I was six years old when Britney Spears shaved her head in 2007. Pictures of her smiling as she took clippers to her dark brown hair were splashed across the front cover of every gossip magazine, alongside headlines referring to the 25-year-old as having gone “mad“ or “insane”. The media frenzy around the event solidified in my child brain that when a woman shaved her head, something must be wrong with her.
As a child, those images of Spears scared me. Culturally, they became a visual representation of mental illness, of a woman who had completely lost her mind. But when you come to understand the mistreatment the popstar had faced at this point in her life – the corporate-sanctioned sexualisation of her teenagehood, the constant media harassment, the dissolution of her marriage and more – you start to see those images of her differently. You see that, potentially, the smiling woman shaving her head is not losing control of herself, but rather joyfully attempting to gain control of her life and her image for the very first time.
In her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, Spears writes that shaving her head was meant to be a “fuck you” to the world. “You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you,” she writes. “You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.” Today, more and more young women are shaving their heads for this same reason.
When the new year hit, influencer and actress Erika Titus decided to shave her head and document her journey on TikTok. “Social media has ruined our perception of beauty. It definitely ruined mine,” Titus tells Dazed. Shaving her head was Titus’ way of working to challenge her beliefs around beauty and femininity, in hopes that “that stuff won’t really matter to me anymore”. The video of Titus shaving her head now has 28.9 million views on the app. It has inspired other young women and non-binary people who were already considering cutting their hair to take the plunge (it’s important to note that Titus is not everyone’s inspiration for shaving their heads).
Below, we spoke to young people about why they decided to shave their heads, the uncomfortable feelings it has surfaced and how it’s transforming their understanding of beauty (and themselves) for the better.
“I’d had the idea to shave my head for a long time, and it always seemed to come to me in moments of chaos, where I would joke, ‘What if I just shaved my head!?’ I feel like my hesitation stemmed from the connotations around it. People assume that women who do it have had something drastic happen to them because it’s seen as a crazy decision. But I think that speaks volumes to the social weight hair holds for women. Another fear I had going into this stemmed from being a woman of colour. I’d been seeing people in the media with buzzes and pixies, but all of them were white. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think their presence is better received than mine because of that fact. I have 3a-c curly hair, and knowing how long it would take to grow back was also quite jarring. But I’m trying to view this as practice of permanence. I want to understand what femininity means to me when I don’t have something that others love to hide behind (curly hair is easy to compliment and look past).
“I don’t think I’ve ever cared less about my appearance, but the moments when I’m feeling myself in the mirror feel so much more significant now. I truly feel that I can accept any version of myself, and I’m just glad to be meeting this version right now.
“It’s taught me that I love to be naked, I feel so vulnerable and open to the world’s interpretations of me. I love that I get to choose when I wear a hood, or a hat, or when my hair speaks. I love feeling my scalp while showering. I don’t think I realised how open to the world I was before, but being bald makes that openness feel more real. Opportunities that truly align with me have been finding me recently, and I hope for more of that. I credit that to being bald because it feels like all of me is on the table.”
“I’d been thinking about shaving my head for a few years now, mainly because I wanted a fresh start. I’ve had highlights, I’ve been bleached blonde, I’ve been red, and I’ve done keratin treatments. I was tired of the upkeep and wanted the chance to see my natural colour and texture again. Additionally, for the past couple of years, I have been struggling with trichotillomania, which means I pull out my hair, and I thought that having no hair would help me curb the behaviour.
“I’ve been a bit self-conscious since shaving my head; I’m still not used to seeing myself in the mirror. I’m worried that I don’t look feminine. But being uncomfortable isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I see this experience as a way to challenge myself; it’s essentially exposure therapy for my anxiety. So far, I have realised that having a shaved head isn’t really as big a deal as I thought it would be. Sharing my experience on social media has also made me realise that vulnerability can be a strength. I don’t have to be perfect to be of value; just being myself is enough. I’m tired of letting fear get in my way. Life’s too short!”
“The idea of shaving my head has been with me since I was about 14. Even back then, I remember thinking that everyone should experience it at least once in their life. The main reason I finally decided to shave my head was how deeply attached I was to my hair. It felt like such a huge part of my identity, my femininity, and how I presented myself to the world. I realised I was sometimes hiding behind it. I wanted to challenge that attachment and learn to feel confident and complete without relying on something external to define my beauty or self-worth. What held me back for so long was that same attachment. I was scared of change and of not recognising myself in the mirror. I worried about how people would react, whether I would still feel attractive, and whether I would regret such a big, visible decision.
“Shaving my head has been incredibly freeing. It did bring up some uncomfortable feelings at first, especially around vulnerability and identity, but it ultimately made me feel more confident, grounded, and at peace with myself. It taught me that my self-worth isn’t tied to how I look and that I can still feel feminine, beautiful, and strong without conforming to traditional expectations.”
“I decided to shave my head because I needed a fresh start, not only with my hair, but with my life. I’m Indigenous, and in my culture, we believe hair holds memories. I honestly went through the wringer in 2025. I’m about to graduate from college and move somewhere entirely new soon, so I just said, fuck it.
“The second I did it, I felt like myself. Once I shaved off my last strand of hair, I had this rush of confidence. It felt like I unpeeled myself and could finally be face-to-face with who I really am. My features became more pronounced to me, and I remember thinking, ‘wow, I look like THAT?’ Such a silly thing to think, but hair had been a cover-up for my insecurities, a shield when I needed one. Because my hair had been my whole identity for ages, I was more focused on my outer appearance than the things right in front of me that actually mattered. That first hour or two after shaving felt like being born again. Pure euphoria.
“Shaving my head has taught me to take more risks and that I can do scary things and still be okay. There are so many other things I want to check off my bucket list, and this experience taught me to keep going. It also taught me that energy is much more radiant than appearance ever was. I feel more approachable now, like I’m just this orb of light. Once you shave your head and realise it’s just hair, so many other things in life feel easier to handle.”
