Ashley Tisdale gets honest about the emotional toll of severe illness

Ashley Tisdale, a renowned singer and actress, has revealed how her alopecia diagnosis completely transformed the way she cared for her hair.

While having a conversation with People magazine, the 39-year-old artist opened up about her hair care routine, saying, “I have started to be way nicer to my hair and scalp.”

Tisdale added, “I used to play with a lot of colors and dye my hair and bleach it, and I really haven’t been bright blonde since then. I used to wear extensions and I stopped doing that as well.”

The High School Musical alum went on to explain, “I really started just treating my hair better and basically knowing that I couldn’t take it for granted. So I treat my hair better and not stress it out so much.”

Expanding on this, Tisdale shared that “the hardest part about alopecia areata is that there is really no cure. It’s an autoimmune disease, so they give you this diagnosis and then you’re like, ‘Well, what do I do?'”

“It’s kind of scary, and there’s the fact that you don’t know when it’s going to flare up, you don’t know how big it’s going to be. Everyone has a different journey with alopecia and so far, luckily for me, it’s been in spots that I can hide, and most of the time, it’s usually stress-induced,” she continued.

The Daytime Emmy Award-nominated actress mentioned that her alopecia aggravates when she is “physically and emotionally stressed.”

“If I see one of the bald spots, I’m like, ‘I need to calm down … because obviously I’m too stressed out right now.’ I have flare-ups, like, every couple years,” Tisdale concluded by saying.

For the uninformed, the Fabulous hitmaker was diagnosed with alopecia areata in her mid-20s following the development of a bald spot in her front hairline, which she noticed while visiting her colourist.