Susan Smith Facebook ad: “I wanted his hands on me. Just not in my hair.”

About this ad

Meta Ad Library ID

1606082374553141

Platforms

Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, WhatsApp and Threads

Relaunches

0

Niche

Hair Care

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Ad text

I texted my husband “I have androgenic alopecia” from the laundry room. He was twenty feet away. The three dots appeared, stopped, appeared again. Then: “Is that why you never called about the lamp?” I'd loosened the bulb on his nightstand. Told him the socket must be going. Every time he mentioned getting it fixed I said yes, we should, and made sure we didn't. With that lamp on, he could see straight through the hair on top of my head when I leaned over to kiss him. That is a horrible little thing to know about yourself. That you can want your husband's mouth on you and still be calculating where the light will hit. The week before that text, he'd come up behind me while I was taking my earrings off. Kissed my neck, his hand warm under the edge of my shirt. I leaned back into him. I wanted him. I had been thinking about him since dinner, actually, which at fifty-seven and after twenty-three years together still feels like getting away with something. Then his other hand slid up toward my hair. I caught his wrist so fast he stopped kissing me. “Sorry,” he said. I said I was just tired. Such an ordinary, useful lie. He let go of me and started getting ready for bed, and I sat there holding one earring, wanting to pull him back and too embarrassed to explain what had just happened. It wasn't the first time. I'd gotten good at moving his hand to my waist, keeping my head against the pillow, getting into bed after he turned his light off. He used to bury his fingers in my hair when he kissed me. I missed that so much I could feel it happening even when it wasn't. Now he asked, “Is this okay?” before touching me. I'd made the man I wanted afraid of bothering me. The next morning I sprayed the pale strip along my part brown, wiped the sink, then checked his pillowcase even though I hadn't slept on it. I was that worried about leaving evidence. There were four cans of root spray under the sink and an unopened box of minoxidil behind the beach towels. The dermatologist had given me the diagnosis two years earlier. I bought what she'd suggested, read the directions and hid it. I already hated standing at the mirror arranging individual strands; a regular scalp treatment felt like another appointment with the thing I couldn't bear looking at. So I kept covering it. The spray helped me leave the house. It was less helpful when someone wanted to run his hand over my head. Meanwhile, hormone therapy had helped my sleep and hot flashes. I wanted my hair to catch up. I kept waiting for the rest of getting better to arrive. After that night with the earring, I took the minoxidil box out. The folded information from my appointment was still tucked behind it. I read past the name I'd been avoiding and found the bit about follicles gradually producing finer hair. I called the office with a question I should have asked two years before: if my other menopause symptoms were better, why was this still happening? The answer was that my hair needed its own attention. We talked about sensitivity to DHT, a hormone that can contribute to that gradual thinning, and about the treatment I'd never started. Better sleep didn't mean the same thing as changing what was happening at the follicle. I was embarrassed to admit the box was unopened. The woman on the phone asked what had kept me from using it. I told her about the mirror routine. I did not tell her about Bill's hand. At home I searched for DHT and hair thinning, with the appointment notes beside me. That's how I found Bloom & Bond. I almost closed the page when I saw pumpkin seed oil. I'd already tried enough things with friendly sounding ingredients. But the explanation was about DHT. Pumpkin seed oil to help slow its production, with saw palmetto to help keep it from binding at the follicle. I sat there thinking about the difference between coating the hair I had and trying to support the place new hair was growing from. I wanted something I could keep doing without pinning my hair into sections every day. These two ingredients came together in one daily softgel. Breakfast I could manage. I read the 90-day guarantee, left the page open, and came back after dinner. Then I ordered it. Four days later I was in the laundry room, folding the pillowcases, and sent that text. Bill came to the doorway after I answered yes about the lamp. “I thought you didn't want me touching you anymore.” I started crying before I could correct him. He stayed in the doorway until I said, “I do. God, Bill. I DO.” Then I showed him my part. No spray, because I'd washed my hair that afternoon. I tipped my head forward while he stood close enough to kiss it, and for a few seconds I couldn't look at his face. He asked how long I'd been worrying about it. We sat on the laundry room floor and I told him, with the dryer banging away beside us. We went to bed with the broken lamp still broken. He touched my hair when I put his hand there. I was nervous. I was also very glad I'd stopped pretending to be tired. The softgels didn't change my hair that night. Letting him in was something I had to do myself. We fixed the lamp the next morning. One turn of the bulb. I kept taking a softgel with breakfast, and Bill left the bottle beside my place when he cleared the table. Over the following months, I started finding less hair wound through the brush. Later the part looked less bare when I washed the spray out. I began using less of it, then skipping it on days at home. Those were small decisions, but I knew exactly what they'd have cost me before. Last weekend Bill was reading in bed when I came in. His lamp was on. I climbed onto his side to kiss him and, halfway there, noticed I hadn't reached past him to turn it off. I stayed where I was. If you're moving someone's hand away when what you really want is to be touched, click below and read the DHT explanation that finally got me looking beyond concealment. It explains why Bloom & Bond pairs pumpkin seed oil with saw palmetto, so you can decide whether that approach makes sense for the hair you're trying so hard to hide.

Where the ad sends people

trybloomandbond.com

I wanted his hands on me. Just not in my hair.

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