A Real Letter, from an Actual Continental Hair Client.
It all started with a dime-sized bald patch on the left side of our six-year old daughters head back in August. A week later, with a misdiagnosis of Ringworm, and a patch that had now doubled in size, we knew this was something much more serious. Alopecia Areata was the diagnosis given. “The Unpredictable disease”. We watched as new patches came up everyday, enlarging so that the patches became one and within 4 months, our daughter had lost 80 percent of her hair. Although she remained a trooper throughout this horrible time, (much stronger than her mom and dad) her confidence was really shaken, and at the innocent age of six, she was already worrying about what her peers would think. Hairbands became thicker and thicker, and crochet hats eventually took over. But she felt different, especially wearing a hat in a school with a “no hat policy” (they graciously made an exception for Regan of course).
Through a caring parent at our school, we had heard about Michaels “Wigs for Kids” program. We spoke with our daughter, and showed her children just like her that had gotten “new hair”. Although skeptical at first, she seemed a little excited at the idea of perhaps her “new hair” could be blonde…….lol. Not her “natural colour” by any means. The fact that she was open to the discussion committed us to make the call to Michael. A hard call for a parent to make. The psychological toll that Regans hair loss had taken on us in the last 4 months and the various emotions and questions as to whether this was the right thing to do for a six year old, weighted heavily on our mind.
We made the call, immediately our mind was put at ease. From the first phone call, quite frankly we were blown away. The stress we felt about making the call completely disappeared as we eagerly awaited our appointment the following week.
As soon as we walked in the door, we knew how unbelievable and committed Michael and his team were. They took our little princess under their wing, as she learned about how wonderful people had donated their hair for kids just like her. Only expecting “our first consultation” Michael appeared with a “real hair wig” that looked like it was made for Regan. I’m not sure who was more excited, my husband and I, Regan or Michael. The satisfaction in his eyes as the wig was placed on Regans head was almost as heart-warming as the smile that appeared on her face, the entire time the stylist (Vassela who was just awesome!) worked her magic to make sure Regans hair was no less than perfect. And believe me, it is. It is even more surreal to know that this is a “gift” for children with Alopecia or Cancer 12 years and under.
Words cannot express how grateful we are for the extraordinary gift Michael and his team (and the beautiful people who donate their hair for programs such as this) have given us. It is “Regans hair” (not a wig to her!!!) and it is wonderfully soccer proof, cartwheel proof, even hanging upside down on swings proof. You have restored her innocence, restored her confidence, and for that we are forever grateful. Thank you isn`t nearly enough.
Daphne, Peter and Regan
This is a horrible thing in any business, but it does happen. I was recently doing a Look Good Feel Better presentation up at Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre and was half way through my presentation about wigs when a woman asked me to examine hers. I told her that it was machine made, with processed Asian, human hair. She was so upset that she started crying. She had been told by the owner of the salon that the purchase was all hand made, with the finest European human hair to be found. She had paid $2000 for it (it should have retailed for about $700). Since there was nothing on her invoice to indicate this there was no way of proving anything. The person that she purchased it from is well known to me and I have had to clean up after the trauma she has left in her wake before.
This story joins another where a woman was purchasing hair systems for almost $4,000 a piece; being told that they were the very finest available human hair. It was very badly processed Chinese hair and was the reason that it would tangle after 7 months (and then she would buy another one, and another one!)
Because I have had these two stories only in the past 3 months, and they join lots of others, I decided to make this addition to our web page. Because wigs and hair replacements systems are not something that is a common experience for the public there is room for people to be taken advantage of. I hope that these points will help you to protect yourself.
1) Machine Made Versus Hand Made:
This is easy to spot. If you examine the inside of a wig or the underside of a hair system and see lines, then it is machine weft, or machine made. These lines are not there to facilitate airflow! They are an inexpensive manufacturing technique were hair is made into a âweftâ (exactly line those inexpensive extensions you see at the beauty supply), or a line of hair, and then sewn onto a cap of elastic ribbon. Some wigs now are hand made on top, these can be called mono tops, and you can see the knots, while the sides and back are machine made. A wig or hair system that is all hand made will have no lines and anywhere you look you will be able to see tiny knots where the hair shaft meets the cap.
In an integration system (a hair system that you are supposed to pull your own hair through) you will see lines but they are so fine that it is easy to tell that they are not a machine made weft.
2) What Type of Hair Is It?
This is more difficult, especially when you are talking about an inexpensive product. Bad quality processed human hair can seem like synthetic, but there are high quality synthetics that do feel like good human hair. The only way to tell sometimes is to take a few strands and burn them (the smell will tell!) but not many salons will allow this and I do not blame them. I suggest that you try to take into account how the hair feels in your deliberations but try to get something that feels right to you.
It is more common now to try to pass off processed hair from Asia and India as European hair. Now some European hair is processed, so it comes out exactly like the hair from India only a little finer. This is mostly done for a small percentage of high end menâs hair systems and is not common.
The best way to ensure you are getting virgin (unprocessed) European hair is to feel for the cuticle. When Asian hair is processed it is dipped in an acid bath to burn off the cuticles (the scales), that are on the shaft. After the processing only the hairâs cortex remains, and therefore is nothing more than a flat shaft. Virgin hair has not had this done so if you take a few strands between your thumb and forefinger and rub, you should see the hair riding up on each other. If the hairs are sliding back and forth then it is processed. Now there are some companies that are leaving some of the cuticle on the hair to make it seem more natural, but then you have to ask yourself if the hair has a natural feel to it. Does it seem dry? Does it look like a bad dye job? Is there a lot of hair in the wig? (since European hair is very expensive you can count on it that we do not pack it in like crazy).
Now a lot of places do not deal in virgin hair and would not know where to get it. It is a specialty item and many that sell human hair systems are very proud of their hair. But ask them if it is virgin hair and they will stare blankly at you (and possibly check for the nearest alarm buzzer). Most human hair wigs and hair systems are processed because they are less expensive and because they (should) not tangle when washed. However, if someone does tell you that a wig they are showing you is made with the finest European human hair available and it does not pass your test, leave the salon. The person does know the difference and thinks that you do not.
Some salons sell wigs that are made with a mixture of synthetic and human hair. Continental Hair does not. I have not seen one that I have liked. This may change in the future but so far it has held. They seem to have way too much hair in them (and if it was high quality hair why would they put so much in the wig?) and the caps are much too big for medical wigs or for women with thinning hair.
3) This is Custom Made Just For You!
A custom made wig or hair system takes six to eight weeks to make. Sometimes even ten weeks if the hair has to be ordered from Europe. Four weeks is the fastest rush job that you can expect. Someone local can do it very fast but expect to pay a huge amount for this. If someone says that they can deliver a custom made wig over the weekend then what they are doing is ordering something out of the inventory of a wholesaler and then (perhaps) adding some highlights or tucking in the cap a bit to make it fit better.
Watch out for amateurish sewing on the inside of the caps, or highlight hair that does not match the quality of the rest of the knotting. If you see hand knotted high lights on machine wefts then you know something isnât right. Also, most wholesalers will put a purchase order number on the inside of the wig or hair system so they can track it (they have retailers calling them all the time saying that âthis unit fell apart after only four monthsâ but with the P.O. number the maker can identify when it was made and delivered, so they can say âno, you have had that for eighteen months). Now when we use our
factory directly we have the name of the client and the P.O. number on the inside of the wig or hair system. When we use one particular wholesaler (for our processed hair unit) they make up their own number (it drives us nuts) so just because you do not see your name in there does not mean it was not made for you. However, there should be something in there besides a colour number and style name to say it was not just taken off the shelf.
These three points should help you out in making sure you getting something worth the price. It seems that the studios that do this do this without any regard for what a person is going through and it is very hard to prove anything once you have paid for the wig. Most people in the hair replacement business are decent hard working people that care about their clients, so donât get paranoid. However, “know your stuff” can be the best watchword. And please note that I am not saying that a machine made wig cannot look good. Or that a processed human hair system cannot look good. They can and most often do. But just make sure that you are not paying too high a price for them because of a sales job.
Friday dawned well after I was up. The dexamethasone anti-nauseant makes me wakeful, as does the OTC Claritin to keep bone pain away, as does all the coughing from my now six-week-long cold and cough, so all the more time to wait to hear from Continental Hair. I called at 8, to leave a message. Then I checked my e-mail, and saw a note from Michael Suba, president, in response to an e-mailed form Tessa sent the night before. I thought we were grasping at straws to hope to call on a Thursday and get an appointment on Friday, but Michaelâs note said:
I am sorry to hear that this is happening so fast. I might be able to  do a consult today. Please call the salon at 416-923-7747 after 10  oâclock and Elfi will put something together for you.
Iâll see you then.
Saint, was all I could say. He could fit me in? I raced up stairs, yelling âGet up, get up! We have an appointment!!!â
Tessa called her best friend, Erika, newly moved back to Toronto, to see if sheâd like to change their lunchtime coffee to a wig-fitting, and Erika was in. She is my second daughter after all, as welcome in our home as my own kids, thinks of me as her second mum, and a very stylish dresser, natural beauty and tons of fun. Just the person to have closeby for something as emotional as this. Graydon came with tooâa tough haul for a guy of 20, especially since heâs done the C thing before, and had even been to Continental Hair for a wig-fitting of his own. His coming along really touched me, because i knew how antsy heâd be after half an hour in there, and so did he. But he still came. It made me feel like I would burst with happiness. Between that and Tessa actually raising the funds that allowed us to set foot in there in the first place, it was a three Ativan outing!
We arrived at precisely 12:30, and actually snagged one of the free parking spots in frontâAvenue Road in the heart of Bloor-Yorkville? Free street parking? It was like there should be yellow bricks in the sidewalk out front.
Inside, we met Elfi, the scheduling master of the studio, and Michael, who was so warm and personable he should be a therapist (I’m sure that many clients see him that way already). He explained the differences between synthetic and processed human and virgin human hair wigs. We told him it was only by Tessaâs efforts and the generosity of friends and family that we were able to come shop there, and that based on price research we had done, even with the $2,400 we had we could not venture into the virgin human hair category. Our wig education continued, and Michael pulled out a wig that could be in our budget, and it was real virgin hair, which means it is unprocessed human hair, thick, soft, natural colour in a dark, dark blond with auburn gloss. Tessa pulled up photos on her camera of my hair before Laura cut it, with blond highlights and lowlights. Michael said yes, virgin hair means their stylists could highlight it, lowlight it, anything. And cut and style it. Afterwards, I could braid it, curl it, clip it up, braid it.
It was one of those moments when you think to yourself: This sounds too good to be true. And you know what âtheyâ say: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. BUT IT WASNâT! It was the complete freedom that an unprocessed head of human hair comes withâwhat our real-life hair can do. And our friends and family gave us (me!) that.
So I tried it on, MiMi put in highlights and lowlights, cut and styled and blowed it dry, and I wore it home the very same day! It is the best I have felt since finding those damn lumps on October 21. It is soft, real, unprocessed human hair, and other than having to have a some bangs, and of course, wanting to be blonder, the highlights are excellent, and I look like a perfectly healthy person. It is such a relief.
I could NEVER have afforded this, in a million years. So thank you, every single person who donated, who sent their best wishes, who shared the page, who spread the word.
And let me say something else about Michael Suba, president and cancer survivor himself. When 3:00 rolled around, and Tessa, Graydon and Erika and I were laughing and Tessa was clicking away with her camera, Michael came racing into the styling room, saying it was three and the tow trucks were descending! Aaaaraaghh!!! No way could I race out to move the car, and none of my three entourage even drive. Visions of having Graydon at SickKids one year, on my birthday, coming outside in the pouring rain after a day of clinic and seeing no cars parked on Universityâincluding mineâstarted to surface. Could I really not have one good day??? Was my car really going to be towed??? Michael said, âGive me your keys!â and dashed out the door, returning five minutes later through the back door. He had jumped in my car, driven it around the block and parked it in his own spot at the back of the building. I have to say, the urge to squeeze that man until I popped a rib was overpowering. What wonderful person and gentleman.
So now, I will thrill you with far more photos than you probably need to see, but hell, this is probably the largest single purchase Iâve made after my house and car, and it was your generosity that made it possible, so bask in your own glow. Tessa took 580+ photos that day, so say the word, and Iâll send you the link to all of them.
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Source: Mom with Cancer Blog
I was doing my best to keep as many balloons in the air at the salon last week when I saw one of my newer clients getting cut in. She is undergoing chemo and is a very sweet woman and I asked if Corale, her stylist, was treating her right. She said of course. Then she asked me a question.
“Michael, do you remember your grade 3 teacher?”
I looked at more closely and it dawned on me. Yes, this was the woman that taught me at Huron Street Public School back in 1973. And I had  such a crush on her. And now here she is in my salon under not the best circumstances but still remembering me from all those thousands of students that she had march through her class.
She got me caught up on the gossip on all the old teachers there. They still hang together. I wish I could have been able to re-connect under better circumstances but I was at the very least happy to see her and make sure that she had a great look. And I felt good that after all she did for me I was able to give a little bit back.
When I get a call from a hockey buddy that I usually do not hang out with I know that it is because my services are needed. As soon as I hear who it is I know that they have someone close to them that is going to go through chemotherapy and needs a medical wig.
It is also the same in the hair styling industry. I received a call from the owner of one of the most prestigious salon/spas in the country. I had not talked with him in a few years but I thought it was a professional call. Maybe asking me to do a seminar on wigs or women’s thinning hair alternatives for his staff. But no. It was professional but also personal; his mother in law is going through chemo and he does not want anyone else but me to take care of her.
He’s is completely broken up about it and tells me that she is more upset over losing her hair than going through chemo. That, actually, is not unusual. I noticed that with many women over the years. It’s like they can fight a disease but not the loss of identity.
So I will see her in a couple of days. I will make sure that another “buddy” has someone close to him taken care of and can go through her journey with confidence and anonymity.
Just like everyone else I check my in-box when I get to my desk. This is what greeted me today:
“I wanted to leave a message for Sandra at your Sunnybrook location. I am going through chemo and recently purchased a wig from Sandra. I was wearing my wig at Loblaws yesterday and the woman behind me said ‘I love the colour of your hair. Do you mind me asking what colour it is?’ I replied, “I have no idea, I’ve never coloured it.” She looked a little envious and I left with a spring in my step. Thanks Sandra. Not only do I love my wig, but I so appreciated your expertise and compassion. You made a tough time much easier.”
I called Sandra at the Sunnybrook hospital salon to read the email to her. She was very happy about it. Then she told me that another patient/client had just sent over a dozen roses to thank her for her!
Its nice when that happens. Its especially nice when it comes from women that have so much else on their minds. But that is something that Sandra has been able to do for over ten years working with cancer patients and their hair loss. She is a cancer survivor, a hair stylist, and a great person. And it seems more and more people are learning that.
