Welcome

Warm greetings! My name is Karen Peterik and I would like to personally welcome you to my New Life Hair web site. Inasmuch as I designed this site back in 2000 to provide information that will promote my business, selling custom-made vacuum hairpieces, I realized early on that my business IS very personal. You can’t go through hair loss and then coolly search the Internet for the best hair replacement as though you were shopping for a new bird feeder. All rational thought goes out the window when you begin to realize that you may never see yourself in your own hair again. Your mind races ahead to the tangle of relationships and activities that will necessarily be affected. You find yourself helplessly moving through the stages of loss from disbelief to “Why me?”, anger and self pity. Then, when you’re good and sick of all of those feelings, the real work begins. Acceptance of an unpredictable, incurable skin disease is the first big step in taking control away from an enemy that feeds on fear and shame. Those negative emotions can ravage a person’s self-esteem until there is nothing left. Yes, it’s “only hair” and we are lucky that our general health is not affected, but when you look different, you FEEL different and this is very damaging emotionally.

It is my fervent desire to provide a model of hope to those afflicted with alopecia areata and if they desire, help them acquire the best hair replacement solution that I have found – the Freedom Wigs Vacuum Prosthesis, made in New Zealand.

Without realizing it, over the past 7 years that I have been working in this field, the experiences and people that I have met helped me to form a philosophy about living with alopecia. At the present moment, here it is, although I hope to keep growing in this area.

I feel that there should be two approaches for meeting this challenge: a long term and a short term plan. The long term plan torch is being carried by the most brilliant clinical research dermatologists performing well thought-out studies funded by various government health organizations, pharmaceutical companies and by our wonderful national support group, the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (see links page). Their dedicated work may bring an eventual cure to this autoimmune skin disease. For this reason I fully support all of the funding efforts made by our tireless alopecia advocates and the multitude of wonderful families who are affected by this disease. They give us all immense hope!

The short term plan involves finding a solution for getting on with one’s life with as minimal impact as possible. My feeling is that continuing on an extensive path of medical treatments puts you in a perpetual state of false hope. You neither have decent hair nor a good replacement; You’re betwixt and between; You don’t want to commit to wearing a good, expensive wig because it would signal defeat, but you’re absolutely miserable with your life as it is. Where does one turn for help?

Well, in all modesty, that’s where I come in. Again, my personal feeling is that when you reach a certain point, and only YOU will know when that is, the best possible thing you can do for yourself is to find a very high quality wig – but not just any wig – an extension of yourself. In fact, the word wig just conjures up a lot of negative images in my mind – you know, ill-fitting, uncomfortable, insecure and fake. When I got into this business, I started using the word “hairpiece” in place of wig. It just sounds nicer, doesn’t it? A year’s worth of dermatology visits and drugs (short-term remission, at best) will go a long way in buying a custom-made, unprocessed human-hair vacuum hairpiece – the best investment in yourself you can make.

Since having alopecia areata is something we cannot control, it seems logical to embrace the areas of your life that you CAN control. Areas such as following a healthy lifestyle including diet, exercise and stress management, seeking out a satisfying career, building healthy relationships and finding a balance between work and play. The best antidote to being in a funky mood is to reach out to someone in need. It can be as small as a phone call, but I guarantee it will make you feel better. As it turned out for me, learning how to help others with hair loss gave me a profound sense of purpose in this world.

“Be the change you want to see in the world!” Stop feeling sorry for yourself and others will stop feeling sorry for you; accept a disease you have no power over and your friends will accept it with you; love yourself unconditionally and others will unconditionally love you back.