When I started working in alternative hair, I did what most wig specialists do. I brought in pieces, finished them, put them on a shelf, and waited for the right client to find the right wig. It looked good on paper. In practice, it didn't work, because no two women losing their hair are losing the same thing, or looking for the same answer.

What I kept seeing was a gap that nobody was closing. Women across Canada who couldn't find anyone qualified to work on their wigs after they bought them. Women who ordered online and received something beautiful that they couldn't wear because it needed colour work, and they had no one to turn to. Women who drove hours to sit in a chair with someone who didn't understand what they were actually going through.

I decided I needed to understand it better myself. So I shaved my head. Not because I was losing my hair, but because I wanted to live the steps my clients live — to know what it feels like to put a wig on for the first time, take it off in the middle of an outing because the sensory experience is harder than anyone tells you, and build back up slowly toward wearing it with confidence. What that process taught me about what my clients go through is something I couldn't have learned any other way.

That understanding, and that gap, is what became JE Salon Wigs.