Meet Elyse Kolender

We were lucky to catch up with Elyse Kolender recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Elyse, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

I have a soft spot for helping people. Seeing the struggles that so many deal with on a daily basis is heartbreaking to me. Lice is the least of the populations problems even though it seems to be a tremendous fear and causes so much distress to families.
Growing up with a mom as a teacher and licensed cosmotologist, and a father as a family practitioner, showed me the time, love, and dedication each parent committed to the people they were caring for. They did this each and every day with consideration and concern no matter what time of day it was. Through my eyes, it wasn’t about a job or the money they were making, it was about helping each and every person they took care of with unconditional love. I strongly believe in, you get what you give. When you do things with kindness and generosity, it comes back to you in ten-fold.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Our story first started when my six-year-old nephew, who, struggling to speak his words, said, “Mom, my head is ithy!”
He vigorously was scratching his head and I remember my sister-n-law called me to say, “Sammy’s head is itchy,” and me replying, “he probably has lice!” She was convinced it was dandruff and then went on a family trip with us where my daughter, Zoe and Sammy laid head to head watching movies on a DVD player. It wasn’t until after our vacation together that Sam plucked a bug right off his head and said, “thee mom, there’s bugths in my hair,” that my sister-n-law realized it was in fact, lice. Zoe contracted lice from Sam and soon after treating our kids together along with many of my sister’s neighbors from those pesky parasites, word got out and the flood of phone calls were coming in asking for our help, The Lice Sisters journey began. We recognized there was an overwhelming need in the community to be rescued from this problem.

After almost 2 decades of treating families and working very hard to come up with a “solution” to shorten the duration of treatment time, Lice Sisters now has a patented non-toxic spray treatment that works fast and is easier to use in your home. These days, most fail when trying to treat with older over the counter products. Lice are adaptable creatures and build up resistance over time and you need new ways to eradicate them. With our at-home, easy to use system, we make treating lice effective and fast. I’d love to get the product out there to help families nationwide. Lice has evolved and our treatment has that solved.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Determination, persistence and care.
I like helping people so I was determined to make this difficult process of treating lice easier by creating a treatment that works on todays stronger strains of pediculosis and by shortening the duration.

Persistence comes when you make mistakes, you learn from them and improve upon them.

Lice creates fear, panic and stress for most parents. They need hand holding through this process and when you give them lots of care and the knowledge for your expertise, they feel well taken care of and at ease.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

Business wise, this is a great question and a challenge I certainly face. Years ago if you had a product you were trying to sell, you could walk into a local store or market and ask the buyer to please try it out. This is what we called, “pounding the pavement.”

Most buyers would try a case, and if the product was selling, they’d call you up and order more. That’s how we established a working relationship. I’ve tried that system today. It doesn’t work anymore. Now, it’s much more challenging. There’s no interpersonal relationships. You can’t find anyone in-store to even talk to. It’s become extremely costly to market your product. You have to pay for shelving space or social media marketing. Expensive advertising and Amazon fees, are just the beginning of difficulties to succeed as a small woman owned business.

Moving forward, I hope to train women on how to treat lice properly and fill them with the knowledge and expertise I have gained by studying and treating head lice for almost 20 years.

I will continue to try my hardest to help get my expert level lice treatment in the hands of families nationally.
Personally, in 10 years, I hope to be treating my grandchildren for lice followed up with lots of hugs, playing and baking brownies.

Contact Info:

• Website: info@licesisters.com
• Instagram: licesisters
• Facebook: Lice Sisters
• Linkedin: Lice Sisters
• Twitter: @LiceSisters
• Youtube: Lice Sisters