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As Suzanne Matsuda sat in a chair at Salon 808 and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, her chestnut hair looked so natural that one would not have guessed it wasn’t her own, but a wig. Read more

As Suzanne Matsuda sat in a chair at Salon 808 and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, her chestnut hair looked so natural that one would not have guessed it wasn’t her own, but a wig.

“Now go home and look through a magazine and select a look for you,” said her stylist Henry Ramirez, the salon owner. At Matsuda’s next appointment, he said, he would finish styling her wig.

Then, without further ado, and in full view of the crowded salon, he lifted off the wig, revealing her bald head. Matsuda, who had lost her hair to alopecia, an autoimmune disorder, didn’t bat an eye. Nor did anyone else. She put on a chic knit cap and headed out with a smile and a wave.

For almost 20 years, Ramirez, whom everyone calls Uncle Henry, has been providing free wig styling and low-cost wigs to women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, as well as those, like Matsuda, with other medical conditions. While he initially offered a private room for wig fittings, Ramirez said he learned it was healthier for patients to feel free of embarrassment and the urge to hide.

Nowadays the entire process, including head shaving, happens at a regular salon station. “We do it out in the open,” said Ramirez, who is tall, with a walrus mustache, a shock of thick white hair and a kindly expression in his cornflower blue eyes. “I tell my clients, ‘You’re on this journey, not by choice, but you deserve to face it with dignity.’”

His favorite feedback includes a note from a cancer patient thanking him for being treated “just as if I was there for a normal hairdo.”

This year Ramirez and his stylists at Salon 808 were nominated by a recent cancer patient, Carole Ota, for a Honolulu Star-Advertiser Heroes Next Door Award “for their generous, kind support for people undergoing chemotherapy,” she wrote.

A math teacher at La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls, Ota learned she had breast cancer about a year ago. Her oncologist recommended that, when she began to lose her hair, she should consult with Salon 808. As it happened, she had been having her hair done there, by stylist Ryan Sales, for 15 years.

“I told Carol, ‘When you lose your hair, we’ll have your wig ready for you,’” Sales said in an interview, explaining that Ramirez trains his staff in wig skills. Given the high demand, with patients constantly referred through doctors and word of mouth, “We all kinda help him out.”

“At a difficult point in my treatments, Ryan lovingly got me through the process of shaving off what little hair I had left, and fitting and styling a wig for me,” Ota wrote, adding that he wouldn’t accept payment or a tip.

To keep things as affordable as possible, Ramirez buys wigs for $25-$30 wholesale and charges clients only what he pays, giving them a receipt to present to the American Cancer Society, which provides reimbursement of up to $30.

It’s the personalized styling that his clients value. “Some say (the wig) is the best medication they have taken: makes you look good, feel good, even if you don’t wear it,” Ramirez said.

Ota agreed. “Whether we wear it or not, it gives us the choice,” she said.

Ramirez reminisced fondly about several clients, including a shoe store owner who wouldn’t let cancer keep her from her work or slow her down. For a moment his eyes welled with tears. “(Some) are with me for a while and then they die.”

He banishes tears while working with clients, though. “If you stay neutral it gives them strength, I believe.” Instead he jokes and cajoles and tells them, “If you’re going to cry, it needs to be tears of joy after this.”

He tells them about the time he had to shave the head of a 13-year-old with cancer. Although her mother and her aunt cried, “She was strong enough not to shed a tear.”

Every year, Ramirez added, salon clients give monetary donations for the wig program, helping to keep it alive. And while he loses some to cancer, others survive and stay on as regular clients.

“I should be retired,” Ramirez said with a laugh. “I’m doing three wigs a day. And I can’t stop.” Looking around his shop at the lively, caring interactions taking place, one can see why not.

The Star-Advertiser recently asked readers to help shine a light on the good works of a few true unsung heroes. Readers responded with nominees from divergent walks of island life who share a common desire to help others. Star-Advertiser editors chose five Heroes Next Door who will be highlighted in stories through Dec. 27.