MEDIA & COLLABORATIONS

Yomarie “YoMo” Castellano

Founder of Hair Loss Bonita · Model
Advocate for Representation


Yomarie “YoMo” Castellano is the founder of Hair Loss Bonita, a platform and practice supporting women through the emotional and identity impact of hair loss. She is also a model and advocate working with brands and media to expand representation of women with thinning hair, visible hair loss, and alternative hair.

Living with androgenic alopecia for over 12 years, YoMo brings lived experience, emotional clarity, and cultural insight to conversations about beauty, confidence, visibility, and self-expression. Her work challenges the idea that hair determines worth and advocates for representation that feels real, nuanced, and affirming.

Woman celebrating on a baseball field, wearing a Milwaukee Brewers jersey, jeans, sneakers, baby hair braids and a black cap, with her wig flying and arms raised in joy.

Hair loss affects millions of women across age, profession, and background yet it remains one of the least honestly discussed experiences in beauty, wellness, and media.

For many women, hair loss doesn’t arrive as a single moment. It shows up quietly: in how you scan a room before you enter it, in how you think about photos before they’re taken, in the constant calculations around lighting, angles, weather, and proximity. These are not vanity concerns, they’re adaptations to feeling more visible and more vulnerable at the same time.

Most conversations still treat hair loss as a cosmetic issue. Something to fix, disguise, or move past quickly. What’s missing is language for the experience underneath it: the anxiety, the grief, the ongoing self-monitoring, the identity questions that don’t disappear just because you found a solution that works.

When experiences go unnamed, people internalize them as personal failure. When representation is absent, shame fills the gap.

Hair Loss Bonita exists to change that.

Hair loss may be the entry point but the conversation is about identity, self-trust, and visibility in a world that constantly evaluates women’s appearance.

Why This Work Matters

What I Bring to Campaigns & Collaborations

I work with brands that take representation seriously not as a moment or as a message, but as an ongoing practice.

Hair loss is often framed as something to fix, hide, or turn into a story about bravery. That framing misses how most women actually live with it. My work focuses on what’s real: the day-to-day negotiations, the adjustments, and the choices women make to feel like themselves.

The collaborations I take on are shaped by a few non-negotiables:

  • I bring lived experience. I’ve spent more than a decade navigating hair loss in public, private, and professional spaces, including choosing when and how to wear alternative hair.

  • I respect women’s autonomy and choice. Wigs, toppers, natural hair, or no hair at all — each is a valid way of showing up, and none should be framed as something to explain or apologize for.

  • I care about how stories land emotionally. I’m not interested in exaggerated confidence or dramatic transformations. I work toward stories that feel familiar, grounded, and believable.

  • I prioritize reflection over performance. The strongest work allows women to recognize themselves, not to be reassured through invisibility or sold a sense of being “fixed.”

I don’t present hair loss or alternative hair as a problem to solve. I help brands show how women actually live with these choices as part of everyday beauty, self-expression, and identity.

A woman with dark brown thinning hair pulled-back in a baby hair bun smiling with eyes closed, wearing red lipstick and diamond earrings, against a neutral background.

Campaign Work & Brand Features

JVN Hair
Participated in a JVN Hair campaign for a new product, invited by Jonathan Van Ness. I was the only model in the shoot representing hair thinning and hair loss, offering visibility to an experience often absent from mainstream beauty imagery. The work contributed to a broader conversation about inclusion and representation in haircare.

Oprah Daily (via Ricki Lake feature)
Hair Loss Bonita received a public shoutout connected to Ricki Lake’s candid conversation about hair loss. The feature acknowledged the need for honest dialogue, community, and visibility around women’s hair loss.

Group of diverse smiling people with various hairstyles and colors standing together against a green background, advertising JVN Hair, a haircare brand.

Modeling & Representation Work

As a model with over 20 years experience, I work with brands and media to reflect how
women actually live with hair loss without exaggeration, concealment, or transformation
narratives.

My work helps normalize:

  • thinning hair

  • visible hair loss

  • alternative hair, including wigs, toppers, and protective styles

I’m especially interested in campaigns that:

  • reflect women at different stages of hair loss

  • present alternative hair as choice, not concealment

  • move beyond “before and after” storytelling

I’m available for editorial shoots, beauty and lifestyle campaigns, and brand storytelling
that aligns with these values.

A woman with dark hair tied in a snatched baby hair bun, wearing red lipstick and diamond earrings, holding a yellow bottle of JVN hair hairspray against a green background.

Media Features & Appearances

Radio Milwaukee — Uniquely Milwaukee
Guest on the episode titled “Men and Women Navigate Beauty Standards, from Hair to Height,” discussing how appearance norms shape confidence, credibility, and identity and how hair loss quietly affects how people move through the world.

CBS 58 — Alopecia Awareness
Featured during Alopecia Awareness coverage, highlighting community support, emotional impact, and advocacy for women navigating hair loss.

Telemundo Wisconsin
Interviewed in Spanish about motivating and supporting women living with hair loss, visibility, and self-expression, with a focus on reducing silence and isolation.

Writing &
Contributor POV

I write about what hair loss does to a woman’s sense of self while life keeps moving as if nothing has changed.

My work names the things women are already living with but rarely say out loud: the constant self-checking, the mental math around lighting and proximity, the way confidence becomes conditional, and the slow realization that you’re not occupying space the same way you used to.

I explore:

  • how hair loss shifts self-trust and confidence over time

  • the mental energy women spend managing visibility

  • why wearing wigs or alternative hair is often a form of decision-making, not hiding

  • what it means to lose a version of yourself without a clear moment of loss

  • how beauty standards shape credibility, professionalism, and belonging

I don’t write to reassure or inspire. I write to give language to real experiences so women can recognize themselves, and so brands and media can engage the conversation without flattening it or turning it into a performance.

Three women standing close together on a beach at sunset, smiling and holding hands, the two on the right are wearing wigs, with waves in the background.

Topics I Speak &
Write On

My work sits at the intersection of hair loss, identity, and visibility. I focus on lived experiences that shape how women move through their daily lives.

I speak and write on topics including:

  • female hair loss and thinning hair, including androgenic alopecia

  • the emotional and psychological impact of hair loss over time

  • confidence, identity, and self-trust when appearance changes

  • wigs, toppers, and alternative hair as self-expression and personal choice

  • hair loss advocacy and representation in beauty, media, and culture

  • mental health, visibility, and the experience of being seen

  • how beauty standards influence credibility, professionalism, and belonging

These conversations are grounded in real behavior, real decisions, and real emotional labor.

Credentials & Background

I bring both lived experience and professional training to this work.

  • Founder of Hair Loss Bonita, a platform and practice centered on the emotional and identity impact of hair loss in women

  • Model/actress and advocate for representation of thinning hair, visible hair loss, and alternative hair

  • Certified Life Coach

  • Master’s degree in Counseling (non-clinical or liscensed)

  • Lived experience with androgenic alopecia for over 12 years

  • Host of Hair Loss Bonita Meet-Ups, creating in-person and community-based conversations around hair loss and self-trust; hosted them in Chicago, Orlando, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Toronto, and more.

  • Speaker on the emotional and identity impact of hair loss, visibility, self-trust, and representation in beauty, media, mental health, and professional spaces.

My work is informed by years of listening closely to women’s experiences in sessions, community spaces, media conversations, and everyday life.

Brand, Media & Speaking Inquiries

I collaborate with brands, media, and organizations interested in thoughtful, grounded conversations around representation, identity, and visibility. I’m available for:

  • brand campaigns and long-term partnerships

  • editorial shoots and media features

  • interviews and podcast appearances

  • panel discussions, keynotes, and live events

  • writing and contributor opportunities

For inquiries, please contact:
hairlossbonita@gmail.com


Female hair loss support that helps women feel like themselves again while continuing to live their lives.

Hair Loss Bonita exists to make space for women to live with hair loss as it actually is whether they wear alternative hair, rock their thinning hair or bald head. The work centers the emotional and identity impact of hair loss, while advocating for representation that reflects real choices, real bodies, and real lives.

This work supports women in staying connected to who they are as they navigate visibility, confidence, and self-trust in relationships, at work, in public, and in their own bodies.