Nit-busters just scratching the surface

by Tamlyn Stewart tamlyn.stewart@dailypost.co.nz | 14th January 2010

 Five months ago Rotorua women Jackie Mutu and Reitu Warren were full-time mothers looking after their children and doing daily school runs.

Now they are successful businesswomen in demand all over New Zealand.

The owners of Crazy Critters Headlice Removal hair salon said they were not prepared for their overnight success.

"As soon as the story dropped in The Daily Post, we were all over television," Mrs Mutu said.

"It really caught us off guard."

When their first clients sat down in the salon chairs, Crazy Critters' hot water system was not yet up and running and the women had to use kettles to heat the water, but there were no objections from the clients.

Since that first day on July 17, Crazy Critters has treated 450 clients and demand is nowhere near slowing down. The women frequently work on weekends, as out-of-town clients book special appointments and travel from as far away as Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga and Hamilton.

"We have only scratched the surface," Mrs Mutu said.

"I get phone calls from frustrated parents all over New Zealand. Our phone was off the hook - people were asking when [we were] coming to Christchurch."

The number of calls from out of town has prompted Crazy Critters to expand by going mobile with a travelling head lice-busting salon, first in Rotorua and then rolling out across the Bay of Plenty.

"It's also for the low-income earners in rural areas who don't have transport," Miss Warren said.

The salon at 37 Jervis St would remain home-based - and now includes a new side business, beauty salon Gawjuss Nails, offering manicures and pedicures for mums while they are waiting for their children to be treated in the salon.

The salon also hosts "little diva" parties for girls once they have had their hair treated.

Mrs Mutu said the new business offered young girls much-needed pampering to lift their spirits.

"A lot of the kids have quite low self-esteem because they have had lice and they have been teased at school," Mrs Mutu said.

Miss Warren said some of the clients they treated were "extreme" cases, some even heartbreaking as desperate parents try anything to get rid of the lice on their children's heads.

Now, just five months after opening their salon, the women have realised their small business is actually big business and say their vision is to have a Crazy Critters in every town in New Zealand by the end of this year.