Hair loss from an illness can be as devastating as the disease for many so one woman made it her personal mission to provide locks to those who have lost them.

Vanessa McWilliams was diagnosed with Alopecia, an auto-immune disorder that causes various degrees of hair loss, when she was just nine years old.

McWilliams grew up with very little hair on her head and was teased throughout her school years and vowed to be a symbol of hope and strength for others as an adult.

She created her own company in 2011, Confident Curls, to help wig wearing women and provide them with a personal wig shopping service in the comfort of their own homes.

“I live it every day, it’s my life.  I just knew I could do better and I knew, I was nine when I lost my hair, so I knew being, at that time 18 years into my hair loss, that if I was still feeling that there had to be something better, 18 years in, I couldn’t imagine being a new person with hair loss and having to deal with it so I just knew that there had to be a better way,” said McWilliams.

McWilliams and her team take their knowledge and products to the client and also teach them how to wear and care for their new hair in their safe place.

“I use to have to go into salons and see everyone getting their hair done and then be called to a different area of the salon with mounds and mounds of boxes of wigs to try on and I dealt with it because it was the only thing I had but when I left one day I just thought, you know what, it has to be different, why can’t someone do this in their own home?”

She says they have clients with Alopecia as well as cancer, diabetes and thyroid issues.

“There’s a really vast, broad, spectrum. I started because I have Alopecia, so I started thinking there’s a lot of Alopecians in Calgary that don’t have anybody to turn to and it’s kind of a hidden disease, no one likes to talk about it, and then I thought, I had a couple of ladies with cancer contact me and I thought well I can help them as well because hair loss is hair loss,” said McWilliams. “But then I’ve got ladies that have diabetes and thyroid disorders and medications that cause your hair to fall out so I just keep an open mind and anybody who needs help, call me.”

She says she is proud to be bald but the wigs help to reduce the stares and assumptions from the public and build confidence in clients.

Confident Curls also formed a support group that meets on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month to get people with Alopecia together to share their experiences.

For more information on Confident Curls, click HERE.