A business owner who moved to Southeast Asia was left horrified when her beautiful locks of hair, which were two and a half feet long, fell out during her threesome.
Holly Marie, 27, from Cardiff, was housebound for two months after hair loss, which she blames on hard water in Bali, left her feeling “ugly”.
Hollie arrived on the island in 2021 when she noticed her hair was starting to thin, but had no idea why it was happening.
Within months she had lost most of her 30-inch-long blonde hair because it became tangled and ‘huge clumps’ of hair fell out every time she brushed it.
This forced a horrified Hollie, who had been wearing wigs for months to hide certain areas, to shave her head completely.
Holly Marie, originally from Cardiff, started losing her hair after moving to Bali, but couldn’t figure out what was causing the loss.
Mortified, Hollie felt unable to leave her house for two months because she felt “so ugly”.
After blaming her hair loss on stress, the sun and even alopecia, Hollie says a hairdresser revealed to her that the cause was the “poor, harsh quality” of the island’s tap water.
To prevent other tourists from going through her “traumatising” experience, Hollie, who has lived in Bali for three years, set up her own shower filter business.
Documenting her hair journey on TikTok, Hollie shared a clip urging people to be aware of how water can affect hair and skin, which went viral and racked up 786,800 views.
Before Hollie’s hair loss began, her luscious blonde locks measured approximately 30 inches and reached down to her waist.
Hollie had always had long hair, so she couldn’t understand why it started falling out when she moved.
Shortly after moving to Bali, Hollie noticed her naturally blonde hair was falling out in clumps.
Hollie documented her hair loss on TikTok, but still doesn’t know how or why her hair is falling out.
After several months of living in Bali, Hollie’s hair had become significantly thinner.
The business owner began wearing wigs to hide the thinning hair on her head.
Pictured: Hollie Marie wearing a pink wig to cover her hair loss.
A shocking clip shows the large clumps of hair found on Hollie’s brush after just one use.
Hollie, originally from Cardiff, Wales, said: “It’s awful. You take so many things about yourself for granted. It’s a shock when things like that happen.”
‘I noticed I was losing hair, but because I had a lot of hair initially, it took me a while to notice how drastic the change was.
‘Three months into my Bali trip, I went on a trip and on the way back my hair stuck together.
‘The texture of my hair changed and my hair strands literally melted, it was really scary.
‘The fibres of my hair had changed. It had become so tangled that the hairdressers couldn’t do anything with it, so they had to cut it all off.
‘I went back to the hairdresser because I was still losing a lot of hair.
The 27-year-old eventually decided to shave her head after seeing how thin she had become.
Finally, after watching a video created by an online hairdresser, Hollie realized that the hard water in Bali was causing her hair to fall out.
When she first shaved her head at Christmas 2021, she was afraid to leave the house because of how it made her feel.
She revealed that she felt ‘ugly’ with short hair, which made her avoid seeing people
“Every time I brushed it, I would get huge clumps of hair. I noticed I had a bald spot and thought, ‘What the heck is going on?'”
“I went to the doctor thinking, ‘Do I have alopecia? ’ But my eyelashes were still intact and my eyebrows were still there.
“I’ve never put my hair in the pool, so I knew it wasn’t pool water.”
The content creator, who is a natural blonde and has never dyed her hair, revealed she was losing so much hair that she decided to shave it all off on Christmas Eve 2021.
Now, after investing in a shower filter to treat Bali’s hard water, he feels better than ever.
Hollie’s hair has now recovered thanks to washing her hair with filtered water and is now shoulder length.
Hollie now runs her own business providing shower filters to soften hard water and documents her own hair growth updates on TikTok.
Hollie said: “I had about a fifth of the hair left on my head. The texture was horrible, it was matted all the time. I thought, ‘Let’s start again, completely new.'”
“I had to call a hairdresser to come and shave my head. I had been wearing wigs for four months anyway.
‘The next day I spent Christmas with a bunch of friends, which was a bit traumatic. I’ve never wanted to have a shaved head.
“I knew it wasn’t going to look good on me, I looked like Bob the Builder. It was very strange. You take your hair for granted, it’s not something you think you’re going to give up. It’s part of your identity, it’s your crown.”
After shaving her head, Hollie, who at the time still didn’t know the cause of her hair loss, didn’t leave the house for two months, not even to go to the gym. She also began avoiding people.
“It wasn’t a good time for me, especially the first year,” she said. “I had horrible hair growth phases.”
While she believes appearance is “the least interesting thing” about a person, she argued that it can still have a “huge impact” on how they feel.
It wasn’t until April 2022 that Hollie realised the possible cause of her hair loss when she saw a video from an Australian hairdresser in Bali, who revealed that her hair loss was due to the island’s water.
Hollie: ‘I didn’t realise it was the water until I went to a hairdresser and she told me this happens to a lot of people.
‘The water quality here is so hard that it can really affect your hair and skin.
“I really regret not being proactive when I first noticed clumps of my hair falling out. I thought, ‘Maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s the sun.'”
“I blamed it on something else. I would never have thought that tap water would be a problem.
“It wasn’t until I started making videos about it that a lot of people started responding to me and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this happened to me, but I didn’t realize it was because I went to Bali.'”
Not entirely confident in the ‘cheap’ shower filters sold online to protect her hair, Hollie developed her own business, Travel with Hair, in December 2022, selling the items in Bali.
Now sporting shoulder-length hair, Hollie vows to “always use a filter” on her shower head and wants to raise awareness among others.
Hollie said: “I put off doing something for too long. By the time I thought I needed to do something about my hair loss and speak to a doctor, I had already lost a significant amount.
“It’s scary. The last thing anyone wants is to come back from vacation and discover they’ve lost all their hair.
‘It gave me an idea. I’ve been through something really traumatic and I can help other people not go through the same thing.
“If you come for 10 days, there shouldn’t be any problem. If you come for two weeks or more, it’s very important that you get a filter.
‘The filters are specially designed for the water found in Southeast Asia.
‘They fit most showers, we test all water and make them specifically.
“It’s small, you can take it on a plane and it’s easy to put on – it literally takes 30 seconds.” It will also prevent any hassles, because who wants that on holiday?
(tags to translate)dailymail