Name: Charles McDonald
Background: McDonald, a former Alabaman, attended Madam C.J. Walker’s School of Beauty Culture and Ulean’s Barber College in Chicago. He became a hairdresser and master barber in 1958 and trained with Chicago Hair Goods in 1963 to make wigs and toupees. In 1967 he and his wife Anzel, a hairdresser, combined names and opened Chasann Coiffures on the South Side. Nine years ago, the shop was relocated to 28 E. Jackson Blvd. and renamed Chasann’s Hair Replacement Salon. The McDonalds, who have been married 37 years and have two married daughters and four grandchildren, live on the South Side.
Years as a wigmaker: 30 years
When 6-year-old Delenna Williams took a bullet running from gang crossfire last March, she lost the wig that covered scars left by another tragedy: the apartment fire that killed her mother five years ago had burned away her hair.
I heard about the missing wig when someone on the pediatric ward of Cook County Hospital called on me to replace it. Except for taking preliminary measurements at a hospital and making adjustments for a child’s dimensions, I proceeded as I usually do.
First, I ask clients what they expect a wig to do and how they want it styled. Delenna wanted to look like any other little girl with bangs, a pony tail and what I call Shirley Temple curls.
Next, I take measurements for a cast or woodblock, which I carve to the size of my client’s head. Delenna’s measurements were so small I shaped the woodblock at the studio instead of on the spot. Afterwards, I used its dimensions to make a wig foundation out of fine netting.
One mark of a good wig is a perfect fit, and Delenna had to try on the foundation until I had made it neither too tight nor too loose and as flexible as a natural scalp. Only then is any client asked to choose the texture and color of a hair replacement.
Of all the available hair-European, Asiatic, French refined (curly) and African-American-authentic European is the most expensive and hardest to get. It was once primarily collected in rural areas where women grew hair especially for wigs. Today, China has a method of duplicating the texture of European hair that makes its version cheaper and easier to get.
Whatever its origin, the natural hair is cut, tied in bundles and sent to a factory to be sterilized and grouped according to color and texture-curly, wavy and straight-before being distributed worldwide.
When a client requires Afro-American hair, as Delenna did, I use a heat process on European hair to create its qualities. I burned the midnight oil years ago to find a way to turn it kinkier or curlier after being told it would be easier to alter my clients’ hair than find wigs with a suitable texture.
Delenna’s wig, like any other, was ready a week after she and her aunt Rose Doyle came to the studio and chose its color and texture. All the work is done by hand, and it takes me 40 hours to pull each strand through the fine netting in the direction that a client’s hair normally grows, then knot them to withstand constant grooming and style the mass of hair to flatter the wearer.
I was satisfied with Delenna’s wig’s construction. I saw smooth and small stitches when I turned it inside out, and the foundation felt strong enough to retain its shape after cleaning, all marks of a good wig. But my satisfaction-as it usually does-came from Delenna’s reaction. After seeing herself in the mirror, her face lit up, and she threw her arms around my neck.
Most of my clients purchase a wig to cover the entire head or a toupee to cover a small area for less dramatic, but not less personal, reasons. They want to enhance thinning hair, cover baldness or get through the hair-loss phase of chemotherapy or disease.
Men usually send a wife, sweetheart or daughter to initiate the purchase. They’re either too timid to ask for information or afraid of being perceived as vain. Then, regardless of race, ethnic group or age, they come in and say, “I’ve lost my hair, and my wife (or sweetheart or daughter) wonders if anything can be done.”
In one instance, a wife truly started the process in the belief that a hair replacement would stop her husband from moping around the house. I wove a piece into the man’s, a retired Pullman porter, own hair to make it semi-permanent, and now his wife wishes he was still semi-bald. One toupee later he got a new wardrobe and a new car and is never home.
No matter why a woman has lost her hair-fever, skin disease, nervous condition, genetics-she wants the wig to enhance her looks. And why not? According to Scripture, her hair is her crowning glory, so I do what I can to keep her as beautiful as the spirit that shows from within.
Hair consultations-even with working women who see a wig as a convenience-become therapy as well as interviews. No matter how they arrive, they leave with a lilt in their voice and walk and without the gear that hides imperfect hair. Half a dozen caps and turbans hang around the salon at one time.
On the lighter side, I supply actors in a period piece with mustaches, sideburns, beards and eyebrows, making sure they correspond to the hair color of the wearer and to the era of the play or film.
Hair face pieces are used more often in movies than plays because characters have to look the same in closeups day after day. Less expensive and, therefore, less durable wool face pieces are fine for the stage. Characters are seen from a distance and don’t require the most expensive props.
I don’t question non-actors who ask for chest pieces or beards or mustaches. Usually, a show biz personality identifies himself. No woman has yet asked for facial hair. They pick it up for their husbands. I don’t know if they intend to use it themselves.
But I’ve filled stranger requests. The strangest sprang from the script of an adult movie that called for pubic hair shaped in hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs. I didn’t think about it. I just made it.
My specialty, however, is hair weaving, a process of weaving matching hair directly into the pattern or shape of someone’s existing hair. The fad of thickening or lengthening hair this way has been around since my wife’s cousin, Christina Jenkins of Cleveland, invented the process in 1951.
When people call to sell me hair, I have to say no to those brought up in the United States. The American diet lacks the minerals and stability of the Eskimo or Oriental cultures, for example, to produce hair healthy enough for quality pieces.
To me, wigmaking is more about getting a satisfied human response than making money. The joy of seeing faces light up the way Delenna’s did is beyond anything I ever expected from the way I earn my daily bread.
