A Belleville woman has had grand success with her unique business in recent times – thanks to the power of social media.
Tina Nguyen, a former Quinte Secondary School and Nicholson Catholic College student, has gone viral globally for XXL Scrunchie & Co., a hair elastic-making business for women and girls with long hair.
Since the business began in 2020, Nguyen has amassed more than 452,000 followers, and generated 12.5M likes on TikTok as of Thursday. She also has built a following on YouTube with longer-form tutorial videos and product vlogs.
“I only wanted to post on there, because I wanted to share a studio tour of my parents basement. At the time on TikTok, you could only post for one minute,” Nguyen explained in an interview.
“It was three months after posting that first video, it blew up and got I think half a million views.”
A video of a local woman trying her hand at making one of Nguyen’s scrunchies then increased her profile even more by adding about two more million views.
Nguyen said she was always tapping into her creative side by made scrunchies from herself to match her outfits – sewing them by hand after teaching herself in high school.
During the 2019 Christmas season, she made a scrunchie for her cousin who had extremely long hair, with one key difference it was an XXL oversized one.
“She opened the gift, and she was so obsessed with it,” Nguyen reflected.
From there, Nguyen said her cousin encouraged her to sell them so she could sell them at her salon to her clients – and XXL Scrunchie was born.
The brand has since blossomed from there, moving from Nguyen’s apartment in Toronto, then back home to her parents’ house, then on to a 2,700 sq. ft. facility on 250 Sidney St. in Belleville (the former Nortel Building).
Eventually, the business expanded to a larger warehouse in August.
That facility holds around 4,000 sq. ft., enabling Nguyen to increase production space and hire on more staff.
What Nguyen said she is most proud of, is that her business is family oriented.
“My parents are a big help. They’ve helped me since the beginning. I don’t think I would have gotten through it physically and mentally without them being by my side,” she explained.
Nguyen’s mother assists with cutting fabric, while her dad trims the threads left over at the end and staples tags on the scrunchies before they can be shipped.
Her team of 15 also includes a family friend as a seamstress, a remote photographer, a remote customer service worker and warehouse workers including packagers, a fabric cutter and more.
Nguyen explained she uses several different types of accessories and materials to create her scrunchies and send them to loved ones, people in the community and across Canada, and even around the world.
The scrunchies are made with universal measurements, allowing them to be adjustable.
“It stretches to about seven inches, so you can wrap the scrunchie itself around your hair two to three times and it stays pretty tight,” Nguyen outlined.
Currently, there are 100 scrunchies to choose from. As of a couple weeks ago, Nguyen said she was thrilled to see that the business has achieved 26,000 orders through its website.
She has since also joined business panels to talk about her Tik Tok small business journey.
“I knew if I worked consistently at it, it would work eventually but my mind was (thinking) maybe in five years, we’ll hit six or seven figures, but it all happened within that first year. It just blew up so fast. I didn’t think it would be that fast.”
XXL Scrunchies are currently in stock at five locations; Salon You in the Quinte Mall, Kita Beauty Lounge in Belleville, Picton’s Luna Beauty Boutique, her cousin’s hair salon Vitality Beauty in Thunder Bay and Raw Beauty Bar in Etobicoke, within Toronto.
Anyone who wishes to purchase an XXL Scrunchie as a Christmas gift for a loved one or for themselves can visit the business’ website.
