After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, Dianne Austin had trouble finding a wig that resembled her naturally textured, curly, coily hair. Frustrated with the lack of access to naturally textured wigs at cancer-center boutiques and medical hair-loss salons after starting her chemotherapy treatment, Austin and her sister, Pamela Shaddock, decided to start their own wig company.
Launched in 2019, Coils to Locs supplies hospital cancer centers and medical hair-loss salons with naturally textured wigs, because “every woman, regardless of hair texture, deserves a wig that resembles the hair that she lost.”
Recently, Coils to Locs was named as one of three semi-finalists in the 2021 Essence + Pine-Sol Build Your Legacy competition, which aims to support black-women owned companies through a $100,000 grant and mentorship resources. Voting closes July 15.
When asked about why Coils to Locs entered the competition, Pamela Shaddock, president and co-founder of Coils to Locs, answered with a laugh: “money.”
She continued, saying that they're actively looking for more financial resources to continue to scale the business. "The Essence + Pine Sol legacy contest was formed because, although Black women are the fastest-growing segment, in terms of starting businesses, according to statistics, we're still the most underfunded and under-resourced.”
Austin, CEO and co-founder, said there is a lack of understanding of the Black haircare market and distributors aren’t aware of the shift from Black and Brown women straightening their hair to wearing their hair in its natural state.
“Major distributors that focus on cancer-center boutiques are just not aware, they haven’t been keeping up with the times, there may be some unconscious bias there. It's not recognizing that everyone doesn’t wear their hair straight and not everyone prefers to wear straight-haired wigs,” said Austin.
“We can't even emphasize the number of emails that we're getting from people just saying you know, ‘I want to order direct from you’ or ‘you're not in my area’ or ‘I have hair loss because of lupus, but I want your wigs, will you sell it to me?’ So we're in this unique situation where people are just waiting for us to launch,” said Austin.
