Dream weaver
Missouri City woman solves weave-drying issue with new product
Michalyn Porter hopes she has come up with the next big thing in beauty.
She will show off her invention, the Weave Dryer, on Steve Harvey’s new show, “Funderdome,” at 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC. The seedfunding reality competition is similar to ABC’s “Shark Tank,” but instead of contestants vying for deals with a team of celebrity “sharks,” two budding entrepreneurs go head to head to win over a live studio audience for funding for their big idea or product.
The Weave Dryer has already earned Porter a top award at a national multicultural hair show in Las Vegas, cited as a standout in a market saturated with body creams and hair conditioners.
The product is a special blow-dryer nozzle attachment designed to dry hair extensions, braids, twists, locks and any style that restricts air flow to the hair. Those can be hard to reach with traditional dryers. It features several thin, hollow tubes that send air into the hair. The nozzle also dries hair faster than sitting under a traditional hooded dryer, which can take hours.
The Weave Dryer sells for $24.99 on amazon.com and weavedryer.com.
“This has been a dream,” Porter said in her Missouri City home, where hundreds of packages of the product line her bookshelves. “This is something we’ve needed for a long time because no one could figure out how to get weaves to dry quickly.”
Porter said her first experience with hair weaves was for her high school senior photos. Until then, her mother insisted she wear ponytails.
“I begged her to let me wear hair weave. I fell in love with the versatility.”
In 2015, Porter came up with the Weave Dryer idea after a vacation nightmare.
She was on a Caribbean cruise with her family — husband David and two daughters, ages 4 and 10 — when she splashed down on a twisty waterslide. Porter’s hair weave was soaked, down to the braided hair underneath. She had no way to dry her hair thoroughly, so she went to bed with a wet head.
Wet hair that is confined can mold and lead to mildewsmelling hair — even hair loss.
“I couldn’t get my hair to dry, so I went to dinner with a towel in my hand to catch the water dripping down my neck. It was horrible. I was so mad and embarrassed,” Porter said.
That night, she had a dream of being in a hair salon with her late grandmother, who handed her a peculiar attachment to put on a hair dryer.
Porter awoke with a vision so clear she was prompted to sketch it out on a napkin on a nearby bedside table. She drew a cylinder with long, thin prongs that had multiple holes for air to come through.
Still on the cruise, Porter went online and found the site InventionHome. com, which helps inventors turn their ideas into reality. By the end of the trip, she was focused on getting her idea patented and getting prototypes made.
“I’ve been wearing weaves off and on since college,” Porter said. “I love them because I can change my hair color without causing damage to my own hair. When you color your natural hair, it can change the natural-hair texture. I didn’t want that.”
Porter said her first prototypes flopped because they didn’t fit all types of hair dryers.
“I would actually take the prototype to Target and try it on every dryer there,” she said. “I realized I needed to make it so it was adjustable and could fit any type of dryer.”
She even learned how to create a three-dimensional AutoCad drawing of the product by watching a YouTube video.
In April, Porter, who holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Prairie View A&M University, quit her full-time job in sales to focus on her invention. It’s a risk, considering she’s invested more than $100,000 of her own money, but she believes she’ll see a return on her investment, maybe a licensing deal or even investment from a major beauty brand.
Porter says she’s inspired by the late Madam C.J. Walker, lauded as the first black female millionaire in the nation; she had a successful line of hair-care products for black women. After seeking treatment for hair loss, she developed the “Walker system” and sold her homemade products directly to black women.
“I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of Madam C.J. Walker and creating something that is needed and will keep the hair healthy,”