I Built My Career on My Natural Hair. Now, It’s Falling Out.

24.06.2025, 15:41 allure.com

If you participated in the natural hair movement in the 2010s, you’ve certainly seen Chizi Duru’s face. I watched her tutorials for 4C hair religiously. At the time, she was one of the few popular creators whose hair texture looked like mine—a role she was intentional about taking on. “I noticed that there was a lack of representation for women and men whose hair was more tightly coiled,” Duru tells me. “So I was just like, ‘You know what? I want to be that for someone else.’”

Duru started her natural hair journey in 2011 and immediately began documenting and sharing her experiences on YouTube. She posted videos of her lengthy washdays, hairstyling tutorials, and, most relatable, videos of her trying popular natural hairstyles that usually failed to look good on 4C hair. “I was willing to sacrifice my hair for the greater good,” the 29-year-old content creator says.

Thirteen years after her YouTube channel launched, Duru faced losing the very thing she initially built her platform on. After more than a decade of styling her hair for content, Duru sat in dermatologist Michelle Henry’s New York City office and received a diagnosis of androgenetic alopecia, a type of hair loss commonly characterized by the shrinking of hair follicles resulting in thin, barely noticeable hair that’s believed to be caused by genetics and hormones.

A diagnosis of alopecia could have been a devastating blow for someone whose main thing is their hair, but Duru primarily felt relief. “I remember thinking, Oh, wow! I'm not crazy,” she says. “There's a reason for this pain [on my scalp], which means there could be a solution.”

Now, a year into her treatment (which she’s been sharing openly with her followers), Duru feels a new sense of hope and freedom about her hair. Ahead, the content creator reflects on her experience with this common type of hair loss, including how she’s treating the condition, how it's affected her relationship with her hair, and what she wants every Black woman in her shoes to know.

Images: courtesy of Chizi Duru

Allure: When did you first go natural and why?

Chizi Duru: I grew up with relaxed hair. My earliest memory is literally of me with a perm. I don't remember exactly when my mom permed my hair, but my earliest memory is with relaxed hair.

I was always in a hair salon in a stylist's chair, where I would get different styles, including braids. After a while, I think when I was around 12 years old, my hair started breaking off. It was always dry, and it was frustrating because I wanted my hair to grow long. One day, I went to my dad's room to complain, and he was like, “Why don't you just cut all your hair off and let it grow naturally?”

Looking back, it’s so interesting that I hadn’t considered the concept of my hair growing out naturally. My dad ended up convincing me to cut my hair. He was actually the one who cut it off. This man gave me a buzz cut. I went into the eighth grade in New York with no hair on my head.

“I was willing to sacrifice my hair for the greater good.”

Allure: How has being a content creator affected your relationship with your hair? How has that relationship evolved over the years?

Duru: I've always had a very deep love for hair and hairstyling. Doing hair was one of the things I would do to pass the time growing up. Sharing it online was just important to me. But what ended up happening over time was that my hair started to feel almost a little sacrificial, for lack of a better word. I did my hair one to two times a week, despite the effort it took and the discomfort I felt on my scalp.

That’s not a bad thing. I was willing to sacrifice my hair for the greater good to create content so that other women could have representation of what hair could be like, so I was happy to do it. But once doing my hair became my job, I didn't want to do my hair anymore. I was also experiencing a lot of soreness and breakage because I was manipulating it constantly for my content. That started to create a little struggle with my relationship with my hair.

Now that I don't create hair content all the time, I've reclaimed my hair as mine. I don't have to do my hair to have a thriving career. That gives me space to be able to just enjoy my hair, leave it alone, and do whatever I want with it.

Allure: When did you begin noticing signs of alopecia?

Duru: In 2016, while I was in college, I started feeling and experiencing a lot of soreness at the center of my scalp. I was doing a lot of hair content on YouTube, so I thought maybe I was just manipulating it too much. I started to be a lot more careful with how I handled it, and would section off the middle, and just be softer with it.

That went on for years. If I wore my natural hair out, eventually my scalp would just be super sore. Then I also started noticing that in that center spot where it would get sore, I was also experiencing some breakage, and there was a little bit of thinning happening there.

Allure: When did you first seek medical treatment for the tender spot on your scalp?

Duru: I was still in college [when I first went] to a doctor, so this had to be when I was around 20 years old, almost 10 years ago. I remember going to a doctor, actually, I think she was a nurse practitioner, and complaining about the soreness of my scalp. I was confused and wanted answers. She kind of brushed it off, and she was like, "You're probably just wearing really tight hairstyles, so just don't wear tight hairstyles all the time."

I think experiences like that are what contribute to a lot of Black women not even wanting to seek medical help because when we do share that we're experiencing pain or any type of discomfort, we're kind of just brushed off. It took another 10 years for me to go back to a dermatologist for a second opinion.

In 2024, I did more research, and the issue was just persisting, so I finally went to see Dr. Michelle Henry. By this point, I had some suspicions about what I was experiencing. Dr. Henry was very open and not judgmental at all.

“Now that I have the diagnosis and I'm getting treated for it, it feels incredible.”

Allure: What was that first appointment with Dr. Henry like?

Duru: I told her my symptoms and she was like, "It definitely sounds like [central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia] CCCA," so she ordered a scalp biopsy to get a diagnosis. Turns out it wasn't CCCA; it was androgenetic alopecia, which is female-pattern baldness. It's a very common condition that causes hair thinning in women.

Allure: How did it feel to finally have an answer after years of struggling?

Duru: It made me feel comforted and just like, Oh, wow! I'm not crazy. I didn't have to actually go through all this pain. There's a reason, a diagnosis for this pain, which means there could be a solution.

Now that I have the diagnosis and I'm getting treated for it, it feels incredible. I'm just happy that I found a solution, and I at least know what's going on versus being in this random pain sometimes.

Allure: What does your treatment look like?

Duru: I was prescribed minoxidil, which is a very popular treatment for this type of alopecia. But, side note, no one tells you that once you start minoxidil, you can't stop because the hair that grows from it will fall out if you stop using it. So I'll probably end up also looking into PRP [platelet-rich plasma], which is a hair-loss treatment to stimulate hair growth.

Allure: How has your hair routine changed since being diagnosed with alopecia?

Duru: The type of alopecia that is more commonly seen in Black women is traction alopecia, and that's caused by wearing tight styles and braids, and pulling on the edges, and things like that. I don't have that, so wearing different types of styles has never been an issue for me. Actually, funny enough, putting my hair away, let's say in braids or wearing a wig, actually gives my scalp relief.

But my routine has changed in the sense that I can’t wear my high puffs or twist-outs anymore because the shape of my hair is off, and these styles cause my scalp to hurt, so I had to resort to more protective styles. I also try to wash my hair more often, like one to two times a month. Otherwise, my washdays look the same—I still shampoo, condition, and do treatments occasionally.

Allure: How has dealing with alopecia affected you emotionally?

Duru: Part of me grieves for my younger self and all the time that I could have been preventing this [pain] or getting it treated much earlier. But I'm also grateful that I decided to advocate for myself and try again and get some answers. There’s a sense of relief with that.

It makes me really happy being able to share with others because so many women reached out to me saying they’ve experienced the same thing, but they never went to see a doctor, just like I didn't. And now they know that this is a thing that they should start looking into. I'm happy that I can spread more awareness about it so that we don't have to go through these things alone.

Allure: What would you tell other Black women dealing with the same condition or any type of hair loss?

Duru: I’d say learn to advocate for yourself. I hope they can learn from me that advocating for yourself is important. Sometimes what you're experiencing is not normal, and there's somebody out there who has information about it.

I’d also tell them that ultimately we're more than our hair, even though it's a big part of our culture and identity. I hope Black women learn that no matter what they decide to do with their hair, they should still have a strong sense of who they are and have a strong sense of self-worth. Because that's really all that matters. You are still special, no matter what. If your hair is short, long, balding, black, white, fried, and dyed, if you've got a scoop of hair left, you are still great.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Read more from The Melanin Edit's series on hair loss:

Your Favorite Protective Style Might Actually Be Causing Your Hair Loss

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