Karen Sharp, owner of Charly's Hair Design. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

A tiny beauty salon in Ottawa is making its mark in the big business of helping people keep their hair.

Charly's Hair Design Studio is the biggest seller in Canada and among the top 22 across North America of the Nioxin line of products to slow hair loss.

Karen Sharp, the proprietor of the 324-square-foot salon on Richmond Road, says she is proud of this aspect of the business she opened in April 2001.

Nioxin is presented as "skincare for the scalp," which "keeps healthy looking hair longer." Variations are available for all types of hair, with a particular emphasis on ending hair loss.

The central message of hope that Ms. Sharp brings to the one in four people – men and women – who are losing their hair is that the condition is not necessarily permanent.

"I can help with a wide spectrum of hair loss," she says. "There is so much new information and help available."

Such help may be as simple as teaching people how to massage their scalps so that they do not damage new hair growth or directing them to the most appropriate shampoo for their hair type and condition. Sometimes, the removal of damaging toxins may be more complex or the hair loss may be a symptom of a serious medical problem. But, in many cases, Ms. Sharp can help clients regain healthy locks.

"I never promise anyone that they will grow their hair back," she cautions. "Worst-case scenario – people will keep the hair they have. But you can grow hair back as long as the follicle is alive. There are so many little things you can do that help. One of the first is to shampoo with luke-warm rather than hot water, for instance."

Although many of her customers do not have a hair-loss problem, she says that she finds this aspect of her work particularly rewarding. It has been one of the major factors in the steady growth of her customer base and her staff over the five years since she opened Charly's.

Her special interest in the treatment of thinning hair began in 1995 when she had a personal encounter with the issue.

"I've suffered hair loss and know how hurtful it can be," says Ms. Sharp, who now sports an abundance of shining auburn hair.

This was one of the reasons that she decided to open a small salon in Ottawa after she immigrated to Canada to join her husband, rather than duplicate the much larger salon she had owned in her native Texas. She sold the operation she had run there for more than two decades and invested $20,000 of the proceeds to set up a one-person shop in Ottawa.

She reasoned that an intimate setting would make clients feel more at ease in discussing hair problems and provide the opportunity for confidential consultations.

"It also gave me more time to work with clients," she says. "They want someone who will give them individual attention and has time to listen to them. I'm here to help. I can explain how to use products and how to get the most out of them for the least amount of money. Salon products used properly don't cost any more than products in retail stores. I can also teach them how to do their hair. I know how to cut and style thin hair to make it look fuller."

A cosmetologist, as well as a barber and hair stylist, Ms. Sharp says that she thinks of herself as a "professional prescribing treatment and working with clients, not leaving them on their own trying to solve their problems with hair loss."

"I was trained to address any health problems and then to finish the hair so that until we can get it healthy, it looks healthy. I see my job as attaining maximum health for the hair and educating clients fully about hair growth, the causes of hair loss and safe solutions according to each client's specific needs. The products I use are also effective in skin care."

In discussing possible causes of hair loss, she says that one of the major culprits is a minute parasite, Demodex folliculorum, whose secretions clog hair follicles and choke hair growth.

"It's easily addressed by using the right shampoo," she says. "But you do have to remove the debris that prevents new hair from growing."

She also has suggestions for those about to have chemotherapy ("When you apply some vitamin-based nutrients topically a month before, you won't lose your hair") and for men, who assume that their thinning hair is unavoidable.

"What we've always called male pattern baldness is a predisposition to produce excess testosterone that mixes with the enzymes on the scalp and turns into a toxin that stops the hair getting past its young stage," says Ms. Sharp. "When you grow hair by cleansing the scalp of toxins, you keep that hair."

Charly's Hair Design Studio was in the black almost immediately and Ms. Sharp recouped her original investment by the end of the salon's first year of operation. The next year, she added one other full-time stylist and two other part-time employees. By the third year of operation, the salon had achieved the top rating for the inventory size and sales level of Nioxin hair products in Canada. And, most important of all, says Ms. Sharp, is that many of her clients have been able to improve the health of their hair significantly.

Charly's Hair Design Studio

Location: 851 Richmond Road.

Telephone: 798-2228 and 862-4831

By Iris Winston

Special to the Ottawa Business Journal