A Louisiana hairdresser turned wig-maker is changing lives for people with hair loss. She is sharing some of her most amazing transformations on social media, and the huge smiles and happy tears of her clients speak volumes.
California-born Tiffani, 36, now lives in the New Orleans area of Louisiana. With 15 years of experience, she still has a hairdressing license but currently runs her own thriving wig company. Her main clients are women and children with hair loss due to alopecia, polycystic ovary syndrome, cancer, or trichotillomania; a compulsion to pull their hair.
“Usually when my clients come in they’re very anxious, very nervous, they don’t know what to expect,” Tiffani told The Epoch Times. “As soon as they put on the wig, they smile and cry, they get emotional. They feel like they got a piece of their identity back ... I feel very blessed to be able to change someone’s life in that way.”
Tiffani, who suffered from hair loss herself after giving birth to her third child, felt insecure, believing her clients trusted her for her head of full, healthy hair. She then looked into different brands and started wearing wigs and toppers. However, being a hairdresser herself she always wanted to change something such as the color, etc.
She still felt embarrassed and kept her hair loss a secret from family, clients, and coworkers until, eventually, their comments changed her mind.
“I got compliments all the time ... I decided since no one knew I was wearing a wig, it was realistic! I shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Tiffani said. “I decided to make a post on social media about my hair loss, how I'd been wearing wigs for the past month or two and no one ever knew. I got nothing but positive feedback.”
Tiffani then started modifying her own wigs, as well as making wigs for other people. She soon realized the size of the demand. Booked up all day every day for months at her salon, Tiffani took to working on wigs at home.
“I‘d stay up until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning working on wigs,” she said. “I got busy to the point where I had to choose one or the other: stay at the salon, or do the wigs full-time.”
However, the mother of three was unsure whether she wanted to risk throwing away all those years she spent being a hairdresser for a venture she wasn’t even sure would be successful or worth it.
After contemplating for a while, the self-proclaimed risk-taker decided to just make wigs. Tiffani made a social media post breaking the news to her long-term clients, and “Wigs by Tiffani” was born.
She hired her assistant from the salon and rented an apartment to work from. Eventually, as it got busier, Tiffani added more people to her team. About a year and a half ago, she opened her first store, and today she has a team of six people in-house and three people working remotely in other states.
Wigs by Tiffani list new wigs every week and ship their unique offerings around the world daily.
Tiffani said: “Wigs have come a long way over the last 20, 30 years, but I feel like what makes us special is that we customize everything ourselves as far as the cut, color, and hairline goes. We do everything in-house. We mimic a natural hairline by plucking the hairline ... and just try and make it look as realistic as possible.”
Tiffani and her team meet clients in person by appointment only and help them try on wigs until they find their perfect match. Their range is extensive, but they do not take custom requests. Lately, Tiffani has had a lot of attention from the news media and celebrity clients.
Her human hair wigs are mostly lace-top, making them breathable and able to blend seamlessly with the client’s skin tone. Wigs range in price from $1,300 to $2,500 depending on the cut, color, and length. She also shares haircare videos on social media.
Advising on how to care for the wigs, Tiffani said: “You want to condition it often, you want to use oils to help maintain it and keep it soft because the hair is still human hair and you want to be gentle when handling it because you don’t want to pull any hair out of the cap or pull the wig off your head.”
She also welcomes donations and routinely gifts free wigs to children, explaining, “I would have given free wigs to children anyway ... I don’t do it for the money, I do it because I love helping people.”
As a message of encouragement to her clients, Tiffani said: “We’re here to help you get your confidence back by providing you hair, but we also want to remind you that being without hair is okay, too ... accept yourself the way you are, the wig is just the icing on the cake.”
Although she currently has no idea what the future holds, she said: “Every day I get a surprise, every day I get a new message from somebody I would not have expected. It’s only been three years and I feel like it’s grown so much ... I’m so humbled, I’m so blessed to be able to do what I love.”
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