Cynthia Saito has had a big week. She took her oldest daughter to her kindergarten orientation, then she launched her own business with a product that she herself invented. And funny enough, the two are very intertwined.
Kindergartner Zoe, 5, was the inspiration for the Wrapadoo product– a towel for girls and women with long hair that helps to dry it, turban-style, but with an almost old-school glam look about it.
“If my cards were dealt differently, I wouldn’t have done this,” Saito said. “My daughter has long hair. She was 3, she would get out of the bath with long, drippy, sopping wet hair.”
Adult-sized towels would fall off. Even baby towels would fall off.
“Why hasn’t anyone thought of anything,” Saito would think as she tried every product she could find. The problem, besides size, was that all other hair wraps require a woman to tilt her head down, then fling her hair back again. That’s not good for your hair, Saito said, and besides, her daughter would usually end up spraying the room much like a wet dog.
“My husband finally said, ‘Why don’t you do this,’ ” Saito said. “So I went to Jo-Ann’s and took a sewing class.”
Saito, who moved to Orange County nearly 15 years ago after growing up in the San Fernando Valley, had a marketing education and had worked as a professional ice skater in America on Ice. She now lives in Corona del Mar with Zoe, her son Koa, who is 3, her husband, Scott, and a dog called Puff-Doggie. She’d never taken a fashion class, or any kind of home economics course.
“So, sewing? I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said in a recent interview. But she bought a machine, figured out a pattern and began to create her dream product.
“I wanted it to be glamorous, just a high-end, premium product that no one had done before,” she said. She gravitated toward fluffy pink fabrics and cheetah prints, attending textile shows while she filed papers to set up a legal business. She stopped women on the sidewalk if their daughters had long hair, doing market research on the fly.
“I’d ask how they dealt with long wet hair, and they all would go, ‘Oh! I can’t even talk about that!’”
She ended up with a towel that, when unfurled, is shaped like a stingray, with a stretchy terry lining. Worn, they have a retro glamor to them, complete with a faux diamond button that acts as the fastener.
And now, just about a year after she started, Wrapadoo is officially open for business. Guests can visit the company website, sign the guest book and receive special announcements and promotions; soon the hair wraps will be available for sale. Eventually Saito hopes to have Wrapadoos featured in spas and boutiques. Girl’s versions are $65, and women’s are $75. A teen line is in the works, Saito said.
Saito said she was inspired by the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. “While I may not have his quotes memorized, the expressions have long sustained me through the process of building this dream,” she said. “I view every obstacle as a simple brick. Brick walls are not there to keep us out, they’re there to show us how badly we want something. Personally, I’ve make it a point to pick up each brick along the way. Move it, move on and never let the wall rise. I’m a Tigger!”
Photo courtesy of Wrapadoo.
