At CHRISTALine Studios, every hair is on mission to support women facing the fight of their lives. The social enterprise, founded by Christal Schanes, an Emmy award-winning TV and film hair stylist (Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Spiderman 3), offers ready-to-wear and custom hair products. CHRISTALine Studios devotes 20% of the proceeds from the sale of every product to support the Studios’ WIGwell initiative, which provides free custom wigs to women experiencing medically-related hair loss.
On Tuesday, Dec. 11, Schanes launched the organization’s first-ever “Wacky Wig Challenge,” an online giving campaign, with the goal of funding 100+ free medical wigs. Schanes aims to bring hope and smiles to individuals battling cancer through the Wacky Wig Challenge. Participants are encouraged to snap a selfie wearing a “wacky wig” (a wig, scarf, hat, mop…), post the photo and donation to the campaign’s giving board, share it using #wackywig, and challenge 5+ friends to join the cause.
As a wig and make-up associate professor at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Schanes teaches a wig-making class in which 12 students learn the art of custom wig building while serving women experiencing hair loss, often from cancer treatment.
“It doesn’t seem right to charge clients who are enduring so much physically, emotionally and financially,” said Schanes. “Symbolically these wigs help provide a sense of normalcy in a tumultuous time. I created CHRISTALine Studios and WIGwell to make it possible to provide these wigs at no cost to patients.”
WIGwell (formerly called MEDwig) custom medical wigs are built on sculpted blocks shaped with precision to the curvature of clients’ heads to ensure unsurpassed comfort. Each wig is hand-tied from 100,000 human hairs, takes 125 hours to create, and has a market value of $5,000.
To help the cause, make a purchase, a hair donation, or an online tax-deductible monetary donation to the WIGwell Fund, which is administered by The Winston-Salem Foundation.