In honor of Women’s History Month in March coming to an end, the West Town Chamber of Commerce highlighted various women-owned businesses on their social media page.
The recognition has helped small businesses gain followers on their social media and has further solidified the professional relationship between the business owners and the West Town Chamber of Commerce.
“I feel that when women amplify each other on social media, it really is authentic,” said Maria Tkacz, owner of Harbor Thermaculture. “They mean it from the heart, and I know those women in real life.”
With a background in the medical field, Tkacz found a way to combine her passions for traveling and healing the mind and body by utilizing European wellness methods. Harbor Thermaculture opened three months ago, featuring a sauna that fits up to 16 people.
“No one has conversations in the sauna in the States,” Tkacz said. “I really wanted to change that.”
In West Town, some women business owners have begun to challenge the status quo of women-serving businesses.
“Even in the beauty industry, it’s very male-dominated,” said Christina Crusthwaite, owner of Salon Hex, located at 1821 W. Hubbard St., Ste. 201. “Male hairdressers have been known to make more money and become more famous from doing hair.”
Crusthwaite has worked in the beauty industry for more than two decades. She previously worked at Tsubo Salon, a 15-year-old salon that once occupied the space now home to Salon Hex. The pandemic caused her to lose her job and forced the business to close.
This then led to her buying the salon herself and transforming it into a welcoming and all-inclusive space for visitors in 2020.
“It’s important, especially in the current political climate, to show that we’re a safe space for queer people, for women of color and for women in general,” she said.
Women business owners in West Town have also experienced obstacles getting their businesses up and running, finding innovative ways around them.
For Tkacz, it was getting approval from the city for an official location to park her mobile sauna. “I was waiting for a permit from the Chicago Park District [because] I didn’t have one yet,” she said. “They didn’t get back to me with a no until a couple of weeks ago, so now I can’t be at the Chicago Park District any longer.”
Tkacz overcomes this obstacle by doing pop-up events in different areas of Chicago, which helps expand her clientele.
Zhe Sun, owner of the one-and-a-half-year-old business, OrPerlé, which sells handcrafted nature-inspired jewelry, found challenges not only within the professional aspect of her business, but also within her personal life.
Sun got her degrees in data sciences and economics and her parents urged her to pursue a financially stable corporate career, but Sun found those fields mundane.
“It’s like you’re doing a task and not really enjoying it, like you’re brushing your teeth or you’re cooking your food, but since I learned jewelry making from my grandfather [as] a young kid, I really like it,” she said.
As a legacy of her late grandfather, who was a well-known jewelry artisan in China, Sun advised others to take business risks.
“Many people are afraid that if they fail, people will look down at [them]. They’re afraid of failing so they don’t want to start,” she said.
Tkacz similarly found herself working at a corporate job prior to her business and found that she felt less freedom than she does now as a full-time business owner.
“I was in health care, but it was really traditional and I never loved working in that situation,” she said. “It never felt like my authentic self was coming forward. You always wore masks and I feel like you have to, but as a woman specifically, I feel like you wear a double mask because you’re trying to fit in with men [because it’s a] male dominated world.”
Alongside the gratitude that the new business owners have for the help that the West Town Chamber of Commerce has provided, they also would love to see new programs to help not just them, but other up-and-coming women-owned businesses.
“ I [wish] the government or some local business association would have some workshops for women or for minorities and teach them how to build a business,” Sun said.
Despite the hardships these business women have faced, they believe that community is the key to successful women-owned businesses.
“What’s going to keep small businesses like this alive is the public coming here and spending their money here,” Crusthwaite said.
Tkacz believes that as a business owner in a for-profit world, women should seize every advantage they can.
“Play the game as a woman and maybe it’s a smaller profit you’re making, but you’re getting so much out of it, follow your passion and it can really make a difference,” she said. “You get to design your own set of rules, you know, within the whole ecosystem of whatever is going on.”
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