A ten-year-old in Melbourne has embraced her fuzzy 'baby hair' caused by a rare genetic condition which has led to her being compared to Albert Einstein.
Shilah Madison Calvert-Yin has had a halo of fluffy hair since she was a baby and has been teased by bullies who said it looks like 'she's stuck her finger in a power socket'.
She has uncombable hair syndrome - a condition characterised by heart-shaped or triangular hair shafts that stand out from the scalp, and is caused by a mutation in the proteins involved in hair formation.
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When she was younger, Shilah cut her hair off out of frustration, but now she embraces her unique hairdo - and good for her.
Shilah and mum Celeste, 39, want to 'show other children there's nothing wrong with being different' and regularly post to an Instagram account which has more than 15,000 followers.
Shilah added: "I get teased a lot and called 'fluffhead' at school - it's not nice. I personally like it now but at the same time I hate it - especially when there's wind! Let's just say, I can't see!"
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Celeste knew her daughter was different when she was just three months old. The teacher from Melbourne, Australia, said: "Her brown baby hair had fallen out as it should but this weird fuzz started to come through and grow straight up.
"It was like nothing you'd ever seen before. It didn't seem to calm or settle, but I didn't really think anything of it until people started to make comments."
Celeste said people will often try to touch or take pictures of Shilah without asking. She remembered how thoughtless people will frequently say 'it looks like she stuck her finger in a power socket'.
In 2014 Shilah took part in a Jurassic Park-themed excavation activity for kids at their local shopping mall, and donned a lab coat.
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Celeste said: "A stranger likened her to Doc Brown from Back to the Future, which even though it's my favourite film, I never considered, but she did look exactly like Doc or Einstein! It has now become a sort of in-house joke!"
Aged four, Shilah became fed up with her hair not all pulling back into a ponytail and cut off the shorter parts that didn't reach. It took over two years for Shilah's hair to grow back, and she wore a headscarf to hide it.
Celeste said: "I was more distraught than she was, she decided that she was sick of her hair sticking straight up but when she cut short it the opposite happened and it became more spiky. That's the only haircut she's ever had!"
Hairdressers don't know what to do with her delicate locks, and some have wrongly suggested she should go to a salon which specialise in Afro hair.
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Celeste said: "Her hair is not like African hair; it is still very soft and doesn't need oil or a deep condition, and any heat treatment will break it. But these hairdressers still gave her the best experience as they were able to help manage it by styling it into cornrows and keeping it out of her face."
Shilah wasn't diagnosed with uncombable hair syndrome until she was seven years old and it was spotted by a dentist.
Celeste said: "Her dentist was concerned about how weak her teeth were and the anaesthetist who was scheduled with Shilah was the one who noticed her hair and told us about uncombable hair syndrome."
The doctor had done a study on genetics and abnormalities and knew all about UHS, but had never met a child with her condition.
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Celeste said: "I was shocked, teary and excited at the same time- finally there was an answer to all those years of questions. What were the chances, out of all the doctors in Melbourne, that we would meet this one?"
She added: "You panic when you hear doctors talk about cell mutations but fortunately Shilah has only broken one bone in her life and now we are careful about her bones and teeth."
Featured Image Credit: SWNSTopics: Hair, Community, Health