A business owner claims Bali’s ‘hard water’ caused her 30-inch mane to fall out – she was housebound for two months because she felt so ‘ugly’. Hollie Marie was on the island with friends when she noticed her hair was thinning, but she had no idea why it was happening.
Within months, the 27-year-old had lost most of her 30-inch blonde hair as it had become matted and she was losing “huge clumps” every time she brushed it. This forced a horrified Hollie, who had worn wigs for months to hide her spots, to shave her head completely. Holly was mortified and couldn’t leave her house for two months because she felt “so ugly”.
After Hollie blamed her hair loss on stress, the sun or even alopecia, a hairdresser told her the “harsh, poor quality” of the island’s tap water was to blame. To prevent other tourists from going through her “traumatizing” experience, Hollie, who has lived in Bali for three years, started her own shower filter business.
Hollie documented her hair journey on TikTok, sharing a clip urging people to be aware of how water can affect hair and skin. The clip went viral, reaching 786,800 views. One shocking clip shows the large clumps of hair that were on Hollie’s brush after a single use.
Hollie, who is originally from Cardiff in Wales, said: “It’s horrific. You just take a lot of things for granted about yourself. It’s such a shock when something like this happens. I noticed I was losing hair but because I had so much hair to begin with, it took me a while to realise how drastic the change was. After living in Bali for three months, I went on a trip and on the way back my hair grew back.
“The structure of my hair changed and my strands were literally merging together, it was really scary. The connections in my hair had changed. It was so tangled that the people at the hairdressers couldn’t do anything with it and had to cut it all off. I went back to the hairdresser because I was still losing a lot of hair. Every time I brushed it, huge clumps would fall out. I noticed I had a bald spot and thought, ‘What the hell is going on here?’.
“I went to the doctor and thought, ‘Do I have alopecia?’ But my eyelashes were still intact and my eyebrows were still there. I never dipped my hair in the pool, so I knew it wasn’t the pool water.”
The content creator, who is naturally blonde and has never dyed her locks, revealed she was losing so much hair that she decided to shave it off completely on Christmas Eve 2021. Hollie said: “I had about a fifth of my hair left on my head. The texture was awful, it was so matted all the time. I thought, ‘Let’s start again, brand new’.
“I had to get a guy from the barber shop to shave my head. I had already been wearing wigs for four months anyway. The next day I spent Christmas with a lot of friends, which was pretty traumatic. I never wanted a shaved head.
“I knew it wouldn’t suit me, I looked like Bob the Builder. It was very strange. You take your hair for granted, you don’t think it will ever leave you.
“It’s part of your identity, it’s your crown. At the time, I didn’t know it was the water. I didn’t go out for about two months. I didn’t go shopping, I didn’t go to the gym, I stopped socializing because I just didn’t want to see anyone. I just felt so ugly.
“I realized that it didn’t suit me, so I started wearing wigs. I also wore a lot of hats and bandanas. It wasn’t a good time for me, especially in the first year. I had terrible hair growth phases.”
“I think we are much more than what we look like, that’s a very fundamental belief. How you look is the least interesting thing about you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a huge impact on how you feel.”
It wasn’t until months later, in April 2022, that Hollie, an Australian hairdresser in Bali, explained that her hair loss was caused by the water and she regretted not being “more proactive.”
Hollie: “I only realised it was the water when I went to the hairdresser and she told me that this happens to a lot of people.
“The water quality here is so harsh that it can really damage hair and skin. I really regret not being proactive when I first noticed my hair falling out in clumps. I thought, ‘Maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s the sun.'”
“I just blamed it on everything else. It never occurred to me that the tap water could be a problem. It wasn’t until I started making videos about it that a lot of people responded to me and said, ‘Oh my God, that happened to me, but I didn’t know it was because I was in Bali.'”
Not entirely trusting the “cheap” shower filters sold online to protect her hair, Hollie launched her own business, Travel with Hair, in December 2022, which sells the items in Bali. Hollie, who now sports shoulder-length hair, vows to “always use a filter” and wants to make others aware.
Hollie said: “I waited too long to take action. By the time I finally thought I needed to do something about my hair loss and speak to a doctor, I had already lost a significant amount of hair.
“It’s scary. The last thing anyone wants is to come back from vacation and find they’ve lost all their hair. That gave me an idea. I’ve been through something really traumatic and I can help people not to have to go through the same thing.
“If you’re coming for 10 days, it shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re staying for two weeks or more, it’s pretty important to get a filter. The filters are actually designed specifically for the water in Southeast Asia.
“They fit most showers, we test all water types and make them specifically. They’re small, you can take them on a plane and they’re easy to install, it literally takes 30 seconds.”
“It also prevents heartbreak, because who wants that when they go on vacation?”
