Coronation Street’s Shobna Gulati's thinning hair solutions

Shobna Gulati is famous all over the UK from her years playing Sunita on Coronation Street; she’s now back on our screens once again as a Loose Women panellist on ITV.

In her time as Sunita, she escaped an arranged marriage, survived a brain tumour, was held hostage, falsely imprisoned, had twins, became a single parent, survived a tram crash and was trapped in a fire, before finally dying in hospital after her breathing tube was removed by an illicit lover. But she’s faced equal challenges away from the camera, including a life-long struggle with hair loss and thinning hair. At the start of 2014, she finally found the solution to her problem. And learned a lot of life lessons in the process.

‘As a young woman I had lots of hair, typical long Indian hair. But when I was 19 my circumstances changed; my father died and I moved out of the family home.’

Without home-cooked dinners, she explains that she wasn’t eating healthily any more, plus – this being the ‘80s – she was doing lots of experimenting with her hair – dyeing it, perming it, yes, we’ve all been there! She noticed that her hair became thinner and so, looking for ways to restore its fullness, she became a product junkie – always looking for that ‘magic potion’. Again, we’ve all been there …

Falling pregnant with her son in 1993, suddenly she had other things to think about. As a single mum, she says ‘I just tied my hair up, I didn’t care about how I looked. It wasn’t about me any more – I kind of forgot about me.’

Working in theatre and as an acting tutor, it wasn’t until she took her first job in TV – Anita in Dinnerladies – that she started to think about her hair again.

‘Luckily, the role meant I had to wear a hat most of the time,’ she laughs. ‘And if I did appear without it, my hair was blow-dried to within an inch of its life.’

But when she moved to Coronation Street in 2001, she suddenly became the centre of a lot more attention.

‘And it wasn’t even just the attention I got on TV,’ she explains. ‘It was the attention and recognition I got just walking down the street, the constant stalking by the paparazzi. If you’re having a bad day and you get papped, it’s really not pleasant.’

To escape the attention, once she left Coronation Street in 2005, she cut her hair off and dyed it blonde.

‘This gave me a 30-second getaway when people started to wonder who I was and where they recognised me from. I was blonde and I was fast, so once they worked it out I was gone! But as I’m very dark, I had to dye my hair every two weeks to stay blonde. So then I went shorter – very short, pixie short!’

Once the work started to dry up – casting agents expected an Indian girl to have longer hair she explains – she had to start investing in hair weaves. However, the damage this caused to her hair led to bald patches appearing at the back of her head.

Once she returned to Corrie in 2009, her hair was very thin, particularly around the hairline. She reveals that she was forced to colour it in using hair makeup, and used extensions to make it appear fuller for red carpet events and awards ceremonies. Hitting a very stressful period after leaving Coronation Street for the second time, she was forced to experiment with a whole series of different hair extensions to fill out her now-rapidly-thinning hair. But problems with the strong glue in these products led to even more hair damage.

‘In January 2014 I started taking a hair supplement,’ Shobna reveals. ‘I saw an ad in the paper for Viviscal® and cut it out. It was the New Year, I knew in my head it was time for a change. I was going to be 48 in August, I thought I need to take control of this – I can’t keep having hair extensions continually. I thought all of the time I’d been spending on the upkeep of my hair would be better spent doing some prevention work, so that things wouldn’t get any worse.’

‘I think previously I was just looking for a quick fix, I think we do that a lot as women; we look for the magic cure or wonder face cream, rather than putting the time in to fix something gradually. So I looked at what I was putting into my body. I started to eat healthily. I wanted to support my body as I was trying to make this change. The Viviscal supplements are expensive, I needed to make a commitment to this.’

She began to notice a change in two to three weeks – at first in her nails, which became stronger and weren’t always breaking like they used to. For the first time, they looked really nice, she says.

‘I also felt like the hair that was starting to come through on the top of my head was stronger – it was nice to put my hands through it – I thought ‘oh, that feels better’.

Six months later and her hair is now quite long, without any aids or extensions. She explains that it looks stronger and healthier than it has done for years.

‘My hair looks like it did when I was a girl. There is definitely more hair on the hairline, and I can pull my hair back into a ponytail and it feels fuller, it feels like there’s more hair there.’

Her skin has also improved she says; where previously she had a lot of dry patches on her face, now it feels more moisturised and her lips aren’t as chapped as they used to be. Taking the supplements has also had a positive effect on her lifestyle and general health.

‘I’m eating more regularly because of the supplements,’ she explains. ‘I take two every morning and I don’t want to take them on an empty stomach so I’m eating breakfast every day for the first time since I left home when I was 19. I’d skipped breakfast every morning since! Now I’m going to be 50 I feel I should be taking better care of myself. If I’m working and going to be on set early, I have to check with the crew where can I have my breakfast!’

And breakfasts are full meals for Shobna. This morning she had scrambled egg with tomato, a slice of bacon, gluten-free muesli with added dried fruit and sunflower seeds, and one slice of brown gluten-free toast.

‘I’ve spent the last three decades being an idiot – not looking after myself properly. Now I eat clean – no fast food, no processed food, no sugar – only occasionally will I eat fruit as this has a lot of sugar. But I eat vegetables every day. And I juice a lot – the other day I had celery, cucumber, mint and some coriander I found in the fridge, spinach, carrot and ginger, all juiced up. Plus I mashed up an avocado, added some water and mixed it in. I also eat a lot of raw veg. It’s so easy now – you can just buy a big buy of salad and eat it over the course of the day. Iit’s quite straightforward to eat healthily when you think about it.’

‘My child is grown up now, and I’m spending more time on my own. It’s like when you’re a mother you are always looking after other people, there comes a time when you have to look at yourself and take yourself in hand – I’ve had three decades of not looking after myself. Now I’ve stopped the behaviour I know is damaging. I’m going to eat healthily, I’m going to look after myself, I’m going to take supplements. And I feel much better.’

'Each decade brings different sorts of issues, different sorts of hormones. In your teens you’re becoming a woman and dealing with that, in your 20s and 30s you might have children, 40s and 50s you’re moving towards menopause. Looking back over my life, I’ve never felt better. I understand more now. I might not have the body of a 20-year-old but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I’ve had better understanding of myself.’

‘I’m constantly completely amazed by the power of women as I get older, and I celebrate women a lot more now. Look at what women can achieve - and have achieved - despite the journey through sexism.'

‘I feel like I’ve been my own teacher, I’ve taken myself in hand – I’m being a grown up. All through life we’re responsible for so many different things – other people, having a job – I haven’t really been there for myself. Now I feel so much better.'

Catch Shobna on Loose Women, ITV, weekdays from 12.30pm. Viviscal® supplements are available from Boots and www.viviscal.co.uk for £49.95 for one month’s supply. For more information, visit www.viviscalfeelthedifference.co.uk

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