Many of you have been asking about ‘where is’ Leorah Hallel Goldberg – our amazing friend, headwrapper, kit designer and makeup artist? Well, she’s taken quite a journey, and is doing better than ever. Rather than us telling her story, we want to let Leorah tell it to you herself. Her journey is an incredible inspiration, and we know some (or all) of it will resonate with each and every one of you!
I started covering my hair with scarves in December 2004, when I got married at 25, as part of my religious observance as a Modern Orthodox Jewish woman. In those early years, my wraps were mostly simple, practical and quick — because, well… life was busy!
Then, after the birth of my seventh child in 2018 — seven children in nine years! — I decided it was finally time to focus a little more on me. I had lost a huge amount of weight after my last pregnancy and started a YouTube channel about beauty and lifestyle. For the first time in a long time, I gave myself permission to play, experiment and have fun with fashion, makeup and, of course, head wraps.
In 2019 I discovered the Wrapunzel Community on Facebook and started sharing my looks. The response was incredible, and eventually the Wrapunzel team reached out and asked me to collaborate with them. I began creating tutorials showing women how I made my wraps, and together we released several “Leorah Kits” — sets of my favorite scarves that sold out remarkably quickly. It was an amazing and very creative chapter of my life.
Around that same time, though, I was slowly developing alopecia without realizing it.
In the summer of 2023, shortly after my last Leorah Kit was released, I walked away from YouTube and social media completely. What had once been fun had become mentally unhealthy for me. I felt the pressure of constantly performing, looking perfect and being a “role model” for so many people. I stopped wanting to be seen.
I toned everything down — the makeup, the outfits, the elaborate wraps. And then I discovered dog training.
Dogs didn’t care what I looked like. They responded to me. They saw my essence, not my appearance. Somehow, that became the beginning of a much deeper healing journey for me — learning to find balance and reconnect with who I am beyond how I look.
By 2025, I finally accepted that alopecia was my reality. My hairline had receded significantly, while the rest of my hair remained long but incredibly thin. So I decided not to mourn it. I turned cutting my hair into a celebration with my oldest daughters. One held my hand, another cut my hair short, and we laughed and cried together. It was incredibly emotional — and incredibly liberating.
That was also when I tried a wig for the first time. And I never looked back.
I discovered that I could still be creative with wigs — different colors, lengths and styles — but somehow this new look felt right. Going from beauty YouTuber to dog trainer, from constantly being seen to being comfortable simply being, the wig became part of the look of this new chapter of my life.
Sometimes I look back at my old head-wrap pictures and think, “WOW. I created that!” And I absolutely love those memories. That woman was me, and that chapter was beautiful.
But it was only one part of the whole spectrum of who I am.
Today, I don’t feel like alopecia took something away from me. It simply gave me another opportunity to reinvent myself. I’m excited about who I am, how I look, and where this journey is taking me.
And who knows? A few years from now, I may reinvent myself all over again.
