Chemo regrowth: How to style short hair

Our thanks go to Anna, the voice behind MyCancerChic for sharing with us her tips on how to style short, post-chemo hair.

As a young breast cancer survivor/advocate & style enthusiast Anna strives to empower young women to thrive in the face of adversity with strength, self-confidence and style. You can find Anna on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, plus if you enjoy this blog, in the previous, related blog, Anna shares her post-chemo hair regrowth timeline.

The majority of the questions I get asked revolve around hair! For many women, hair is our pride and joy. It’s our comfort blanket, our protection from the world. Some hair changes can be fun, a new style, a new colour, a new look. But hair loss, now that was not a change I was excited for.

Learning to style your hair as it grows back can be as uncomfortable as the hair loss itself because it may not feel like your own. Your texture and colour may have changed following chemo and it can be yet another new situation to manoeuvre. The other struggle is that all your hair may not be the same length. The front usually takes much longer to grow and this creates difficulty when styling. I continually share my own hair journey to give others hope for hair after cancer and to provide tips and tricks to help with styling that post-chemo growth.  As my hair reached a bob length I desperately searched Instagram for hair inspiration and styling tips since I’d never had short hair before. I found some amazing women sharing their own hair tips on YouTube and Instagram and  devoted myself to learning how to style this length of hair. Videos helped immensely as well as lots of  practice. Not every style I tried worked and there was a lot of trial and error involved. But, I never gave up. I wanted to feel confident and empowered at each stage and you can too.

With practice you can successfully style your hair at any length and feel beautiful during each stage of your regrowth. I have included a few of my favourite hair styles I have done over the last six months, and a few tutorials as well.

Inspired by Chloe Brown @Chloenbrown

Inspired by Sarah @Sarah_LouWho

Inspired by Gabby @GdeMass

CancerPal stocks a range of products to help care for your hair and scalp during chemotherapy as well as a range of products to help with hair regrowth.