Woman Who Grew Beards At 11 Pens Down Note To Self After So Many Years Of Bullying & Contemplating Suicide

A woman with a condition that causes excessive facial and body hair to develop has written an open letter to her younger self telling her to accept her ‘beautiful’ beard.

Harnaam Kaur, from Slough, Berkshire, suffers from polycystic ovary syndrome – and began growing stubble on her face aged just 11. The hair quickly spread to her chest and arms.

Miss Kaur penned the empowering note – which is part of Illamasqua’s #LetterToLittleMe campaign – at a time when she was being bullied at school, taunted in the street and wanted to ‘end it all’.

‘I feel it in your soul that you are struggling and you need some guidance,’ she wrote. ‘You quiver at the sight of people, you shudder at the touch of a stranger, and you drag your lifeless body everywhere that you go.’



During her early teens, Miss Kaur was so ashamed of her beard that she waxed twice a week, and also tried bleaching and shaving.

Writing about how unhappy she was on her appearance, Miss Kaur continued: ‘If only you could see your own self worth and the gems that you have embedded inside your own beautiful heart.

‘You have a heart of gold and you will empower many one day. Don’t you see it? Can’t you see just how amazing and beautiful you are?’

Miss Kaur says she used to live in the ‘shadow of an unconfident girl’ and didn’t see her ‘self-worth’.


As the hair became thicker and spread, Miss Kaur felt so self-conscious that she refused to leave her house.

She even began self-harming and she considered suicide.

Commenting on how she learned to love herself and inspire others, she said: ‘I promise you that the world will one day read your story.

‘You have no idea of just how many people will be inspired by your self-love, your strength, your self-empowerment,’ she wrote to herself after so many years of bullying and now coming to love herself.