Wigs R You

In The News

Making bald beautiful

At this wig shop, hope, solace and friendship are part of the service

The Sacramento Bee, December 8, 2006

Maureen Brice walks through the glass doors, and a thousand eyes are on her.

All around the room, the "ladies" at Wigs R You are perched on shelves. Their painted eyes are unblinking, their synthetic hair perfectly coiffed.

Brice looks up at the stunning brunettes and sassy redheads, the spiky styles and soft curls and layered tresses.

Her own hair is blond, thick and glossy, cascading down her back.

"I had my first chemo this week," she tells shop owner Cindy Jacobs , who has appeared at her side. "I was brushing my hair this morning, and it just started falling out." Soon, her doctors tell her, she will lose it all.

"Well, that's OK," Jacobs says. "We're going to make you beautiful."

She ushers her over to introduce her to the ladies.

Plenty of places fit wigs, but it is hard to imagine another one quite like Wigs R You.

Tucked within an ordinary strip mall off Auburn Boulevard , it is more spa than store, and its staffers are more therapists than salespeople. As many as 90 percent of the shop's clients are women dealing with major health issues, mostly cancer, and everyone who works at the shop has a friend or family member who has suffered from the disease. One, Alma Tron, has battled it herself.

Past keeps her humble

Tron reaches into a drawer and pulls out proof. It is a photograph of herself, bald from the poisons that attacked her breast cancer.

"This keeps me humble," she says.

With her splashy outfits, gregarious personality and accent that hints of her East Coast roots, Tron wears her survival as a badge of courage. More than once she has taken clients into a back room to show off her breast reconstruction, delivering hope to someone in desperate need of it.

Jacobs, who has a whispery voice and blushes more easily than her colleague, has worked at the shop for four years and recently bought it from its original owner. At first, she says, her family was puzzled about her career choice.

Now they understand that Wigs R You is about so much more than hair. That Jacobs and her staff of five are not just selling wigs. That they also are surrogate counselors, best friends and esteem boosters to their clients. That the stylish and natural wigs on the mannequins, the pretty scarves and hats of all shapes and colors, help make the effects of cancer treatment a little less traumatic.

Every day, Jacobs and the others collect new stories. The young girl with a condition called alopecia who cried with joy when she looked in the mirror and, for the first time, saw someone with a full head of hair that no one could have guessed was a wig. The single mother teetering at the brink of homelessness because of her cancer diagnosis. The little boy terrified of his mother's bare head.

"Oh, we do get stories," Jacobs says, her eyes welling with tears for the third time today. "They weigh on me."

Every day she scans the obituaries, hoping against hope that none of her former clients is listed.

Jacobs and the others have happy stories, too. Stories of clients who come into the shop hanging their heads, and leave with their eyes twinkling. Celebrations, complete with sparkling cider, of the end of treatments and the beginning of new lives. Laughter when a wig transforms a timid dishwater blonde into the bold redhead she's always wanted to be.

"I'm 73 years old and I've done a lot of things, and it's like God saved the best for last for me," says staffer Eileen Vance, standing in the back room of the shop on a November afternoon, styling refurbished wigs that clients can borrow if they cannot afford the $195 to $300 cost of a new one.

"Every day I wonder, 'What kind of angel is going to walk in here today?' These women give us the most wonderful gifts."

Long-term relationships

Shalita Blackburn is one of those angels. On a quiet weekday morning, Blackburn , a willowy former college professor, strolls up to the counter. She sniffs the scent of lavender, hears the soft music, spots familiar faces.

Greeting Tron, she matter-of-factly pulls off her auburn wig for a fluff and a style

It has been two years, Blackburn recalls, since she first set foot in the store, shortly after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She found a hairpiece and new friends. She fought the cancer and got her hair back. Now she is thin and bald and weak again, fighting a recurrence that has spread to her brain.

Hair loss may seem like the least of her troubles, Blackburn says.

"But it's a physical reminder of your illness. The first time you lose it, it's horrifying. So many women define themselves by their physical beauty, and your hair is such a big part of that, even though in reality it's a small part of who we are."

Blackburn looks around the wig shop, with its muted lighting and comfortable sofa and inspiring words on the walls. Here, she says, she feels safe and nurtured.

"What they do here," she says, "is so much more than fitting a wig. It's a very healing place."

With Tron's help, Blackburn maneuvers her wig back into place. She checks her look in the mirror and nods her approval. After Tron wraps her in a tight hug, the angel walks out into the sunshine.

Moment of reckoning

Just days after her first trip to the shop, Maureen Brice is back. Inside a small plastic bag, she is carrying a printed scarf and a beige hat, which she bought at Wigs R You in anticipation of this moment. She had no idea it would come this soon.

"How are you doing?" Tron asks.

"Ugh," Brice replies.

She runs a hand through her hair, and comes away with a fistful of blond strands.

"Look."

"Yeah," Tron says. "It's ready to go."

The women disappear into one of the shop's two private rooms, which are equipped with barber's chairs. Tron, a hair stylist by trade, fits a black cape around Brice's neck and makes small talk.

"What are they giving you for chemo?" she asks, stroking Brice's ponytail. "How are you tolerating it? Is your appetite good?"

No nausea yet, Brice tells her.

"Girlfriend," Tron says, raising her hand in a high-five, "you're doing great!"

Waves of conversation drift in from the shop's main room, where Vance and Jacobs are talking with new clients and catching up with a longtime one, Debby Aldridge. Aldridge says she is here for a "pick-me-up" after learning her cancer has returned and invaded her liver.

"I needed to come here," she says. "I always end up feeling better when I do."

Looming over Brice, Tron reaches for her scissors and offers some unsolicited advice. "While you're going through this," she says, "don't spend a lot of time on the things that don't matter, like cooking and cleaning.

"Concentrate on the good things. Laughter. Family."

The women dish some more about the rigors of chemo and the joy of everyday life.

First cut is the toughest

"Are you ready?" Tron asks finally, and Brice's face turns serious.

"Are you gonna leave a short buzz or what?" she asks, talking into the mirror in front of her.

"Whatever you want, honey," Tron answers.

Snip. Off goes Brice's ponytail.

Tron gently lays all 10 inches of it on the vanity table in front of them.

Clip, clip. Gone are Brice's bangs.

Zip. The electric razor is humming across her head.

"You have a nice scalp!" Tron says, working quickly. But Brice looks stricken.

"The last time I had a pixie cut was when I was around 13," she says.

"Oh, this is awful," she continues, as shocks of her hair fall to the floor.

"Terrible, in fact."

She rubs her stubbly head and frowns.

As Tron finishes, Brice's daughter Tanya, flustered from a traffic jam, ducks into the room. Her mother turns toward her.

"Hi, sweetheart!," Brice says. "I'm bald, baby!"

"Is it weird, mom?"

"Yeah."

Tanya cradles her mother's head. "It's OK, mom," she says, and then delivers a peck on the cheek. "You still look great."

Brice shakes her head, unconvinced.

A few minutes later, she is in the shop's back room, perusing the "wig bank." She finds a shaggy blond hairpiece that frames her face perfectly.

This will do, she says, at least for a while. Jacobs tells her to keep it as long as she wants. No charge.

"Not bad," Brice says, staring into a hand mirror. "Hey, I kinda like this!"

Tanya flings her left arm around her mother's shoulder. In her right arm, she holds a long, blond ponytail.

Setting it straight: A story on Scene Page J1 Friday about Wigs R You, whose clients include cancer patients, said that its wigs cost between $195 and $300. Shop owner Cindy Jacobs said the store also has wigs for $100.

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