Style With Grace Chee Chee’S Offers Comforting Solutions To Those Who Have Lost Their Hair

Even though Chee Chee Phillips cut and styled hair at her own salon, she says she didn’t think much about hair loss until her son developed alopecia, losing much of his hair in high school.

To make matters worse, it was at a time in the late ‘80s when skinheads were gaining national attention as racists. And Phillips says her son was receiving a lot of negative attention.

But what began as a mother’s quest to help her son has now become an important part of Phillips’ business. Her beauty salon, Chee Chee’s at 314 W. Francis, is one of just a handful of local beauty shops that specialize in helping people deal with hair loss.

“I believe in it,” she says. “It’s a service very few people can do.”

And though wig sales make up just a small portion of her profits, Phillips spends a disproportionate amount of time with her hair-loss clients. Each year, about 500 people come in looking for wigs or hair pieces.

Down the stairs from the main salon, where Chee Chee’s crew of six stylists cut, color and perm hair, and across the hall from the salon’s skin care and permanent makeup room, Phillips has a private station where she helps clients select wigs, and where she cuts and styles them.

The salon offers an array of wigs, priced from $150 for a synthetic wig to $400 and up for hand-tied, human hair wigs. Wigs are not made at the shop.

Phillips consults with the clients and explains available choices. Today’s wigs, she says, are much more realistic than those worn just 10 years ago. Browsing through brochures at Chee Chee’s, it’s difficult to tell whether some models are wearing wigs or have their own hair.

That’s good news for Phillips’ clients. In a society that values appearance so much, losing hair because of alopecia, which is often induced by stress, or while undergoing chemotherapy, can be devastating.

Phillips says she promises all those who come to see her that she’ll take care of making them look good on the outside so they can focus on healing.

“The visual part is important (to the healing process),” says Phillips. For cancer patients, when the hair starts to fall out, that’s what they see. And if you can correct that, they’ll feel so much better on the inside.”

One of Phillips’ clients, Cari Bickley, says Phillips’ work played a big part in improving her self-confidence. Bickley began losing her hair in high school, then developed alopecia universalis (total loss of hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes) after the birth of her third child.

Bickley says buying a wig for the first time was an awful experience. Already uneasy about the process, she says she received no help from the salespeople at the first store she visited.

The salespeople pointed to a roomful of wigs and told her to look around. Once she selected a wig, Bickley says, no one showed her how to adjust the wig to fit her head or how to care for it at home. Consequently, she ruined the synthetic wig by exposing it to excessive heat.

When her aunt offered to buy her a human-hair wig, Bickley says she went to Chee Chee’s, where the experience was much better.

“When I went in she was just phenomenal,” Bickley says of Phillips. “She was very aware of my feelings. She said, `Yes, you’ve lost your hair. But you’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you a wig and you’re going to be fine.’ ”

And the support continued. When Bickley won the Mrs. Washington International competition in 1997, Phillips traveled to Texas - at her own expense - to style Bickley’s wigs.

Now, Bickley wears her wigs only for special occasions and speaking engagements at local schools, where she tells students it’s the inside that counts. To prove the point, she takes off her wig.

Still, there was a time when dealing with her hair loss was much more difficult, and Bickley says she is thankful for Phillips’ assistance.

“She is confident, and when she helps you, that confidence trickles over.”