She’s the seven-year-old girl who has been turning heads with her unruly blonde locks that are impossible to tame.
Shilah Calvert-Yin, from Melbourne, was born with the rare condition called Uncombable Hair Syndrome – meaning her mane is constantly frizzy and static.
And the schoolgirl is thought to be only one of 100 people worldwide – including late physicist Albert Einstein – living with the disorder.
Appearing on The Morning Show, her mother Celeste revealed how the family only became aware of her daughter’s condition after a dentist told them.
Shilah Calvert-Yin, from Melbourne, was born with the rare condition called Uncombable Hair Syndrome – meaning her mane is constantly frizzy and static
The schoolgirl is thought to be only one of 100 people worldwide – including late physicist Albert Einstein – living with the disorder
Appearing on The Morning Show, her mother Celeste revealed how the family only became aware of her daughter’s condition after a dentist told them (pictured together)
‘Charlotte was in hospital for a simple dental procedure and an anesthetist actually had some genetic training and she said “aren’t you aware of what’s going on with your daughter?”,’ the mother recalled.
‘I said “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. And so from there, we discovered what the UHS was, what it does and all about it.’
Her parents knew something wasn’t right when their daughter’s springy hair started to grow out of control from the age of three months old.
‘When her hair first grew through, we didn’t quite know what was going to happen. [Her hair] was just different… fuzzy,’ Celeste said.
‘Just off the bat we knew something was not how it should be but we just didn’t know what it was.’
Her parents knew something wasn’t right when their daughter’s springy hair started to grow out of control from the age of three months old
But despite her unbrushable hair, the happy girl said she thought her hair was ‘unique’ and she loved that ‘lots of people like it’.
Describing her favourite style, Shilah said she loves having braids because it makes her hair ‘go down sometimes.
‘They like it a lot and they want to touch it.’
The family said they have attracted plenty of attention from strangers who regularly stop the little girl on the street to comment on her wild hair.
‘We take a lot of it on board,’ her mother said.
‘Some of the stuff people who actually told us have been really insightful and things that we perhaps wouldn’t have thought about ourselves.
‘A lot of people tell us how to fix her hair. There’s nothing actually technically wrong with her hair that needs to be fixed.
‘I guess we just take on board what we can and work with what we’ve got.’
The family said they have attracted plenty of attention from strangers who regularly stop the little girl on the street to comment on her wild hair
The family has since launched an Instagram page for Shilah in the hope of finding other people who are living with Uncombable Hair Syndrome
The mother explained she has received countless tips on fixing her daughters hair.
‘How to sleep with it at night in particular, because she gets quite matted and quite knotted at nighttime. So with a silk pillow, wrapping her head in scarves.
‘And trying to keep it in the braids for as long as possible – it stops a lot of the breakage that we find happens on a daily basis.’
The family has since launched an Instagram page for Shilah in the hope of finding other people who are living with Uncombable Hair Syndrome.
‘The response we’ve had have been overwhelming,’ the mother said.
‘Everyone’s really embraced her. I think she’s given that real positive vibe to everybody else to love the person who they are and they don’t need to change themselves.’
To follow Shilah Calvert-Yin’s journey, please visit her Instagram.