At the fourth annual HAIR+ Summit, stylists, extension and hair piece experts, trichologists, salon owners and physicians shared their wisdom for helping clients with thinning hair and hair loss, with many attendees exclaiming that this year’s event was the best collaboration to date.

With the addition of HairUWear and their brands (Great Lengths, American Hairlines, Gabor, Hairdo, HIM, Raquel Welch, Transformations and GL Tapes), as a premium sponsor, the HAIR+ Summit was able to elevate its education on extensions, hair pieces and wigs, while continuing to foster education on other solutions to thinning hair, including products, nutraceuticals, lasers and medical approaches.

MODERN SALON Media’s Steve Reiss and Stacey Soble opened the conference by illustrating the growing opportunities for beauty experts that focus on this category. “According to our HAIR+ Research Study, ¾ of your clients are concerned about their current or future hair loss,” Soble said.

HairUWear’s Michael Ferrara encouraged the audience to embrace the education ahead by getting comfortable with change. “A lobster’s shell doesn’t grow as it grows, so when the lobster gets uncomfortable it hides itself under the rocks, sheds its shell and forms a new one,” he told the audience. “If you’re unsure or uncomfortable, that means it’s time to grow through education and you took the right step in being here.”

Karen Gordon, owner of J. Gordon Designs and president of Cosmetologists Chicago and Sheila Wilson, owner of Master Design Salon and Wellness Studio and the president of Intercoiffure Canada America, shared why they both pursued thinning hair and hair loss specialties and how much they get out of the HAIR+ community that’s developed over the past four years.

“I have a strong desire to help other people and when a client told me her ponytail was getting thinner, I really didn’t know what to do,” Gordon shared. “And as I got older, studying trichology not only gave me answers I could give my clients, it also gave me something intellectually stimulating to pursue.”

“I’m a hair junkie, and have always worn wigs and hairpieces but I became even more interested after being a cancer survivor,” Wilson added. “I think the most passionate thing we can do is make people look and feel better—it’s contagious in my salon.”

Secretly bald for more than 20 years due to Alopecia Areata, Emmy-award winning actress Amy Gibson built a post-acting career in wig manufacturing. With humor and heart, she shared the journey of hair loss from a client perspective, including hiding her secret from Hollywood, lovers and colleagues.

Today, her clientele is a mix of transgender clients, Alopecia sufferers and cancer patients. “It’s the patients who are the core of my business, they make the choice to do what they need to do to survive and they are my heroes,” she said. “I’m really grateful to be able to give them a piece of their identity back.”

Everyone needs time to grieve their thinning hair and sometimes the stylist is the first person a client will share their secret with, Gibson continued. “A little bit of that in the chair is OK, but it’s important to shift them into a proactive stage as quickly as possible.”

In the "Impact of Wellness on Beauty Session," BEaUty Inside and Out Radio Show Host Bonnie Bonadeo interviewed Tamara Johnson-Shealey, the founder of Concerned Beauty and Barber Professionals and an intern in the Public Health Law Program at the Center for Disease Control.

Johnson-Shealey rallied the audience on the importance of protecting the health and safety of the salon client by preserving licensure for beauty professionals. “The deregulation train has left the station and now is the moment when we have to change course,” she said. “Standardize our hours across the states, but don’t lower our standards. We have to embrace the professionals who do beauty services and hold them accountable.”

Then Bonadeo welcomed Dr. Marvin S. Hausman, the founder of Groh, who detailed the latest nutritional-based approach to hair-loss.

“The microbiome is one of the most important factors when it comes to hair loss due to the corruption of bacteria in your body,” Hausman said. “You need to take probiotics to reprogram your intestinal bacteria.”

In a segment that discussed grooming opportunities beyond barbering, Salon Owner, Educator and Session Stylist Manny Rolon and Lee Resnick, founder of barbershopconnect.com and Barbercon discussed how male clients are increasingly becoming interested in solutions for hair loss, including toppers and hair pieces.

 “I started by creating my own piece for a friend who decided to shave his head because he was going bald,” said Rolon, who recently put together a collection for a photoshoot with American Hairlines. “Working with hair pieces is an opportunity to give your male clients not just what they once had, but something they’ve never had before.”

“When I launched Barbercon, I saw the energy around stylists at shows and it was like a broadway show, while the barbers are the guys sitting by the fire escape, so I wanted to figure out how to create revenue for barbers,” Resnick said. “It’s my job to introduce them to something that’s new like scalp micropigmentation and PRP.”

Among the main stage presentations, attendees were able to customize their education and dive deeper in the topics that most interested them.

In the Extensions Experience, Great Length’s Danielle Keasling and Celeste Lucero; HairUWear’s Christina Jones and Hannah Reid, and Frank Campanella, and Back to You’s Harry Wood walked stylists through what they needed to know to develop a specialty in extensions, wigs and hair pieces, and how to use them with clients who wanted more volume.

“You have to look at hair with hair loss and approach each part of the head differently. I’m honoring where her hair lives on her head, and respect what their hair is doing,” said Lucero.

In The Doctor is In, Dr. Nikki Hill detailed scalp micropigmentation; Dr. David Kingsley reviewed the causes and treatments for hair loss; Connie Judge explored the connection between wellness and thinning hair; Dr. Alan Bauman shone a spotlight on future medical and surgical advancements for hair loss; Dr. Candy Lewis Williams explored the link between stress and hair loss; and William Gaunitz helped attendees learn how to identify different types of hair loss.

“The 7 Hs of hairloss—heredity, health, hunger (nutrition), hassle (stress), healing (medications), hormones and hairdressing—often overlap are hereditary, hormone, health, healing, hassle, hanger and hairdressing and they often overlap to affect the  hair cycle,” Kingsley said. “In order to treat them, you first have to recognize why your client is losing their hair.”

Head Talks rounded out the attendees education with special topics from manufacturers and educators in the space. Viviscal’s Lauren Dudek reviewed the science and solutions that are available to stylists while incorporating business building tips for retailing success. Phyto’s Paola Sola and Dr. Dina Strachan discussed the importance of a proper hair loss diagnosis and why many patients are confused; Takara Belmont’s Steve Hughes introduced attendees to the Yume Head Spa and how it can be used with in-salon treatments; Brent Hardgrave, representing Minerva Beauty, showed attendees how to curate a guest experience for elevated services; and HabitAware’s Ellen Crupi discussed why trichotillomania patients pull their own hair.

Additional sponsors/exhibitors of the event included Phyto, Groh, Minerva, Takara Belmont, Viviscal Pro, XFusion by Toppik, Keen by Habitaware, Nutrafol, Virtue, Advanced Tricology, American Hair Loss Council, Back to You, Bauman Medical, The Concerned Beauty and Barber Professionals, Cosmetologists Chicago, Hair Loss University, Intercoiffure America Canada, International Association of Trichologists, The Lotus Concept, National Trichology Training Institute, SocahCenter, The TLC Foundation, Trichologists on a Mission and World Tricology Society.