Glamorous Butterfly Featured on Cloud Nine

This blog is extracted from the article 'Living with Alopecia' posted on Cloud Nine on February 8 2017.

Alopecia is the general medical term for hair loss and it affects more people in the UK than you might think! How do you as a woman cope with the fact that you’ve lost all of your glorious hair?

Alopecia is a hair loss condition and it has various forms. From small patches to the whole hair, alopecia can turn lives around in many ways. As you know, the hair is a woman’s crown but when are told that you are losing that crown, how do you cope? Vanessa Cowan suffers from Alopecia and we had a little chat with her. Read on to find out how Vanessa coped with this diseased and how she started her own business after being diagnosed with Alopecia Universalis.

Can you discuss your journey with Alopecia with us?

In 2014, I began to notice that my hair was shedding unusually fast whilst washing. Trying to put it to the back of my mind, I came to my next wash and it was worse! Huge handfuls of my long, thick, shiny hair were coming out of my scalp. This of course, was devastating. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me, me a former hairdresser’s model. Over the next few weeks my mood, confidence and outlook was at an all time low. I travelled hundreds of miles weekly to private specialists and trichologists to seek help and treatments. Nothing worked. Within 3 months I had lost all my beautiful hair. Then, one month later, my eyebrows, lashes and body hair. Nothing could have prepared me for how I was going to feel and look. I had lost my femininity, confidence, identity and looks. I sunk to an all time low. But somehow, thinking of my beautiful Mum whom I lost to breast cancer when I was only 21, I found the strength to carry on - putting all my energies into finding the perfect wig. Through all my research I realised that there wasn’t any help or support for me and my quest to find new hair. This is when I decided to create Glamorous Butterfly.

What effects has this had on your confidence as woman?

I had no confidence at all in the early stages of my Alopecia Universalis diagnosis. But slowly it started to come back. Finding that I could adjust my makeup and adopt new skills of applying eyelashes and drawing in my eyebrows. Finding wigs that looked and felt totally natural was a challenge. It was a real trial and error thing and to be honest a costly one! I made many mistakes and with no one to help and guide me it was very challenging. Once I found my way in the world of alternative hair I was hooked and honestly, I never looked better!

Can you explain why you started your business?

I touched on the fact that there was no help or support for me when I was first diagnosed with Alopecia especially locally to me. I decided very early on that I wanted to change this and took the scary but exciting plunge into creating my own business, Glamorous Butterfly. I started by going on many business courses, sitting my Maths GCSE again (and passing, yay!), creating a really solid business plan, finding a great location for a salon and liasing with my local NHS trust to try and obtain an official supplier status. I then went onto train with Trevor Sorbie and his Mynewhair team, Aderans and Trendco  and Jon Renau in America. I also managed to secure NHS approved supplier within NCUH and Salford trusts. It's my goal to secure approved supplier within all NHS trusts throughout the UK. Glamorous Butterfly is also an approved Little Princess Trust salon and backed by Macmillan cancer trust. 

My main aim and passion is to help, support and instil confidence in anyone going through any form of medical hair loss. By creating custom made, cut, coloured and styled alternative hair I feel I can offer my clients a way forward, light at the end of the tunnel and of course glamour.

When did you discover Cloud Nine?

I first discovered Cloud Nine three years before I lost my hair. My go to heat styling tool was the Wide Iron straighteners which I still use today on my human hair wigs!!!

How does the Cloud Nine products differ from others and why is this beneficial to you?

I really have tried and tested all the leading heat styling tools on the market before and after I lost my hair. Cloud Nine heat styling tools are not only gentle on the hair but the style holds and lasts until the next wash! The temperature settings are a must and another feature I love. As a human hair wig specialist I demand the best for my own and my clients wigs and hair toppers and Cloud nine meets my expectations every single time!!

If you would like more information about Glamorous Butterfly, please visit the website www.glamorousbutterfly.co.uk or get in touch with Vanessa directly:

Mobile 07889224019

Email: vanessa@glamorousbutterfly.co.uk

Facebook page: Glamorous Butterfly 

Instagram page: glamorousbutterfly76

You can read the original blog post on Cloud Nine here.

Cumbria Hair Salon Opens Free Wig Bank for Hair Loss Sufferers

This blog is extracted from the article 'Cumbria Hair Salon Opens Free Wig Bank for Hair Loss Sufferers' on Cumbria Crack.

A Cumbria-based salon that recently joined a pioneering charity’s expanding network of Salons that Care has opened a wig bank.

Glamorous Butterfly, which is based in Whitehaven, Cumbria, will be supplying free wigs to people suffering from hair loss who are unable to fund their own.

The salon owner Vanessa Cowan, 41, trained to be a hairdresser following her alopecia diagnosis at the age of 38. She then attended the mynewhair charity training seminars, which taught her the many ways of supporting anyone who has experienced medical hair loss through wig customisation.

Founded and inspired by professional stylist Trevor Sorbie MBE, mynewhair provides advice and support to anyone who has experienced medical hair loss, and has a national support network of independent salons and trained hair professionals who provide a wig-customisation service for their clients.

Vanessa said: “The mynewhair course taught me so much, and is invaluable to me. Meeting Trevor Sorbie and Lead Trainer Darren Stuart was so inspiring. I’ve now been working with the charity for a year.”

The new wig bank available through Glamorous Butterfly was created as Vanessa felt very privileged to be a wig specialist and wanted to give back as much as she could as a sole trader.

She said: “I wanted to create something positive in loving memory of my beautiful mum Brenda and two aunts whom I lost to cancer when I was quite young, and this is the only way I knew how.”

Whilst the wig bank is open to children and women worldwide who cannot afford to fund their own wigs and hair pieces, it is primarily aimed to those within the UK. There is a small means tested application process but after that the wigs are totally free.

Though the bank heavily relies upon donations, they already have a mixture of brand new and nearly new reconditioned wigs that have been provided by Vanessa and through donations.

Glamorous Butterfly also offers a free cutting and styling service for wigs from the wig bank. The salon is also now featured on the approved list of wig suppliers for North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Trevor Sorbie MBE, founder of mynewhair, said: “We greatly value the work that all of our hair professionals do for people who suffer from medical hair loss – and we wouldn’t be able to do it without them!”

To find out more about Glamorous Butterfly’s wig bank please www.glamorousbutterfly.co.uk

To find out more about mynewhair visit www.mynewhair.org or via Twitter @mynewhairorg, or follow the charity on Facebook and LinkedIn.

You can also donate to the wig bank by emailing Vanessa Cowan on vanessa@glamorousbutterfly.co.uk.

To read the original article, click here.