Felicia Flores’ hair was her crowning glory. She always experimented with various styles and colors.
“My dad used to joke that I was so vain because I was all into my hair,” said Flores, who lives in metro Atlanta and works as a hairstylist and flight attendant.
“It’s ironic that hair led me to become a cosmetologist, then all my hair falls out,” said the 46-year-old Brooklyn native.
Her struggle with hair loss led Flores to launch a nonprofit and conference, Baldie Con, to empower women, youth and men with hair loss and show them that bald is beautiful.
Running Friday through Sunday, her organization will host the third annual Baldie Con at the JW Marriott Atlanta Buckhead at 3300 Lenox Rd. More than 200 people are expected to attend.
The event, come rain or shine, will include panel discussions on topics such as love and relationships, children’s hair loss and building self-esteem. It will also include a fashion show, expo, the Baldie Ball & Awards Gala hosted by actor and comedian Jonathan Slocumb (an Atlanta native and fellow baldie) and a jazz brunch.
Flores’ goal is to instill confidence and empower people who have experienced hair loss.
“Beauty comes in all forms,” she said. “I wanted to create something where women and children and even men had a safe space to be celebrated for their decision of going in the world and living their authentic truth.”
Hair loss, permanent or temporary, can be caused by illness, medicines or cancer treatments, stress, aging, hormonal changes and heredity. There’s also evidence that some hair shedding can happen after a COVID-19 infection.
Others may go bald by choice.
Flores began to experience hair loss in small patches in 2001 after the birth of her first child. Her physician was dumbfounded when several tests came back negative as to the reason.
A dermatologist diagnosed her with alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss on the scalp, face and sometimes elsewhere on the body, according to the Alopecia Areata Foundation of America.
In 2006, she lost her second-born child, Drew, and “literally my hair just all fell out. When I took out my weave and cornrows literally the hairs were just coming out in clumps and clumps.”
She believes it was a combination of the autoimmune disease and stress from the loss of her child.
Her friends broke out in tears at the sight of Flores without a wig. She was beyond caring about her hair because she still reeling from the loss of her infant. She decided to just shave it off but continued to wear wigs and hide it from friends and relatives for nine years.
“It prohibited me from doing a lot of things, like swimming and other activities that I enjoyed, because I was afraid my wig would fall off.”
Then in 2015, at the urging of her daughter, Camryn, Flores participated in a social media challenge called “Don’t Judge Me” and decided to reveal to the world that she was bald.
Credit: Baldie Con
Credit: Baldie Con
When she did show her baldness, her mother was shocked. Would people think she was sick?
“I felt fine inside, but this was something that was not the norm,” Flores said. “I got a lot of stares.”
Was it empowering at first?
Absolutely not, Flores said. She was scared and fearful of what people would think.
Bald, though, can be beautiful. Now she wants to empower others and help instill confidence. While hair loss usually affects adults, it can also affect younger people.
Former metro Atlanta resident Morgan Colen, 12, is one of them. Morgan is known on Instagram as “msmorgan2daworld,” a model, advocate, author and self-described “Alopecian Princess.”
Credit: CreativeSoul Photography
Credit: CreativeSoul Photography
Morgan, who currently lives in Maryland, was among several youths pictured in a 2023 coffee-table book, “Crowned: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora” by Atlanta photographers Kahran and Regis Bethencourt of CreativeSoul Photography.
“Morgan rocks her bald head confidently,” Kahran Bethencourt said. “I really want them to feel confident and know that they’re not defined by their hair.”
Morgan is lucky. She’s never been bullied by other students, and she credits her strong network of family and friends with boosting her up and helping her through any struggles.
“They tell me that I’m beautiful and stuff like that,” said Morgan who was diagnosed with alopecia areata at age 3.
Her mother, Maxine Galloway, described Morgan’s hair loss as like chasing a wildfire because it was not confined to her head. The hair loss spread even to her eyebrows and eyelashes. Galloway took her to a holistic doctor and, after treatments, her eyelashes and eyebrows grew back but not the hair on her head.
When Morgan wanted to enter a pageant at 6, Galloway encouraged her. She wore a wig and won but later said she thinks she would have won without it — “it was all inside.”
Morgan, who has a hat line for children with alopecia, encourages other youth with hair loss to be bold, be unafraid and to express themselves regardless of what others may say.
“They are perfect just the way they are,” Morgan said.
