They’re a cut above the rest
Some people dream of rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. She’s rubbed their heads.
When Regina-born Nicole Dumelie moved to sunny Los Angeles, Calif., in the early 1990s she apprenticed at Louis Licari’s salon in Beverly Hills and found herself doing the hair of movie stars like Oscarhopeful Matthew McConaughey and Meg Ryan.
But eventually family ties called. Dumelie returned to Regina with her American husband seven years ago so they could raise a family among Dumelie’s large extended one. With the move came a change in clientele and a new direction.
Now the woman whose customers used to include Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, Farrah Fawcett, Jodie Foster, Russell Crowe, Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube includes Reginans who are facing life-threatening illness.
Dumelie, owner of Salon 306, started fitting cancer patients with custom-made human hair wigs after accompanying a client on a wig buying trip. The only wigs they could find were synthetic and expensive.
“I know from working in Los Angeles, when I worked in film, that you can get human hair wigs for half of the price that they were selling the synthetic wigs for, so I phoned the lady I used to work with in film that did the wigs,” Dumelie said. “She was more than happy to help me.”
Now a cancer patient can consult with Dumelie before she loses her hair or bring in a picture of her normal hair style, or one she’d like to try and the Regina stylist can create a wig that matches the woman’s hair density and colour.
The human hair wigs give women new-found freedom. Not only can they swim with them, the wigs can be curled, coloured, and cut. Special lattice used in the wigs allows the hair to be pulled back into a ponytail or different styles.
Deb Matthews was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and has since had a recurrence of Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.
After Matthews shaved her head, she wore a synthetic wig that constantly moved and rubbed on her head. The comfort of her human hair wig is a big relief.
“When I’m on chemo, my skin is very sensitive,” Matthews said. “The netting inside (the synthetic wig) is hard, so your head sweats and it was very itchy.”
Some women find it a pain to style their hair, but that is one of the things cancer stole from Matthews.
“You lose so much control with cancer and chemo ... I’ve lost my eyebrows, I’ve lost my eyelashes ... what’s nice about the real hair wig is that you can cut it and colour it, you can style it,” she said.
Her loss of hair was hard on her now 11-year-old son
“IF THEY CAN LOOK GOOD, THEY’LL FEEL GOOD AND IF I CAN HELP SOMEONE FEEL GOOD DURING THAT SITUATION, IT’S SOMETHING I CAN GIVE BACK.” NICOLE DUMELIE
who was very young during her first bout with breast cancer.
“It was harder on him — just the idea of, ‘Will Mom be the same person because she doesn’t look the same?’ ” Matthews said. “My hair was incredibly thin and I was lucky that it didn’t all fall out in clumps at first. I purposely didn’t cut it because of him. But by the time he saw me with bald spots and then when I shaved it, he was OK with it.”
Tracy Gardikiotis, a physical therapist who specializes in breast cancer rehabilitation, works closely with women as they undergo treatment and deal with the side effects.
“Different things are going to work for different people so the more options you have, that just makes the process a little bit easier for them,” Gardikiotis said.
“Since Deb got the wig, she just glows. You can tell she feels more like herself.”
Matthews wishes she’d known about Dumelie’s wig service sooner.
“What she could have done is given me the exact same haircut and same hair as I’d had before — that’s the beauty of Nicole,” Matthews said.
Dumelie takes many measurements of a woman’s head to ensure the wig is an exact fit. She sends the measurements to her L.A. contact who makes the wigs.
“The wigs can come in four inches to 32 inches of length,” she said. “After they pick the length they want, we have a variety of colours of human hair that they can pick.”
So far, four female cancer patients have received custom-built wigs from Dumelie, but she’s also willing to fit men.
Dumelie sells the wigs at cost to clients.
“Not everyone has insurance and it’s not fair that they can’t look good or have a great quality wig while they’re going through such a horrible time in their lives,” she said.
“If they can look good, they’ll feel good and if I can help someone feel good during that situation, it’s something I can give back.”