Born with an acute sense of flair and style, Dar­cel Brad­shaw op­er­at­ed out of her bed­room for about five years be­fore es­tab­lish­ing Dar­cel’s House of Hair in 2017. A beau­ty sa­lon lo­cat­ed in the San Juan area, Dar­cel’s House of Hair has grown to be­come one of the top-notch sa­lons in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Dar­cel’s clien­tele in­cludes lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al A-list celebri­ties.

Mo­ti­vat­ed by her love and pas­sion for the beau­ty and fash­ion in­dus­tries, her un­yield­ing com­mit­ment to her team mem­bers and (most im­por­tant­ly) her loy­al clients, Dar­cel con­tin­ues to thrive. She be­lieves strong­ly in giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty so she re­cent­ly be­gan an ini­tia­tive where she pro­vides wigs and in­stal­la­tion ser­vices to ju­ve­nile can­cer pa­tients. This, she says, great­ly as­sists in build­ing their self-es­teem. We got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find out about Dar­cel’s amaz­ing work in the lo­cal beau­ty in­dus­try. Here’s what she shared with us:

Tell us about your de­ci­sion to help ju­ve­nile can­cer pa­tients by pro­vid­ing them with wigs.

This ini­tia­tive was based on my per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences with my grand­moth­er who bat­tled with can­cer for some time be­fore pass­ing away. With hair loss as a side ef­fect of the treat­ments, she wasn’t af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be fit­ted with a lace wig which I knew would have put a smile on her face while she bat­tled the dis­ease. I am hap­py I am now able to do this fto help oth­ers in ho­n­our of my late grand­moth­er. I am now blessed with the tal­ent and abil­i­ty to cre­ate and in­stall these units, and af­ter pro­vid­ing the ser­vice to can­cer af­flict­ed clients, see­ing the joy the in­stal­la­tion brought to them, it was heart­felt. I have part­nered with @evil­la_ex, (In­sta­gram han­dle), a hair and wig sup­pli­er and dis­trib­u­tor who pro­vides the wigs and I do the in­stal­la­tion at no cost to chil­dren with can­cer, alope­cia or any ill­ness that caus­es hair loss.

Tell us what you love most about the beau­ty in­dus­try?

I main­ly love the fact that our lo­cal beau­ty in­dus­try pro­vides a lot of op­por­tu­ni­ties for our tal­ent­ed en­tre­pre­neurs. As a beau­ty in­no­va­tor, I have been able to cre­ate tips and tech­niques which leaves my clients very im­pressed. I have cho­sen this ca­reer path in the beau­ty in­dus­try be­cause I love (do­ing) hair and make­up - they are the things that I am pas­sion­ate about. I al­ways want­ed to have a ca­reer that I love but one from which I could al­so make a good liv­ing.

What is one thing your clients can re­al­ly count on you for?

My clients re­ly on me to al­ways pro­vide them with pre­mi­um lev­el ser­vice in a com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment. At my stu­dio, I have been able to cre­ate a re­lax­ing am­bi­ence to en­sure clients’ com­fort and sat­is­fac­tion.

Tell us about three best achieve­ments of your life or pro­fes­sion.

My three best achieve­ments in­clude be­com­ing a busi­ness own­er and cre­at­ing my own brand, set­ting up my sa­lon where I en­joy work­ing with my celebri­ty clients and be­ing able to start and de­vel­op my ‘Kids with Wigs’ ini­tia­tive.

What tips can you of­fer re­gard­ing the main­te­nance/wear­ing of wigs?

i. Wigs are not meant to last for­ev­er. An

in­stal­la­tion usu­al­ly lasts up to a month or less de­pend­ing on the wear­er’s lifestyle.

ii. When wear­ing a lace wig, al­ways use a silk scarf to tie your hair­line, as this helps to pro­tect the hair­line and al­low for a very nat­ur­al ap­pear­ance.

iii. Avoid get­ting make­up on your lace front, since get­ting it out is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult and at­tempts at clean­ing the lace can mess up the hair.

iv. Al­ways take ex­treme care of your wigs as some units can be ex­pen­sive. When you re­move your wig, it should be cleaned im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause if left too long af­ter re­moval with­out clean­ing, the clean­ing process will be­come dif­fi­cult and may even cause ma­jor dam­age to the unit.

In­sta­gram: @darcelshouse­ofhair