Gorge local-in business: Lucky Locks weaves ‘subtle magic’

Collins clients aren’t limited to people either — even her 16-year-old dog Potato has metallic rainbow extensions in his tail.

Located at 1015 12th St. on the Hood River Heights, the Sparkle Bar is the first brick-and-mortar of Lucky Locks, and doubles as its headquarters. The idea for the business came during a belly dancing show, where a woman dressed as a fairy was installing “fairy hair” on a group of eight-year-olds.

“I was like, ‘I’m gonna get in line and get fairy hair too,’ so I did,” Collins said. Friends then asked if she could sparkle more hair, and soon Lucky Locks began in 2016 as a mobile pop-up in Portland. Collins was also working as a graphic designer and photographer, and used those skills to design and market the brand. 

Wanting to make sure the sparkle strands had a more mature look, Collins didn’t think the typical store-bought plastic extensions cut it. Working with a manufacturer, she developed silk strands coated with a metallic finish for shine before printing them in different colors.

“The silk doesn’t necessarily curl; it’s just so light, they get bossed around by your hair,” she explained. “Whereas hair tinsel is more dense and rigid and heavier on the individual hair, and so people typically have to attach them to multiple hairs.”

Collins also developed a tying technique where the extensions are only attached to one strand. When the strand naturally sheds, so does the extension. She added that it’s possible to brush the roots, heat-treat, and dye hair while wearing them.

“You put them in and forget about them until you get a compliment,” Collins said.

Two years after starting Lucky Locks, Collins opened the Sparkle Bar in Hood River, the same year she moved to the Gorge. It’s also around this time that hair sparkling became her full-time job.

Since then, she’s worked with large brands — like Nordstrom and Google — and created partnerships all over the world through a licensing business structure.

“I started getting people asking me if I could teach them, and being self-employed has been the most empowering and fun journey of my life,” she said. “So if you want to learn how to sparkle, I’m also going to teach you how to run a business.”

Her first partner was her younger sister, who lives back in their home state of Colorado.

“She’s a medical professional who did not want to have sparkles in her hair because she didn’t think it was professional,” Collins said. “And then I put a few in, and she was like, ‘okay, I actually kind of like these,’ and her patients liked them too.”

What began with her sister quickly grew into a licensing network of more than 100 partners, a responsibility Collins doesn’t take lightly, especially when it comes to supplying partners with the silk extensions.

“I’d like to be able to make sure that I can keep this going for as long as people want it,” she said.

The demand for sparkled hair hasn’t fizzled out, especially around the Gorge. Seeing people around with the extensions doesn’t go unnoticed by Collins.

“I love it,” she said. “If one person has sparkles in their hair and another person has sparkles in their hair and they don’t know each other, it’s a point of conversation-making. It just reminds me of the nature of this business and how much it weaves the community together.”