‘What we do is special’: Hampton’s Creative Hair Solutions receives Comcast grant

Hair loss hardly is proscribed to 1 gender.

“So many instances, I’ve girls cry and simply say, ‘Thanks for giving me my confidence again and making me really feel snug to exit,’” Kristine Lewis stated.

Her Hampton enterprise, Inventive Hair Options, does have male purchasers. However for probably the most half, she works on supplying the likes of wigs and their compact cousins, hair toppers, to a phase of the inhabitants that typically isn’t related to needing them.

“As a girl, while you lose your hair, it takes every part away from you,” she stated. “Our hair is our id. So to provide someone her hair again, in a way, actually makes an enormous distinction for her shallowness.”

The lifelong Shaler resident took over possession in January, shortly after turning into a first-time mom at 27. And to make 2022 much more of a banner 12 months, she is receiving a $10,000 grant via Comcast’s RISE — Illustration, Funding, Energy and Empowerment — program to profit small companies.

Lewis plans to proceed to modernize and make upgrades to her 3,000-square-foot house and “actually make it really feel like my place.”

She really began working at Inventive Hair Options 10 years in the past, whereas attending the cosmetology program at A.W Beattie Profession Middle as a Shaler Space Excessive College senior, and shortly developed fairly a little bit of enthusiasm.

“I’ve all the time wished to assist folks. I by no means knew precisely what I wished to do till this type of fell into place,” she stated.

Her assist extends to those that have skilled misplaced of thinning hair via quite a lot of causes, from chemotherapy and radiation therapy to age and heredity, to trichotillomania, “a compulsive dysfunction the place they really pull their hair out.”

“Something surprising to the physique may cause hair loss,” Lewis stated, and from her observations, that features negative effects of covid-19. “The purchasers who come right here are likely to have had covid worse. I noticed one girl who misplaced in all probability 50% of her hair, simply popping out in clumps.”

To rectify such conditions, Lewis provides an assortment of trendy hats and turbans to associate with a wide array of wigs and lighter, less-dense toppers.

“It simply clips into the hair you’ve gotten. You don’t should have a lot, simply one thing there,” she stated in regards to the latter.

As for wigs, purchasers have a selection of these made with artificial materials or the true factor.

“With human hair, you possibly can curl it. You may shade it. You are able to do no matter you need to it. Artificial hair doesn’t have that luxurious,” Lewis stated. “However the good factor about it’s while you wash it and let it air dry, it’s going to all the time look the identical. So there’s completely no upkeep with artificial.”

One side she stresses about Inventive Hair Options is a way of privateness. The placement on Oxford Boulevard is considerably off the overwhelmed path, and inside are three spacious rooms for consultations with purchasers.

“Nobody’s in there watching you strive on the wigs, apart from whoever you need to carry with you,” Lewis stated.

She credit her husband, Dalton, and fogeys, Cindy and Tom Hunkele, for supporting her resolution to buy the enterprise and serving to her obtain her imaginative and prescient for it, which sooner or later may embody opening additional places.

“Actually, what we do is particular,” she stated, “and there’s no person like us round.”

Associated:

• Comcast awards $1 million in grants for small Pittsburgh businesses

• Pine, Franklin Park businesses among those receiving $10K Comcast ‘RISE’ grants

• Penn Hills, Verona businesses among those selected for Comcast RISE grant