Celebrity views on Viviscal
Maureen Nolan
Singer and Actress best known as one of the Nolan Sisters
She’s been performing since she was nine, hit stardom with her sisters as The Nolans and has since spent a career on stage singing and in key theatre roles including Footloose’ and ‘Blood Brothers’. But even though Maureen has always been known as ‘the pretty one’ of her sisters, she reveals that she was silently suffering with hair loss for years and it wasn’t until she got married last year and had to resort to wearing hair extensions that she finally decided to do something about it.
“It’s great to keep yourself looking good and when you look good you feel good. But I think that when you’re younger you take all these things for granted don’t you. I’ve always had nice thick shiny hair so it wasn’t until it started falling out that I realised just how important it was to me.
“I think it started was when I was in Blood Brothers in 2005, in the West End and I stayed with my cousin for one of the two years that I was doing the show. She had light carpets and actually made a joke about all the hair she was finding on the carpet. My hair had probably been falling out for a while but because I was staying at my cousin’s house, I suddenly became more aware of it. I kept finding alarming amounts of it in the bath plughole and would have to keep cleaning it out. I’d find a thin dark layer on my pillow all the time and when I dried and styled my hair, it would come out on my brush and on the carpet.
“It was embarrassing and it used to make me panic. I’d think “Oh god, how much of it is going to come out, is it the beginning of alopecia?” When I put my hair up I’d think “Oh I look quite bald at the front” and styles I took for granted I couldn’t really have any more. My ponytail felt a lot thinner and my lack of black signature hair made me feel less attractive and confident. I knew that as men got older they might recede but I never knew women could suffer thinning hair too.
“I tried to style my hair differently by pulling it forward at the front to ensure I didn’t have a very wide parting. It was a bit like a Bobby Charlton comb over I suppose.
“To begin with I think my hair loss was because of the menopause although at the time I had no idea that it was a common side-effect. I also think it had a lot to do with all the over-styling my hair was put through doing eight shows a week for two years straight. And now that I know that diet also affects the health of your hair I think that probably had an impact on it too. When you’re working so much it’s hard to find the time to eat properly. You just grab what you can and that could mean anything from a big muffin from the cafe next door, to a Burger King, because it’s convenient. I really started to notice my hair thinning again though after a particularly stressful period in my life.
“We had a big family fall out about three or four years ago and although the argument didn’t affect me, I was caught in the middle. And then in 2009 we did our fantastic reunion tour but my sister Anne wasn’t included which caused great family arguments and my two older sisters (Anne and Denise) didn’t speak to me for over a year. I’m so close to all of my sisters that I felt very stressed by the situation – like it was up to me to sort it out.
“It’s funny because I’ve read in all of my sister’s books that I’m known as the mediator in the family and actually I suppose I am. I don’t like arguments and if I’m there and two of my sisters are arguing then I’ll say, “Oh she meant it like that you know”. One of my eldest sisters even said to me at the time “I can’t believe you can’t sort this out...you’re the only one that ever will”. Whether that’s because I’m a middle child, (as much in the middle as you can be with eight of us) but I think in life generally I am a mediator.
“My sisters had much bigger things to worry about and I felt that complaining about my hair loss was selfish and petty so I didn’t say anything to them.
“I tried thickening shampoos but there’s only so much help they can give you in making your hair feel fuller. They of course didn’t stop my hair falling out or encourage it to grow and I became terrified of getting very visible bald patches.
“I finally decided to do something about it after I got married last year to my long-term partner Ritchie and had to resort to wearing extensions in my hair. I started to look online for solutions and came across Viviscal, a natural food supplement that feeds the hair follicles from within. I’d had no luck with topical products so I decided to give it a try. You basically take one tablet in the morning and one in the evening and even after a few months I started to notice a difference in the quality of my hair.
“I feel much better about my hair now. I feel like I’ve got my thick shiny hair back and it seems so much healthier. I definitely won’t take it for granted anymore so I’ve continued taking Viviscal to ensure my hair gets all the nutrients it needs.
“I’ve learnt that hair loss in women is much more common than you think but there are things you can do to address it – my own experience shows that. I also think it’s important to talk about it with friends and family because the more you bottle it up and stress about it, the more that stress is likely to make your hair loss worse. I just wish I’d mentioned it sooner to my sisters. I might not have experienced anywhere near the kind of hair loss that my sister Bernie did recently during her chemotherapy treatment but when you’re going through it, it feels truly awful. It knocks your confidence and affects your whole approach to life.”
You can see Maureen chat to Lorraine Kelly about her hair loss problem on the Lorraine show here
Sue Holderness
Actress best known as Marlene in Only Fools and Horses
She’s well-known for playing saucy character Marlene in Only Fools & Horses with her big permed hair and brassy style but today the glamorous actress admits that she’s spent a lifetime battling with hair loss behind the scenes and is only now truly happy with her hair.
“My hair is terrifyingly important to me. I have wasted so many hours of so many days fretting about my hair. It has taken years out of my life, when I could have been doing something fun or productive. But if my hair looks ghastly, I feel bad – and there’s no escaping that! I first noticed I was losing my hair when I became pregnant in 1984. At first I was thrilled when my hair seemed to get thicker and shinier by the day. I know that you hold onto your hair during pregnancy and then all the hair that should have fallen out over the nine months suddenly does so after birth, but I didn’t expect so much to fall out and I was extremely unhappy at the time. The same thing happened after my second child was born but it wasn’t as alarming, so you can imagine my horror several years later when my hair started to spill out of my head again.
“I started to notice large amounts of hair in my brush and an awful lot in the show tray when I washed it, but I was truly shocked when I woke up one morning and there was a carpet of hair on my pillow. I couldn’t understand how any hair was actually left on my head because SO MUCH was falling out. It was bad enough turning 40 but the prospect of being 40 and BALD was extremely stressful. Thin, brittle, lank hair made me feel unattractive and anxious. I am naturally a positive and rather bouncy sort of person. Well, losing my hair completely changed my personality. I was truly blue and depressed.
“My hair was darkish brown then, and I would paint my scalp with dark brown eye-liner (in fact that worked rather well). I also wore hats, but of course you have to take off a hat as soon as you go inside, and they are hot and uncomfortable in the summer. Likewise with wigs. I quite like wearing wigs to get a completely new look now and then, but its horrible to feel that you have to wear a wig every day to face the world. I went to see my doctor and started a round of visits to specialists but nobody seemed to be able to find the answer. After a few months my hair seemed to settle down. It wasn’t great, but it was no longer tumbling out. It was much later that I realised that it may well have been a delayed reaction to the death of my father. Delayed shock? We’ll never know for sure. But I believe lots of women have found that their hair suffers often many months after a troubled time in their lives.
“I have had long periods where my hair is not too bad, but it did start to tumble out again in my early fifties, which was all I’m sure tied up with the menopause. Those horrible hot flushes and struck and the hair loss became so noticeable that I had to have my hair cut off to about a half an inch all over. I hoped that I might look like Audrey Hepburn at her elfin loveliest. I didn’t! I felt horribly unfeminine and completely not me. When I filmed the first episode of “The Green Green Grass” Marlene’s hair was still very tortured into shape and hair-sprayed up but as the series went on I felt that she would want to hide the grey hairs (as I do myself of course) and so I went blonde. Well the hair problem came back in a big way. The bleach coupled with constant use of hot curlers and straighteners during filming and the fact that I was still going through the dreaded menopause caused my hair to become thin, brittle and straw-like.
“Over the years I’ve tried every supplement I could find that offered help with hair loss but none seemed to work. I have also gone through phases of eating lots of sardines and other oily fish as I’d read that marine protein is really important for the health of hair but it really wasn’t until I took my first course of the supplement Viviscal that I noticed a real improvement in the quality of my hair. I saw an advertisement with Cheryl Baker and Jennie Bond proclaiming the virtues of the product and how it had helped them. Their problems seemed to be so like my own and the results so encouraging that I felt it was worth a try. I am quite wary of taking pills, so when I saw this product advertised I looked at all the research before buying it. I liked the fact that Viviscal is a nutritional supplement high in marine protein which is designed to support hair growth naturally. The scientific evidence seemed to make it well worth a try so I bought a three month course.
“The first benefit that I noticed was with my nails – always a problem – they are very thin and hopeless. They seemed greatly improved after about a month. Towards the end of the three months I definitely noticed a little forest of short new hair growth and was encouraged enough to invest in another three month course. After six months the new hair growth was truly remarkable. My hairdresser was astonished. You could see a whole host of strong new hair forcing its way through and it was very exciting.
“I am going through the happiest period of my grown-up life with my hair now. I do feel that the hair follicles are being nourished properly from within now, so my hair growth is much stronger and more able to withstand the treatment it sometimes has to endure with my profession. My hair is very like my Mum’s. I noticed Mum’s hair thinning quite dramatically as she got into her late seventies so it’s very important to me to find a way to combat that now.
“I also have two very close friends who have the same problem and after my good experience with Viviscal, I suggested they take it and they too have witnessed terrific results. I think people are shocked when they see women with very seriously think hair and it’s generally considered something that happens when you grow older but as my experience shows, it can happen at any age and for a number of different reasons. When I have been going through my worst hair phases, it has coloured my whole life but now that my hair is finally thick and healthy it is as if a great weight of anxiety has been lifted from my shoulders and normal life can be resumed.
“I am so excited to have found a real solution to my hair loss that I honestly want to share it with as many people as possible. I know how distressing the condition is and how wonderful it is to have solved my problem and finally to feel good about my hair. I think it might help other women too, to know that there are an awful lot of us out there with this condition and that help is actually available.
Cheryl Baker Bucks Fizz star and TV presenter
I first experienced this devastating problem after I had my twins and then again as I hit the menopause. Experiencing thinning hair is a real shock for any woman and one that is hard to accept. When you start to find a lot of hair on your pillow or in the shower tray it’s terrible absolutely soul destroying. You don’t want to be seen or face the world. You feel all alone – like the only woman on the planet with this problem. And you don’t know what to do.
“My confidence was knocked. I didn’t even want to talk to my husband about it and I got paranoid that people could see why I’d done my hair differently. I just didn’t want to be seen – whether going on stage, picking the kids up from school or even going to the supermarket. But then a friend told me to try a natural food supplement formula and explained how it could provide my system with what it needed to reduce my thinning hair and support the natural regrowth – without having to resort to drugs. After just four months taking two of the supplements a day, I could see and feel the difference.
“Before, my pony tail was as small as a 5 pence piece. After just 4 months, it was as big as a 10 pence piece.
“When I started to talk about my problem, I realised that as many as 1 in 3 women go through the same thing, especially after having children or as they reach the menopause.
“Things have moved on and improved since I first took a hair supplement and now I’m delighted to recommend the original world-renowned Viviscal Hair Nourishment Programme now available in Ireland. The ingredients in Viviscal Maximum Strength include a marine protein which provides the essential nutrients needed to support natural hair growth. I’d recommend Viviscal to anyone with thinning hair.
Photo: © Alan Olley/Camera Press
Celia Holman-Lee
Celia Holman-Lee TV fashion presenter and former model
“Being in the public eye as an expert in fashion increases the pressure to be constantly looking ones best and to look young! After years of visiting the hairdressers and having my hair styled for television etc., my hair was worn and torn, and as I got older it thinned considerably.
“When my husband Ger stopped commenting on how great my hair looked I started to get concerned and I began to notice that my hair was thinning. I had no hesitation when a friend of mine recommended I try Viviscal Maximum Strength. A couple of months on and my hair looks better than it has for over a decade!
Viviscal requires a bit of commitment as it is a six month programme though I started noticing the difference after just three months. Thanks to Viviscal, I don’t worry about thinning hair anymore.”
