Dear Diary,
It was very funny today. I had a very nice lady come in with her daughter. Our receptionist, Elfi, saw that she was not in our data base so decided that she must be a new client. But when I went to the front to greet her I thought she looked familiar. When she was settled in I asked if she had been here before. She said yes she had, but that was three years ago. She took off the pastiche she was wearing (it still poked great, I had not spotted it at all) and said that it was time for a new one.
I looked inside and saw the purchase order number. I asked, “Are you sure this was only three years ago?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I coloured it a little but it is only three years since I have been here.”
I pulled her custom order file and smiled. You were here in September of 2008, thats six years ago.
She was floored. Her daughter laughed. I said, “You know, for a six year old pastiche this is looking really nice.”
She is getting a new one. I told her I would colour the old one down and she could use it as a ‘beach piece’. I told them it should be here by the end of September and they left happy.
Dear Diary,
I have been getting calls all month asking me to style wigs that were purchased elsewhere. I have to explain to these callers that I can’t do that. The reason being that years ago I made an exception. It was a cancer patient and she really asked me saying that she was desperate and that she would sign a waiver and so whatever we asked. Well, she did sign a waiver and she left happy. But two days later she was back with her sister. It seems that her sister did not like the cut and had decided that we needed to pay for the wig that we had “ruined”. This was not going to happen. I explained the circumstances. She would not listen. I showed her the waiver. She waved it away. The actual client and cancer patient was sitting there silent with her head bowed. She would not reply when i asked her what she wanted me to do. Her sister would not let her say anything. I replied that all I could do was replace the wig with one of my own, and that they would have to take it elsewhere to have it cut in. This was not acceptable. Well, at least at first. After much verbal abuse the sister stated that she would take my wig and run my name through the mud. Well, it happens.
So I do not cut other people’s stuff. But I still try to help. I had two calls TODAY about this. One woman had been sold a full wig that really did not suit (or fit) her. She came with a friend and started looking a a pastiche (topper). For fun we tried on a medium brown over her blonde hair and she LOVED it. Her friend just went wild for it. So we coloured her hair to match the brown pastiche and she was ready for the weekend. She was so happy.
And to tell you the truth, there was no saving the wig she had bought. She will be donating it to Princess Margaret Lodge to be given away to a needy cancer patient. It was a large Orthodox Jewish wig and it was too much hair and too much cap for a petit woman with thinning hair.
So, sometimes things work out.
Dear Diary,
It was a real treat today. I had three clients that I had not seen in ages. Marilyn, who wears one of my ‘Jay’ European wigs, had not been in to see me since 2010. She loves these caps because they are fitted for a woman with very little or no hair. Mimi did a great job hi-kiting and cutting her in.
Then I had Helena come in to see me. She had moved to B.C. a couple of years ago and came to see me about a new pastiche (topper). She had not been here in five years! She had really kept that topper going. I had to do a new fitting for a custom order for her though. I have noticed that many of the women coming to see me have been losing hair very aggressively over the past couple of years.
And Lisa had not been to see me for three years. And she is very hard on her toppers so I am surprised that it kept going as long as it did. I do advise them that they should have a second one but these are expensive and that puts a bit of a damper on that idea. However, I advised Lisa that she should think about getting another one in a year or two so that the ‘old’ one could be re-conditioned and used as what I call a ‘beach piece’. That way the new one will look better and last longer.
Dear Diary,
I had a call from my oldest client today. Its strange that this is a woman that has been buying her wigs from Continental Hair for over 30 years and I have never seen her.
My mother first worked with her in the early ‘80s but then she moved out of the province. But a couple of times a year she calls up and orders the same synthetic wigs and has me send them to her.
I guess I could tell you what her hair looks like, but nothing else. She is very sweet and I always make sure that I have her style of wig in stock. After all these years I would never want to let her down.
Toronto Star / August 24, 1978
She’ll sell her hair to help sick dad
By Paul Dalby
Star staff writer
Marie’s 58-inch hair
The lustrous brown locks cascade down almost to her ankles. Marie’s 58-inch hair is her pride and joy.
But now the 20-year-old Metro girl is prepared to sacrifice her beautiful hair to a wigmaker’s salon for money of it will help her father.
For years Marie’s father had chocked on air filled with fine steel dust as he toiled making bank vaults. Last summer he was take to hospital with what seemed to be pneumonia.
Doctors soon confirmed the pneumonia was just a side-effect of lung cancer. After several operations her father is holding his own but may never work again.
“He gets so tired because he’s always coughing. He gets up at 3 or 4 a.m. because of it,” Maria said.
Bill pile up
Her parents have to watch helplessly as the mortgage payments, property taxes, utility bills and medical costs pile up. She hopes the money for her hair will help ease this burden.
A second-year sciences student on a special university scholarship, Marie plans to go to medical school and later become a missionary. Right now she has no money to ease her family’s predicament.
“They get some allowances from the government but it’s not nearly enough to meet all the bills,” she said. “It makes me feel so sad to see this happening.”
Staying in school
“I had thought of quitting university for two years to earn some money but my father didn’t want me to do that,” she said.
So Marie took a leaf from the classic story of Little Women in which Jo, the second of four daughters, sold her hair so her mother could visit her father who’d been wounded in the American Civil War.
“I don’t know how much I will get for my hair or if it will be enough,” she said yesterday. “I don’t even know who to approach.”
With only three weeks left before she returns to university, Marie wrote to her the Star Probe column to ask for advice.
It has taken nine years to grow her hair to its present length – washing it every other day – and long hours of brushing until it shines.
A quiet, reserved young woman, Marie is not seeking charity and requested her identity not be revealed.
However, Peter Suba, president of Continental Tress Ltd. on Avenue Rd., said he’s willing to pay Mary $200 to keep her hair.
“There’s just no market for human hair anymore,” he said, “and we should know – we used to be one of Metro’s largest buyers of human hair. But right now I’ve got about 100 kilos (220 pounds) of it sitting around that I’m trying to get rid of.”
Suba said, “It would be a disservice to Marie to her to cut her hair. It sounds lovely, and I’ll gladly pay her $200 to keep it.
“And I think any other wigmaker would take the same approach.”
Suba said human hair is “virtually never” used for wigs anymore, since synthetic fibres developed in the past few years are far superior.
“You don’t find a girl like that very often – someone who’s willing to do whatever’s in her power to help her family.
She deserves all the help she can get.”
New You 2002
The Canadian Cosmetic Enhancement, Anti-aging Show
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
January 11-13, 2002
Continental Hair was proud to participate in Canada’s largest cosmetic enhancement show to the consumer. Including over 65,000 square feet of the latest technology, Toronto’s finest physicians, cosmetic dentists, and an array of products and information, Continental Hair gave great demontrations throughout the weekend.
Thousands of Women and Men had the opportunity to explore their Options, attend information seminars and hear first hand about the latest products and services available today.
http://www.newyou.ca
