out with friends when I was about 18 and I got attacked… an unprovoked assault,” he says. Six months later, Newman developed his first bald patch.
“That attack really [had an] immediate impact on me… I couldn’t really disguise it,” he recalls. “There was a lot of resilience needed, a lot of grit to get out of the house and to overcome these impacts.”
Newman experienced humiliation from insensitive medical professionals, name-calling from strangers and disconnection from spaces like barbershops. “You could argue really that Baldilocks was born from a choice of not wanting to be a victim anymore,” he says.
Newman believes that hair loss can carry a significant psychological weight, which employers, service providers and communities should be aware of. “If you meet someone who has got a physical condition, it could be hair loss, could be scarring, it tells a story,” he says. “I think it tells a story about that person’s resilience, that person’s adversity.”
He urges organisations to create more inclusive spaces. “If you’re an employer, for example, or a doctor, or a salon owner, and you come across someone who has the signs of hair loss, there’s no doubt there is a bigger psychological baggage to this. So create space, create empathy and assure that person that there’s a lot of admiration that comes their way and respect by default because they’re choosing to leave the house and still live their lives,” Newman says.
“Inclusion is important for us to really get the best out of each other in a community and that’s how human beings thrive,” he adds.
Baldilocks is still in its startup phase but is already gaining recognition. “We’re a multi award winner already and towards the end of the year, I believe we were on track to win another four awards in the entrepreneur space, the startup space and the social enterprise space,” says Newman.
Newman is optimistic about the future. “Be ready for what’s about to be what I call the baldi-verse big bang,” he says with a smile.
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