Buffalo woman helps others feel beautiful and confident: ‘For women like me, hair means a lot’


Millions of human beings within the U.S. Be afflicted by Alopecia, or hair loss, and in many cases, it’s a lifelong condition and might bring with it a stigma.

But a Buffalo woman made it her aim to assist human beings with Alopecia stay with self assurance. Brittany La Bella owns a hair salon on Hertel Avenue, in North Buffalo. She does all types of ladies’s hair patterns, and lately have become a master barber to help male customers, however approximately half of of her clients be afflicted by hair loss.

“For women like me, hair means lots,” Donnette Calhoun said, considered one of Brittany’s clients.

About eleven years in the past, Donnette Calhoun turned into recognized with breast cancer.

“I lost my hair due to chemotherapy, and it in no way grew back, so it put me into Alopecia,” she stated.

Before Calhoun determined Brittany La Bella and Co., she could wear scarves and wigs to cover her hair loss. But today, she has a hairstyle that was created for her persona, and he or she is more confident than ever.

“A lot of people need my hair style, however I’m special, and it’s made in particular for my head,” she said.

Brittany made it her existence’s undertaking to make each person who walks in her salon sense that special.

She knows all too properly what it’s like now not to sense confident. At age six, Brittany became diagnosed with Alopecia Areata, which is an autoimmune disease that creates spherical, bald patches.

When she changed into little, she walked right into a salon one day sporting a scarf over her hair loss. What took place that day led Brittany to find her cause in lifestyles.

“She (the hairstylist) didn’t recognise she became doing this, however she took the headband and he or she threw it on the other side of the salon, so it become faraway from me, so if someone walked in, I couldn’t take hold of it and cowl myself up,” La Bella said. “So I stated, ‘One day, I’m going to very own my personal salon, And when I own that salon, I’m going to position character privacy curtains up.”

She went to beauty college seven years in the past, and indeed opened that unique salon of her very own.

“I’m usually getting compliments, so she maintains me looking good,” Denise Hurst said, Brittany La Bella’s first client.

And 4 years ago, Brittany significantly modified her own look, and took clippers to her head.

“I used the whole thing to cowl up my bald spots… I used eye liners, mascara, sharpies… however in the future I turned into like, ‘I’m bored with hiding, that is who I am, and whoever sees it, I want to a mild for folks that felt like me at one point.’”

Brittany La Bella stands for Brittany ‘The Beautiful.’ She’s right here embracing her own splendor, and assisting others locate theirs as well.