After the birth of my first baby in 2016, I experienced severe postpartum hair loss. I knew that hair shedding after pregnancy was common. Knowing that did not make it any less frightening when it was my hair coming away in my hands.
Even with the knowledge and experience I had in my field, I was not prepared for the actual amount of hair I would lose. This was not a little extra shedding. My hairline began to recede, and the visible change was far beyond anything I had expected. I understood postpartum hair loss in theory. Living through it was completely different.
Everyone talks about the pregnancy glow
We speak so openly about the glow of pregnancy. We celebrate the changing body, the anticipation and the beauty of bringing a baby into the world. What we do not speak about with the same honesty is what can happen afterwards.
Very few women are truly prepared for the shedding, the receding hairline, the hormonal changes and the shock of looking different while trying to adjust to everything motherhood brings. I certainly was not. The hair loss felt sudden and confronting, and it arrived at a time when so much of my identity and daily life was already changing.
This was not simply about vanity. I was already adjusting to motherhood and to a body that no longer felt entirely familiar. Watching my hair become thinner affected the way I saw myself at a time when I was already trying to find myself again.
That experience changed the direction of my life. It eventually led me into three years of research, to the creation of Revive Lab and, later, to a more targeted approach to hair support through Deeply Rooted. But at the time, I was not thinking about starting a company. I was simply a new mother who wanted her hair and her confidence back.
I had honestly tried everything
I tried every supplement I could find. If something was available and promised to support hair, I was willing to try it. I wanted to believe that the next bottle would be the one that made a difference.
Nothing I tried gave me the visible change I was desperately looking for. Each disappointment made the problem feel heavier. Anyone who has experienced significant hair loss will understand this: after a while, you stop seeing individual strands. You see evidence that you are losing control.
People may tell you it is normal or that it will pass, and medically that reassurance can be important. Emotionally, however, it can feel dismissive. When your hair changes dramatically, you do not only want to hear that it happens to other women. You want to know what is happening, what you can do and whether you will feel like yourself again.
Then I discovered an Australian brand
A friend introduced me to a marine collagen product from an Australian brand and sent it up to me. This was around 2016 or 2017, when marine collagen was not readily available in South Africa and very few people here were speaking about ingestible beauty.
I had never used anything like it. By that point I felt I had nothing to lose, so I began taking it consistently without expecting very much.
Within a few weeks, I genuinely began to notice a difference. The first person to point it out was not me. It was my hairstylist at the time. She noticed the baby hairs appearing and asked what I was using or doing differently.
That moment stayed with me because it made the change feel real. It was not wishful thinking or me staring hopefully into the mirror. Someone who worked closely with my hair could see that something had shifted.
Then I noticed my skin changing too
As I continued, I began noticing changes in my skin as well. It looked healthier and felt different. More importantly, I started to feel better within myself.
It is difficult to explain the emotional value of that unless you have lived through a visible change that affected your confidence. The transformation was not only what I saw in my hair or skin. It was the relief of recognising myself again.
At first, the collagen felt like a miracle powder. But I did not want to build my understanding around a miracle. I wanted to know why it had made such a difference for me.
My result became a research question
My background in somatology and cosmetology, together with the nutrition education included in my training, made me deeply curious. I was not satisfied with saying that collagen had worked for me. I wanted to understand collagen peptides properly.
For the next three years, I immersed myself in the subject. I studied the different types of collagen and their roles in the body. I investigated sources, peptide profiles, molecular weights, absorption, the available literature and clinical studies. I examined why two products carrying the word collagen could be completely different in quality, composition and intended use.
I also began searching for the best available source and supplier globally. That process taught me that a formulation should never begin with what is easiest to market. It should begin with the outcome you are trying to support and the quality of evidence behind the ingredient.
Personal experience opened the door but science shaped the brand
My own result gave me the reason to begin. Research gave me the responsibility to continue carefully.
A founder's personal story can be powerful, but it is not a clinical trial and it should not be presented as one. My experience could not guarantee that every woman would see exactly what I saw or within the same period. Bodies, causes of hair loss, nutritional status and health histories differ.
What my experience did prove to me was that women deserved access to better information and thoughtfully sourced products. They deserved more than trend driven promises, tiny token doses and labels designed to sound scientific without explaining anything meaningful.
That conviction became part of Revive Lab's foundation. We would create with intention, interrogate the ingredients, respect the evidence and speak honestly about consistency and realistic timelines.
Why Deeply Rooted came later
Marine collagen was the beginning of my journey, but as my knowledge grew, so did my understanding that hair loss is not one simple concern with one universal answer.
Hair can be influenced by pregnancy, hormonal shifts, stress, illness, rapid weight loss, nutritional deficiencies, medication, genetics and the natural hair growth cycle. Collagen can play a valuable role within a beauty routine, but I wanted to develop something specifically and deliberately focused on the many biological pathways connected to hair growth and nourishment.
Deeply Rooted came thereafter as that targeted approach. It was not created to replace collagen or pretend that every form of hair loss has the same cause. It was created to support hair more specifically, using a considered combination of ingredients and a routine designed around the reality that meaningful hair results require time.
We later put Deeply Rooted through a 12 week internal trial using objective imaging because I wanted our confidence in the formula to be supported by more than enthusiasm. That matters to me. Personal belief may begin a product, but evidence must help shape how responsibly we speak about it.
For the woman standing where I once stood
If you are experiencing postpartum hair loss, I want you to know that your distress is valid. You can be grateful for your baby and still feel upset about what is happening to your body. Those two truths can exist together.
I also want you to know that hair responds slowly. The shedding you see today may be connected to changes that happened months earlier, and new growth needs time to become visible. Consistency matters, but so does understanding the cause. Severe, prolonged, sudden or patchy hair loss deserves assessment by an appropriate healthcare professional, particularly when it is accompanied by other symptoms.
Do not allow desperation to push you into buying everything at once. Ask what a product is designed to support. Look at the complete formulation, the amounts used, the evidence and the expected timeline. Give your body nourishment, patience and appropriate professional support.
What this journey gave me
Postpartum hair loss took away a great deal of my confidence for a time. Unexpectedly, it also gave me a direction.
It led me to discover beauty from within before it became a familiar category in South Africa. It pushed me to question, research and compare rather than accept a marketing claim at face value. It showed me that the emotional reason behind a beauty concern matters just as much as the visible concern itself.
Most importantly, it created a need in me to share what I was learning with women who felt the way I had felt: worried, frustrated and less confident, but still hopeful that there was a thoughtful way forward.
Revive Lab began with that belief. Women deserve products created with purpose, education that respects their intelligence and support that sees the person behind the concern.