“Same Girl…Different Hair, The Irby Experience”: Toni Irby & Upgrade Hair Salon

Written by Tabitha Ervin

Toni Irby is the owner/master stylist of Upgrade Hair Salon and has been in business for over 20 years.  From fierce short and sassy cuts to beautifully elegant sew-ins, if it involves the elevation of your locks and your soul, Toni does it -- and does it oh so well.  Yet, her work behind the chair only describes one aspect of who she is.  Toni is a mentor, singer, activist, innovator, and international speaker.  As a deliberate and habitual philanthropist, Toni champions everything from the fight against homelessness in the Fort Wayne community to working tirelessly to eradicate cancer and its devastating effects.  Indeed, in 2006, Toni began making custom wigs to comfort her sister, who was suffering from cancer; Rhonda Kinchen eventually lost her battle to the disease in 2009.

Refusing to be broken, Toni used her grief to fuel her gift and passion by establishing Custom Glory Wigs, through which she creates amazing custom wig units for women (and men) suffering from hair loss or what she coins as “hair boredom” all across the country.  In sum, Toni Irby is a game changer and inspiration to all who meet her. Her mantra is “Be your own kind of beYOUtiful!” Educationally, Toni is an alumna of Indiana University, Bloomington, holding a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and is a board certified Cosmetologist by the State of Indiana.

Early in her life, Irby didn’t realize the trend-setter she was, as she headed to college; she cut off all her hair, not the popular thing to do at the time, but now she realizes, she was just walking in her creative nature that she hadn’t yet known she possessed.  She never worried about what others thought and she definitely stood out at that time because everyone was wearing their hair straightened or pressed out.

In her twenties, Irby finally embraced that fact that she was indeed a “creative” and that she would pursue the gifts that God had blessed her with.  As she began her journey as a stylist, she would continue to do work in the community through programs, specifically a program at the YWCA that her sister, Rhonda, used to work with.  She would “style people’s confidence from the outside in.”  People would turn around in her chair and look in the mirror and say, “I haven’t looked or felt like this in years.”  Irby knew that God had blessed her with hands to bless others.

As she continued to move through her journey, she began to make wigs and over the years she has taken a multitude of courses to hone in on her craft.  As a certified hair replacement specialist, she uses her gifts to encourage others as she says, “by empowering and inspiring the woman in you!”

In addition to being a stylist and a salon owner, Irby has been blessing families for Christmas for over eight years and she recently ventured out into making apparel with ideas and quotes that she says God has been giving her for years.  She recently launched the shirts one night on Facebook and has been doing well with her first design, “My Hair is GOD’S Graffiti.”  The “My Hair is God’s Graffiti” collection is about FREEDOM! The freedom to be YOU! Unapologetically YOU! We are God’s art work.

Toni lives life with gratitude and wants all whom she encounters through her salon, apparel or any future endeavors to feel powerful and show up as themselves authentically.

Toni Irby | Upgrade Hair Salon

3219 E. State Blvd.

Phone: 260.760.6686

Website: ToniIrby.com

Email: CustomGloryWigs@gmail.com