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One Doylestown hair stylist is trying to change the way many salons color and straighten hair by enlightening the public and urging her peers to use organic products instead of those containing harmful ingredients like ammonia and other chemicals.

 

Edye Wells has operated her salon for 15 years and she knows the hazards of working with ammonia based hair dye on a regular basis. According to the National Cancer Institute, hairdressers and barbers tend to have higher rates of contracting bladder cancer, leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma from their recurring exposure to hair dye. Wells herself has complained of respiratory issues.

 

Four years ago, when she expanded and moved her salon two doors down to 323 South Main Street in Doylestown, Hair Artistry by Edye, continued using all organic hair coloring systems on its clients. The decision to expand was a tentative one. In 2009, with the economy in the gutter and businesses closing while consumers lost their incomes, Edye wells decided to change her approach, and just go for it.

 

Her business is thriving, and Wells believes the switch helped her weather the storm. “I think the reason I’m surviving is because I care about my clients and want them to be healthy as well as beautiful. People are becoming more conscious of their environment and they don’t want to put poison on their heads anymore,” she said.

 

The choice to use organic products made by the certified vegan Organic Salon Systems wasn’t just a business move; it was a moral choice as well. Wells said Doylestown Borough recycles its water and her concern is that the chemicals in hair dye contain several toxic ingredients. She also offers organic perms and the KeraGreen Keratin Straightening System.

 

Wells feels all salons should make the switch. The soy-based products Wells and her three employees use are derived from plants and minerals. If a client wants to know what’s in her hair color, Wells can tell her the exact ingredients. “We feel good about our environmentally safe products. They’re not toxic to the water systems, the air or the clients themselves,” she said.

 

For clients who are wary of using an organic formula because they fear the color won’t last as long, Wells assures them it remains in the hair longer than the ammonia-based colors. In addition, it can be used over other products and leaves hair in better condition because, she says, the ammonia breaks down the cortex layer of the hair shaft because it opens the cuticle to allow color to penetrate. The soy-based organic formula does not break the cortex and seeps in, with help from heat, naturally. “People are concerned it won’t work as well,” Wells explained, “but it works better. It actually is a SUPERIOR product in every way.”

 

Wells, who has 25 years’ experience in hair coloring and has taught advanced coloring and cutting classes at Bucks County School of Beauty Culture, Ambler Beauty Academy, and Gordon Phillips Beauty School, can create multi-dimensional color, highlights, lowlights and can reproduce just about any color. “I can take any hair color - any color - and I can duplicate it. Or I can create any color because I’ve been doing this for so long,” she said.

 

She explains the organic color is heat activated because of its soy ingredient and takes 10 minutes longer to soak in to the hair than the chemical formulas. “For your health and your environment, don’t you have 10 more minutes? You do have 10 more minutes,” the veteran colorist said.

 

When Wells isn’t saving the environment and urging personal health, she maintains her 200-year-old home on the Delaware River where she is a conscious recycler and uses cloth towels versus paper ones. She has even switched over to glass containers instead of using plastic.

 

She also nurtures her sculpting talent. The Art major/English minor started her schooling at Michigan State University before finishing at Temple University when her former husband’s company transferred him to Bucks County. She spends her free time working on sculptures - particularly anthropomorphic forms.

 

“My love is sculpting,” said Wells, who wrote the advanced sculpture class at Montgomery County Community College an audited other art classes at the Blue Bell college. Wells studies the anatomies of birds and humans and combines them to create one form. “What you want to call them is up to you,” she stated. “Some people call them angels but I call them anthropomorphic forms because they’re part bird, part person.”

 

The Michigan native believes her artistic sense contributes to her accomplishments in the salon. “I think that’s one of the creative processes I use in my hair cutting she said. “My hair designs are sculptures. Anyone can do a regular hair cut but I’m an actual hair sculptor. To me, hair cuts are not just hair cuts. To me, they are an art form.”

 

Hair Artistry by Edye

323 South Main Street

Doylestown, PA 18901

215-230-9844

www.HairArtistrybyEdye.com