July 28, 2025 • 60 mins
After a difficult upbringing and first salon position, @tina_doeshair decided to open her own salon where she focused on creating a safe space for everyone when they step inside. She shares the trauma that has shaped her, as well as the importance of mental health and boundaries in the salon.
This Week's Topics:
• Tina's Background and Initial Interest in Hair
• Navigating the Challenges of the Hair Industry
• Overcoming Adversity and Building a Clientele
• The Impact of Mental Health in the Salon Environment
• Starting Her Own Salon and Business Growth
• Personal Experiences with Mental Health
• Creating a Safe Space in the Salon
• Navigating Difficult Conversations with Clients
• Industry Reflections and Changes Needed
• Hair Horror Stories and Lessons Learned
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi Tina, how are you?
Good, so I was just told by Tina that if you've known her for more than 20 or so years,you can call her Chrissy.
Otherwise it's Tina because, let me see if I got this right, some guy at Starbucks whenyou were working there called you Tina and that was it.
For the rest of your life, you're Tina.
(00:23):
There you go.
What was it like working at Starbucks?
How long did you work there?
Oh, I worked there.
Oh my gosh, it's actually, I'll keep it quick.
It's actually kind of a funny story.
I was out of school.
I was a sophomore in high school and I had this like crazy fluke heart problem and Iwasn't allowed to go back to school because it was like too much stress on my heart.
(00:43):
So I got a job at Starbucks because for some reason that's less stressful than school andlike getting a-
right?
Yeah, I don't know why my mom let me do that.
ah So I got a job there when I was 16 and they don't usually hire you that young becauseyou know you're in school.
Also I had to get like a permit and all the things.
I worked there until I was like 19 em and I quit when I went to hair school.
(01:10):
Yeah.
a pretty good amount of time.
Three years at Starbucks.
So you could whip out those frappuccinos.
my God, those were the worst ones to make.
Oh, they just like, require so many steps and everyone wants like all the caramel likelined in the cup and extra caramel.
And I'm just just like, it's like the most, I love doing like lattes and cappuccinos andstuff like that.
(01:35):
Yeah.
So isn't there I'm a little bit of a coffee snob I have to admit at the risk of Myaudience thinking differently of me thinking poorly of me ah I'm a little bit of a coffee
snob.
So it's Starbucks.
Is it the like the latte?
it a button pushing exercise?
That the workers have to do there
(01:56):
Their espresso machine is a button pusher, so you would hate that.
I think it's called like their Virtuo or something.
forget what it's called.
It's been so long.
But yeah, the espresso is a button.
You do have to like calibrate it, but it's a button.
And then, you you have the frother, you know, whatever, but like you can't make latte art.
(02:18):
Like it's not, it's not that good.
Yeah.
not like a real espresso drink, you know, where they, it's not very good.
I'll just go ahead and say that.
Again, at the risk of my audience thinking less of me, because I'm sure we have lots ofStarbucks drinkers listening, the reality is that there's better coffee out there.
(02:38):
so many so yeah there's a lot there's a lot better coffee.
Yeah.
Okay.
But we digress right out of the gate.
We digress.
All right.
For those who don't know you, Tina, you're an award winning color specialist from OrangeCounty, California, who also has a foundation of mental health knowledge that you bring to
your clients, which I think is cool.
We're going to talk about that.
(02:59):
You're sponsored by K-18 and Oligo Pro as well.
And
moon foils.
Moon foils.
That's interesting.
breaking but they're great foils.
I'm inter- what are moon foils?
Moon foils are, well it's a new foil brand, they're sold on Ubali Pro and they have thethickness kind of in between like from Mar foils and the Reynolds foils that the old
(03:32):
school stylists use.
It's kind of like in between the two.
So they have a really good thickness that doesn't just rip through it and then they have alot of sizes but they don't have any prints on them which I really like because when you
are sponsoring
sponsored by different companies.
don't like you to have uh sponsored products in your content.
em Also when you're working on like more high end clients, they don't want like, you know,dog foils on their head.
(03:57):
They want more like professional kind of stuff.
And I like both.
I think the print is really fun, but there is like the client that's paying, you know,like $800 for me to highlight their hair.
And I'm like, okay, let's be a little more professional.
Yeah.
All right, well, that's how free advertising works, everybody.
Moon foils, there you go.
Free advertising.
(04:19):
So also, before we move on, you also do uh permanent makeup, right?
I mean, em you had an interesting term for it.
Talk about that.
It's interesting because most of our hair guests, they don't do things like permanentmakeup, but you do.
Talk about that for a second.
Yeah, I've been doing hair for so long.
I started my hair business when I was 14, and I'm sure we'll get into that.
(04:42):
But at...
Maybe like 10 years in, I was just bored.
Honestly, I was just really bored and uh I had started blowing up for color melting and soI was doing the same color melting all day, just color melting the way I like it.
So this was when microblading came to America and got really popular.
So I got my eyebrows microbladed and I was like, I could do that.
(05:03):
That doesn't look that difficult, you know?
So I went to school for it.
uh I like tattoos.
I like eyebrows, you know?
I like shaping them.
So I went to school for it.
I started doing
microblading in like my tiny little studio that was like way too small for that.
uh And I did that for a few years and then I took a few years off after getting in a caraccident.
(05:25):
uh And then when I came back, microblading was kind of out.
And so now it's called nano brow tattoo, which is probably what you're referring to.
And it's done differently.
Microblading is with a manual blade.
It's like little paper cuts in the skin, but it doesn't heal well and you're not supposedto do it on oily skin.
But nobody listens to that right because like more than 50 % of the population has likeoily eyebrows So they just want their eyebrows tattooed so the nano brow
(05:55):
it works well on all skin types.
Microblading will just blur out into this like gray blob and that's why everyone is liketraumatized by permanent makeup.
But Nano Browse is done with a machine so it heals very crisp, the color is true to tone,uh it's harder, it was like a longer learning curve for sure.
But it's more fun and now that I work with a machine I just tattoo myself.
(06:18):
it's like this like new trait.
Yeah.
uh
did it.
Yeah, that's why I actually just wanted to stop paying for tattoos.
yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, very cool.
Well, uh let's hear from you.
are you from originally and why did you get into this business?
(06:39):
Okay, yeah, I'm from Orange County, California.
uh I've never left.
I grew up in Southern California or Southern Orange County, California.
uh Middle school was San Clemente, high school was Mission Viejo High School.
uh
areas, such great areas.
Yeah.
I mean, the beach and the weather is so good for anybody who doesn't know it.
(07:02):
It's just so ideal.
It's like so beautiful.
Yeah, there's definitely, yeah, a lot of privilege growing up there that I did not evenrealize at the time.
em And so when I was in high school living in Mission Viejo, I started doing, I had alwaysbeen the friend hair cutter, like use the razor to shave my legs, to cut the scene bangs.
(07:23):
We all had the emo hair or whatever.
So I was always the designated hair friend.
um
So when I was 14, my family was kind of poor at the time and I wanted money, right?
But I wasn't old enough to work.
So I started a hair extension business because you're not, you don't need to be licensedto do hair extensions.
fact or braids.
(07:43):
Um, so I started doing hair extensions and I was kind of good at them, surprisingly at 14.
My mom was also doing them for like grocery money and stuff.
So she kind of taught me how to do them and I am very detail oriented.
So it took me like four hours to put in like one
set of hair extensions, but my clients were not children.
They were my friend's moms.
(08:05):
yeah, and I maybe had like eight clients talks and I would do it in like my living room,but I had like business cards and this was like pre we had, we had my space, but this was
like pre Instagram and all that kind of
you're not, you weren't around in MySpace days.
Are you serious?
(08:25):
I don't know, you're half my age.
What are you talking about?
Really?
All right.
I think you're fooling me, but you did mention MySpace.
So that is kind of street cred.
I was the scene queen on MySpace.
I to think I was.
(08:46):
I like to think I was.
I probably was a lot lamer than I remember, though, to be honest.
You can't log in.
I've tried.
Yeah, you can't log in.
I think it's still...
I was crushing Myspace back in the day.
Yeah.
I had all like the background, my background was dialed in, my top, Yeah, yeah, I had itall like formatted right.
(09:11):
My top, was it top six or top nine friends?
Top.
these days, like picking your top eight, like the drama that would start.
my God, so scandalous.
no, you get in a fight with your friend and you like move them to like number six insteadof number two.
(09:32):
Yeah.
know.
Some listeners are like, we have no idea what you're talking about.
I guess if you're below the age of like 20 and you probably don't know what my space is.
Probably or even I don't know even 30 something I to do the math on that but okay, soSorry, you threw me for a loop with the myspace comment.
(09:54):
Okay Yeah So I actually like talking about it because it's so interesting it was preFacebook right and then Facebook came out with Ya
they were happening like in conjunction because I had both.
Yeah, well, I mean they overlapped certainly but it but my space was first and
(10:15):
am too young to like know the beginning of MySpace.
I'm too young for that.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
there was, I'm old enough to know the only MySpace days.
And actually I've had conversations where people are like, oh, well, you weren't, you'renot old enough to know Vine or whatever.
Then the like name one that might've come before MySpace.
(10:38):
And that's beyond my knowledge.
But anyway, then Facebook comes out and it's all like boring page with the blue writing.
And I was like, what is this?
This is garbage.
And of course, that's how wrong I was.
You can't put your favorite song on it.
oh
You can't these are a lot of things you can't do on it.
But anyway, obviously there was a winner in that battle Okay, so you're doing a lot ofscene stuff and doing a lot of uh you're doing your parents friends hair You're you're
(11:10):
doing your friends parents
doing her friends.
I was doing my friends' parents.
Got it.
So you're doing adults in your living room at 14 years old extensions.
That's wild stuff.
charged $100.
That's $25 an hour at 14.
And that was back in 2000...
What year is that?
Like 2009 or something?
That's crazy.
(11:32):
That's a lot of money.
Yeah.
right, well that was the the budding career.
All right, so then so you and you liked it and you're like, this is what I'm going to do.
No, actually, no I wasn't.
I was like, I really like this, but this is not what I'm gonna do.
uh My plan was, well I tried to get into the cosmetology program in sophomore year, likeROC program, but they uh got rid of it that year.
(11:56):
So my plan was to finish high school.
I never took like college.
SATs or whatever those tests are because I just knew I wasn't gonna do it um But I wasn'tgonna go to a university, but I finished high school I went straight into beauty school
finished beauty school almost quit but finished beauty school because beauty school ishard and and Started working at a salon and immediately enrolled in school because I had
(12:19):
convinced myself that I was gonna be a doctor I Don't I don't know what um well it changeda lot
Okay, sure.
Right, because you're young, of course.
Yeah.
from a young age, I really did find it really fascinating.
I used to like study anatomy and stuff when I was in grade school.
(12:42):
I did find it fascinating.
But when I was in school, I was like, I don't think I even really like this.
And I think at this point, I'm just trying to prove something.
So I did a full year of school.
But during that year, my first year in the salon, I had a full book of plans and I waslike doing homework in between classes.
(13:03):
and my coworkers were actually like, what the hell are you doing?
Like just quit school.
You should just do hair.
And I'm like, no, no, no, hair is not a career.
Like I was always told like hair is not a career.
Like my grandma would like make fun of me if I was a hairdresser.
So I didn't, just didn't want to quit and wanted to prove to myself.
And then I finally let my ego down and
(13:26):
I quit school and I said, I'll go back if I want to.
And then my hair career took off really, really quickly.
So I was really fortunate in that uh and realized like, what was I doing?
Like, I don't want to be a doctor.
That's so ridiculous.
Yeah, so what did you attribute, what do you attribute that kind of fast launch in thesalon to?
(13:47):
I don't know, caused a lot of problems for me, to be honest.
um I think...
Why, because you had money flowing?
because I was just busy fast and like some of the stylists had been there a long time.
Oh, like social problems amongst the...
problems.
Yeah, yeah social problem when I first got hired like there was no problems, right?
(14:10):
But yeah when I started building pretty quickly there was like a lot of tension thatstarted to grow so I started kind of like keeping myself a little bit Or at least trying
to the most you can in a salon, but my books were full like within a year I think I fullyassisted for like three months, which at the time I didn't really realize was crazy But
(14:32):
now you know so many years and I realized like that that is crazy
I just had like a natural knack for it, but I made like so many mistakes.
Like nobody like truly mentored me at all.
Like people would get like annoyed if I asked questions.
There was like times where they were like helpful, of course, like a couple of times, butlike most of the time they would like get annoyed.
(14:55):
So ah I just made like a lot of mistakes, a ton of mistakes.
I am surprised I didn't get sued, but
I learned quickly, you know, you learn from making your mistakes.
uh I try to help my assistants now and stylists now not make the mistakes I made.
uh But I think also like I'm a pretty outgoing person.
I'm one of 10 siblings.
(15:17):
I yeah, I just like.
Nine nine nine.
minus one, you have nine brothers and sisters.
Amazing.
Yeah, so I'm pretty outgoing and like I can be like quite bossy, you know, because they'reall like younger than me.
So um I just didn't really have like that hard of a time talking to clients.
(15:39):
And I just really got along with people really well.
So well, my clients mostly.
So I just built a clientele fast.
I think it was like a combination of, you're like pretty decent at hair.
Your prices are cheap because you're new.
And then also like we enjoy spending time with you kind of thing.
So
it just blew up.
honestly just enjoyed doing hair.
(16:00):
I wasn't trying to make money for it.
It was like paying my rent, which was like $300 at the time.
So that's all it really was for me.
And I really do think that that was like a huge part of it too, like not working for themoney, but more for just like the love of it.
So I'm glad it happened that way.
Honestly, I mean, it's kind of what made me realize like, I think this could be a realcareer.
(16:21):
Yeah.
pretty good.
Okay, so uh you were in this situation, you launched pretty quickly, it uh caused someanimosity in the salon, maybe some jealousy from some of the other people in the salon,
and did you end up leaving the salon?
Oh my God, that's a whole story.
(16:42):
Yeah, I actually got fired from the salon.
um
Yeah, I'll keep it quick, I suppose, because I don't really want to spend too much time onthis anyway.
But I assisted the owner of the salon, and it's a tale as old as time.
Just very, like, a lot of sexual harassment.
You know, he was my age now, and I was 20 at the time.
(17:05):
So I have an assistant that old now.
And so I think about this all the time now, just how inappropriate so many things were.
I think I like realize more and more how inappropriate things were.
So after denying him a few times and like, I mean, even as far as like pushing him off ofme when he's drunk kind of thing.
(17:28):
Yeah.
work?
That one wasn't at work, but there was like ass slapping and like suggestive comments andlike I'm a baby.
I just like didn't really like whatever.
just went along with it.
But it wasn't just me that it was happening to.
It was like all the younger stylists.
So anyway, so he didn't like me after that.
(17:48):
He didn't like me after like three months of not getting anything out of me, I guess.
So there was a lot of tension the next like I only worked there for like two and a halfyears.
There was a lot of tension after that for sure.
because there was this competition and jealousy amongst the other stylists, and then therewas tension because of the owner and not liking me, and then a lot of very childish stuff.
(18:13):
Eventually...
uh
Eventually he pushed me out and blamed it on some Yelp review from like two years prior emand blocked me from my client list, sat down everyone at the salon and told them that they
are not allowed to talk to me or help me with my client list.
So it was pretty rough.
It was pretty rough for me.
(18:34):
Working there was probably one of the most traumatic things I think I've ever beenthrough.
I still have nightmares about it.
uh
But it was honestly a good thing because when you're in those, and you know, going intothe mental health aspect of it, when you're in those like abusive environments, part of
the abuse is to try to get you to think that like, you can't do any better.
(18:56):
You can't be anywhere better.
You're the best.
Yeah, exactly.
We're the best place that you could be.
I don't know if I would have left soon.
I feel like I would have kind of stayed in the abusive environment and like kept having totake Xanax to go to work.
Like it was crazy, you know?
(19:16):
And I was like, by the time I got fired, I was only 22.
So I was still a baby.
So after that, this was two weeks before Christmas, I didn't want to go to another salonbecause I was terrified.
Honestly.
I scared.
thought about quitting hair, but I really liked hair.
So I rented out a room, just like a little studio, not even in one of those like salonsuites, just like a room in a business.
(19:42):
uh And my social media took off.
uh I found my confidence.
I was in just like a more controlled environment.
uh I controlled who came in and out of my room.
So I found my piece there.
uh
Yeah, it was really amazing.
It was amazing.
So I stayed there for three years and my, like I said, my social media blew up because Istarted doing this color melting thing that not many people were doing.
(20:11):
And I got my first sponsorship, uh started traveling, started teaching classes, all thesethings.
uh Yeah, 22.
And with no client list.
I didn't have my client list.
It was crazy.
Yeah, they were.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
they all reached out to me and were like, uh, hello.
Yeah.
(20:31):
So I have, I still have quite a few clients from like the very beginning there.
I cherish them.
that's great.
Okay, so you had all that growth on your own, which is so awesome.
Okay, so kind of bring us up to current day now.
Yeah, so 2020, um the business that I was working in, I could just tell they weren't onthe same values as me as COVID guidelines.
(21:02):
okay.
Yeah.
uh into a double suite in just one of those places or whatever the, you know what I'mtalking about.
And then we shut down again, you know, but they wanted to keep charging rent.
And I was like, I cannot afford that.
So I all my stuff into my assistance.
uh
(21:24):
know it's been a few years, but we did not charge rent when we were shut down.
happened.
Yeah, they totally are.
Well, they kept it open and yeah, they wanted to charge us all rent.
It was crazy.
Yeah, who can afford that?
My rent was like $2,300 a month.
Like, not even working.
So anyway, I put all my things in my assistant's garage.
Like, bless their hearts for staying with us through this.
(21:45):
uh And I decided, you know what?
This is the time I'm going to open a salon.
Best time, I guess.
That's funny that you're laughing like that.
I mean, it was crazy, during COVID.
But at the same time, there was a lot of smart business decisions during that time.
(22:06):
Like a lot of offices were vacant.
There wasn't anyone to rent them out.
um
like wood prices and stuff I think had gone up, but there wasn't really like lot ofconstruction work going on.
So I did capitalize on some of that and the salon, like we weren't allowed to work.
(22:26):
So I had time to build out this salon.
I took this space that was three separate offices and like tore down all the walls andjust fully built it out.
So I had the time to do that.
And right when we uh opened back up is I opened the salon and everyone that I was withpreviously stayed and then we've hired in some new
since then and so now we're a group of five looking to expand but we're in this like crazyscenario again that I don't might put it off for a little bit but but it's doing great I
(22:54):
mean it's very successful
You know, just like the tariff, raising all the prices with all the tariffs, uhconstruction prices are going to go up with tariffs.
So I don't think building out a salon right now is practical or smart.
The cost of borrowing money is very expensive.
It's going to just go up.
Also with this new bill and with the tariffs, know, the interest rates are going to go up.
(23:18):
So I don't think it's a smart time.
think COVID was like risky, but there were like some areas that I was like, OK, I think Ithink I can cop
on this but like this scenario right now I think is like too risky to be expanding intosomething large.
If I found something that was like already a salon and I just had to decorate and didn'thave to do like plumbing and electrical and like borrow $100,000 you know that would be a
(23:43):
different situation but I don't think it's smart right now fiscally to be expanding anddoing these crazy big you know business ventures.
Well, that makes sense.
mean, during COVID, there were things that were happening, but those things were going toend at a certain point, right?
And then, you know, things would be possible.
(24:05):
um Now, it seems like a lot of what's happening are just kind of, it's just inflationarykind of for the long term.
And construction prices certainly have gone nutty.
You know, there's no doubt about it, you know, to get in labor prices to get somebody topaint.
A salon, you know, is double what it was four years ago.
(24:28):
Right now everyone's oh
right.
that costs, ah So all that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so you have kind of a group of five and you've got your clients and you're doingyour thing.
And how do you split your time between satisfying your relationship with your sponsors andyour demands of the clients?
(24:55):
Well, I work three days behind the chair.
I do 12 to 15 hour days.
I put all my energy into that.
Yeah, long day.
Yeah, I kind of like, I thrive with those long days.
I just have this like...
I have ADHD.
know, I mean, I was diagnosed with as a child.
So it's probably a bit of that not being medicated.
(25:18):
So just a lot of like energy to keep going.
But like more than three days at my age now is too much.
I used to do like five, 12 hour days.
That was crazy.
And then I do a six to eight hour day of tattooing once a week.
And then I travel, I work in Ireland as well.
So
I just got back from, I went to Dublin, I went to London, I went to Scotland.
(25:44):
I know enough about you to know that you go to Dublin.
And so that's really neat.
How often do you go?
I try to go twice a year, but honestly most of the time I end up just going once a year.
We're actually going
in August so he'll be there in August.
I'll be working there in September.
uh Collabing with a barber over there, Kieron, uh I can't remember his last name, Colpoli?
(26:08):
Colopy?
Colpoli?
Anyway, he owns a really cool studio in Temple Bar so I rent out his studio when I workthere and I love it.
I love it so much.
I have like my tiny little clientele there and I'm just like, you know, slowly picking upnew people so it's really fun.
It's fun.
I mean, honestly, it's not even for the money.
It's for like, it's for growing.
my business over there as well, but it's just fun.
(26:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so what kind of hair do you do over there?
You color?
Okay.
I thought it was very interesting to see the different hairstyles, particularly with theguys.
The guys kind of have that crop.
They've got that skin fade, the kind of low, medium skin fade with a crop.
(26:57):
it's like every...
Right, right across the forehead.
And it's like every guy has the exact same hair, you know, between those kind of ages of,know, teenage-y kind of up into like 30.
Well, they all have mullets now.
Now everyone when you go everywhere you see is just a mullet.
(27:19):
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't go to the cool enough areas, but it kind of seemed like that, you know, schoolage, you know, university age kids, they all had that same kind of skin thing.
Yeah.
Like here, here is all the kids have like the mop, right?
It's just.
my god, that like, what is that like fluffy bang and oh my god.
(27:45):
Yes!
Yeah.
You're getting perm's.
Yes!
Some of my Asian friends, have kids with stick straight hair and the kids are going to thesalon to get their stick straight hair permed.
And then on top of it, they have this, you know how every hairstyle, well, some hairstyleshave some sort of like
(28:12):
physical motion that kind of goes with it, you know as as the kids trying to like get youknow, hold their style in place so like Very famously, you know the Justin Bieber He used
to go like this all the time with his neck Of course the listeners can't see me whippingmy neck, but everybody knows what I'm talking about Well nowadays these kids and like my
(28:32):
12 year old son He's just he's like aspiring to be what I'm describing right now wherethey the the the boy takes his palm
right to the front of his head and then goes like this.
Yes, essentially teasing the front of the hairstyle.
So then poofs into kind of like this moppy thing.
(28:56):
You haven't seen this yet?
yeah.
Yeah.
develop like a little brush for them.
m
like some sort of, almost like one of those handheld fans and just put like a Brillo atthe end of the fan and just stick it right on the right in your bangs.
I mean, to be honest, I think the little kids are cute with it.
(29:17):
I think it's cute.
But once they get a little bit older into like, you know, they're 20 to 25 and they haveit, I'm like, okay, I can't tell.
Are these like the F boys of the young 20s?
I can't tell.
But I feel like that's like the vibe.
Yeah.
all very entertaining, especially when you see like 10 of them, like in a group and theyall have the same hair.
(29:42):
And at any given moment, like five of the 10 will be doing that thing where they're wherethey're frizzing the front.
And then they stop because they got all frizzed.
And then the other five go and they frizz their foot and they all like put their head downwhen they do it as if to be a little incognito about it.
I'm really hoping that the listeners know what I'm talking about right now because
(30:04):
You know what it reminds me of?
When the scene kids at teenage years, the boy scene kids, they would like, know, again,you won't know if you're just on audio here, but the scene flip, that was such a thing.
Yeah, like swooping from one side to the next with your hand.
Okay, so you're splitting your time pretty well.
(30:27):
I think it's so neat that you have that kind of second thing.
You don't consider it a second thing.
Maybe I shouldn't have called it that.
But with your nano brow, just to keep it interesting.
Yeah.
if I don't have clients that wait for it, I really don't care.
It's just like another day off.
(30:47):
Like I don't even include it into my budget calculations and like, you know, predictionsfor the month.
It's just for fun.
I just really enjoy it.
Yeah, that's cool.
All right.
We'll talk about mental health.
You're you you have a basis of knowledge and experience with mental health and it and Iget the sense that you really bring that to the experience with your clients.
(31:12):
And so talk about how that started.
Yeah, um I had a pretty difficult childhood, um very difficult.
My dad has antisocial personality disorder um and it's pretty intense.
And my mom, we suspected borderline personality disorder.
So unfortunately I don't talk to either of them.
(31:36):
And yeah.
you explain for the listeners what is antisocial disorder?
Yeah, so more commonly known as like psychopath, sociopath, those kinds of words, butthose are not, I think they're not in the DSM-5 anymore, they're not like a...
like a proper word to call it anymore.
(31:56):
think now it's antisocial personality disorder.
So it's a complete lack of empathy.
uh you know, there's, from my knowledge, there's 4 % of the population that has antisocialpersonality disorder.
uh Some metrics will say it's 4 % of business owners, overall I found most of the studiessay it's 4 % of the population.
(32:18):
And so a lot, obviously 4 % of the population are not murderers and whatever.
it can manifest or not not manifest but like look like depression or You know somewhat andlike isolated or like in cells or something like that But really they just lack emotion
their brains just don't have that same Chemical that everyone else does their brains arejust working differently uh So what happens is like the majority of them?
(32:48):
probably don't even know they have antisocial personality disorder.
Maybe they think they're like on the spectrum.
They probably know that they're a little different.
But if you never had empathy to begin with, you probably wouldn't really know like whatyou're missing, right?
You probably just like look at other people and you're like, you like cry when something'ssad and like, I don't do that.
So you probably know you're like a little bit different.
(33:09):
But then there's the group of people with antisocial personality disorder that havechildhood trauma.
And that group is the group that's
harmful, the murderers, the rapists, all that crazy kind of stuff.
And so that's the group that my dad is in.
uh And it's scary.
It's really scary stuff.
He's in Russia hiding from the FBI.
(33:30):
So it is really intense.
um Yeah, so.
Yeah, it's really crazy.
um So growing up with that, he was really abusive, uh really abusive to mostly the girls,mostly like me and my mom.
uh And I was like just uh one feisty child.
(33:50):
I'm like very proud of myself for this.
would always fight back.
So very proud of myself for that.
But because of that, there was like I took a lot of the brunt of the abuse as well, butmostly towards my mom.
And my mom had a terrible childhood as well.
she's just like the two of them just
they just had like no chance, no chance I don't think.
(34:14):
And then they had 10 kids, well six of them are from them but my mom got pregnant in highschool, different guy and then she got remarried to this other guy who sucks and they have
three kids and it's just this cycle that's regenerating.
It's just like.
You know, I'm really hoping that my siblings are also cycle breakers.
(34:34):
My sister, I have eight brothers and one sister.
My older brother seems like he's doing pretty good.
And then my sister recently kind of like had an epiphany.
So I have hope for them.
But that's where not my interest, but like awareness in mental health came from.
because as you can imagine, like child going through those things, like I was obviously avery troubled child.
(34:59):
And so when I started working at this salon, this first salon that I was working at, I wasso triggered, so triggered, and I didn't know why.
And now later on, I know it's because of this like...
man in power that's being abusive and it was like triggering my dad stuff and whatever allthat stuff so I put myself in therapy uh when I was like 20 I put myself in therapy and
(35:25):
she just changed my life I've been going to her every week for 11 years now yeah and so Imean I I joke that like I swear I have like a
my own like PhD at this point.
Like I know, I know so much about mental health and just like the way that I, that Ireally like work through these things is understanding why these things happen because I
(35:48):
just try to like make sense of it.
And there are things that you can't make sense of, right?
Like, like murder and like rape and like crazy stuff like that.
Like you really cannot make sense of that because it's nonsensical, but you can understandlike why that person is so different from the rest of society and how their brain is
different.
So I've studied, I've read books and studies and
just like really, really focused on that.
(36:09):
uh And so when I left my first salon, it was not an emotionally supportive environmenteither.
It was very like taboo to talk about emotions and anxiety.
And I obviously had anxiety.
I'm diagnosed with PTSD, so I struggle with that.
uh And it wasn't a supportive environment for that.
So I never wanted to be a salon owner, but I was like so just traumatized by the salon.
(36:32):
So I went and opened up my own salon and said, I'm going to open a salon.
but I'm gonna...
My whole mission statement for this salon is creating a safe space.
I do think that there's a lack of that in this industry.
I think that the Me Too movement never made it to the hair industry.
I think that mental health is taboo to talk about still, not on amongst all.
(36:55):
There is a community that I have in this industry that is very open to talking about it,but it's smaller, I think, than most industries.
And so I just wanted a place for hairstylists to come work at that are mental health
informed or want to be, or maybe they struggle with anxiety or depression and I can be theboss that like understands that, you know, and like helps support them through it because
(37:19):
I am so educated on mental health and also clients as well, you know, like, I got a lot offeedback at my first salon that clients didn't feel comfortable, they didn't feel safe,
they didn't feel comfortable, they felt like not cool enough, they sensed it.
enough, uh okay.
Well, probably a whole range of things that are making them uncomfortable.
Yeah, so many things.
(37:40):
mean, it was true that in the back room, they're all like yapping, talking shit, all thatkind it was very toxic.
So I wanted a space that like is just not like that.
And we've created it.
I mean, we've been open for five years now.
So this space is exactly what I dreamed of.
It's so amazing.
Our clients feel so comfortable.
We get a lot of clients that like find us specifically because of that, um because theyjust, maybe they're neurodivergent and salons scare them.
(38:07):
Maybe they need special
accommodations um Maybe they have extreme anxiety and they need a room that is empty andthey need someone to just like focus on them They can't be around other people and like
we're that space that is informed enough to understand those disabilities I would call itand and really help, you know help them and understand them.
(38:30):
So uh I didn't realize that going to therapy would do all of that, but it did and I'm veryvery passionate about
it.
I'm very passionate about it.
I want to be definitely like a voice of change in this industry and making it more likenormal to talk about, just normalize it.
Okay, so these clients are finding you.
(38:51):
So do you have it on your website?
How are they finding you?
Okay, yeah, so.
a lot of referrals.
We do have a lot of good reviews, so we get a lot of people from that, but a lot ofreferrals and then it's on our website as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how much time every week is spent working with your coworkers on this?
(39:20):
Because if it's part of your brand, which it is, then kind of everybody there needs to beon board.
But it's something that's, I mean, it's not easy to understand and takes time to learn.
And maybe not everybody is going to be as emotionally intelligent about it, right?
Yeah, absolutely, and you don't need to be like this emotionally intelligent, traumainformed person to work at Crick and Co.
(39:47):
But you do have to like be open to those discussions.
And I'm very, very, very picky with who I hire.
uh So I've hired a team that...
All of them are pretty trauma informed.
um All of them are pretty open about their own anxieties, their own depression.
We talk about it a lot.
(40:08):
don't have like trainings on mental health with my staff.
don't do that.
But you know, we at least at least every day that I'm there, we're talking about what'sgoing on in your life.
And, know, are you seeing a therapist?
Are you on medication?
Are you OK?
How is like your workload hurting you right now?
And especially right now,
I was actually just today talking to my therapist about this, how overwhelming it is whenlike the world is kind of on fire and there's a lot of like tension in the world and
(40:38):
people take it out on service providers.
So we've been noticing a lot more of that.
I'm getting like one to two times a week.
I'm getting like bitched out by clients then and that is not normal for us at all.
My coworkers are experiencing it too.
And it's a lot of like.
just things that are like not happening kind of like in their head or like misreadingscenarios.
(41:03):
And it's just like, it just happens with service providers.
So that's taking an effect on everyone's mental health.
And then, you know, just cause we're mental health informed does not mean we put up withthat, you know, like you, so.
Well, a lot of our media these days, there's so much out there about the way that ourmedia is these days and has been for a number of years and whether the human brain was
(41:27):
really built to take in information the way that the media is giving us the information,right?
And kind of boiled down to the general essence of our brain is not used to waking up.
and immediately recognizing all of the horrible things that are happening in the worldevery single day, right?
(41:50):
Which is a lot of what the media is, depending on, of course, which media you consume.
And it's also just on the negative as well because that's what gets clicks.
That's what gets clicks and that's what gets the attention.
so it's social media, of course, the algorithm, if you particularly are into notnecessarily into, but you know, your attention is particularly drawn to, you know, X issue
(42:16):
or Y issue or Z issue, whatever you get inundated with this.
it's like all day, every time you open the app, you're inundated with it.
And our brain's not really built to
Absorb and process that properly of course some people are gonna do it better than others,but I think it it It has caused some issues with customer service and personal care
(42:40):
service uh people
bringing out a lot of already present mental health issues and amplifying them as well.
Like say a client already suffers with bipolar and they're seeing all these things allover and it's overwhelming them and they start having an episode.
Well, they might start acting, I don't want to say crazy, I don't really like that word,but start acting abnormal.
(43:04):
and yeah upset.
Yeah.
And like there's only like so much as a service provider that you really should put upwith.
think boundaries are so important.
Boundaries is such a buzzword right now.
I hate that it's therapy speak as a buzzword, or like buzzwords.
But it really is important to have boundaries with your clients.
(43:24):
They respect you more for it.
And when you don't have them, they will just walk all over you.
So is this like, you know,
give and take kind of thing.
Like I respect you, you respect me.
But it's just, yeah, the chaos is a lot louder right now.
And it's really disheartening.
And even for a salon that is so mental health informed and so kind, I don't think we'veever had like, we've never had a bad review saying that we were like not nice to someone.
(43:52):
Like we really are so kind and compassionate.
And to be getting these texts that, you know, are so like outside of our values is crazy.
We've never received anything like this.
So
I'm sure every hairdresser that is like behind the chair listening can also identify withthat right now.
It's hard.
(44:12):
All right, a little gear shifting here.
I love your uh March 2024 post that you've pinned to your Instagram profile that tellspeople who you are in several colorful descriptive, you know, paragraphs.
And this is something that uh has been talked about for years, you know, ever since wehave this
(44:37):
kind of marketing tool called Instagram or Facebook.
And some people do it, way too many people don't do it and you've done it amazingly well.
So talk about the value of having such a thing.
And maybe for the listeners, I'll be a little bit more descriptive.
it's, I mean, you talk about, you know, who you are, where you're from, the things you'reinto, a little personal stuff in there.
(45:04):
And you basically say, you know,
that this is who I am, you know?
And it satisfies a void that so many social media accounts have, which is like, who isthis person?
It's just a bunch of heads of clients, you know?
And that's not good enough.
(45:25):
So talk about that.
Why should beauty professionals do a post like that?
I think it's so important.
There's a lot of reasons going through my head right now.
I guess the biggest reason going through my head is like, we do not sit with our clientsfor 45 minutes, like a barber.
You know, if you're a colorist, especially, you sit with your clients.
(45:49):
I sit with my clients for like six to nine hours.
Like I'm like with them all day.
So.
If I were a client looking for someone to sit with for that long, I would want to makesure that I wouldn't want to like, you know, jump off the balcony.
Like I want to like enjoy being with this person or we don't have to have like similar,like the same interest or like the exact same values or whatever.
(46:12):
But I want to make sure that this is like a person I want to be around.
First of all, I want to like this person.
And I think that's
really important to a lot of people.
I've gotten that feedback from a lot of people that like they will not go back to someoneeven if their hair rolls, if they just did not like the vibe.
So I think putting out like your vibe is really important.
(46:33):
There's not, you know, not every client is gonna like me.
I know that there's like probably more than half the population that does not wanna sit ina mental health informed, super liberal hairdresser's chair.
I get that, you know?
So I wanna make it very apparent because I also don't wanna spend time with those peoplethat are like that.
So I think making it very clear who you are and not like, you know, you don't need to deepdive into like...
(46:56):
politics or things like that, but making like, you kind of have some of your values clear,think is really important.
uh Putting your interests up there as well.
uh Say there's a client who's like really into music and you play guitar or you were in aband, like they might want to come to you because just because of that.
uh It just puts a face to the brand.
makes you feel more relatable, makes you uh more likeable.
(47:21):
uh Well, I guess to...
certain people.
And yeah, really just puts a face to the brain.
It makes them feel like they kind of already know you.
Also, with neurodivergent people, it's difficult to go into a space where you don't knowthe outcome.
It's very scary.
So if you can figure out who this person is and have like, yourself a little bit, it's alot more comforting.
(47:43):
So yeah, I think it's important for those reasons.
I mean, there's like a hundred reasons it's important.
it's a match.
It's a it's a you're looking for a good match, right with a client and same with a clientwith a hairdresser and you know, it's uh when you know, my friends not in the industry or
shopping for a hairdresser, they're looking for a match just not with the quality of theservice and the type of service, etc.
(48:09):
And price, it's it's that personality match the way you're describing it.
in many ways, it's more important.
So for you to be able to put that out there onto Instagram, and I recommend to everybodyto go to Tina underscore does hair and look at that first post that she has posted on
there that she has pinned on there as kind of a good guide for, you know, the types ofthings that you can share.
(48:35):
And yet I could see some people being like, unsure of how much to share.
And I think you had just a great balance of it.
And so it's it's a really good example.
Thank you.
So given all the things that we talked about, ah what's the most difficult conversationyou've ever had with a client in the chair?
(48:58):
question.
It's not loaded.
It's just, you know, I think it's, I think it's...
Go ahead.
The most difficult conversation I've had with a client like, ugh, like in terms of theirhair.
It could be anything emotional difficulty, you know, I like, I like for our guests on thepod to talk about the difficult things they experience, you know, behind the chair,
(49:28):
because I think it's, it's helpful to the listeners, you know, that, um, the, uh, learningways, learning things, learning that things happen, you know, and other people's chairs
and how to, how to address it.
and give them ideas of how to best do difficult parts of the job.
(49:51):
Yeah, I think there's like the very obvious of like, this color isn't gonna look good onyou, like how to approach that, that's the obvious.
ah But what really sticks out for me, I mean, I am a mental health focused professional,so what really sticks out for me is like when I'm going through something personal, like
for example, my husband and I are diagnosed with infertility, so we're really strugglingwith it right now.
(50:16):
Thank you, we're starting IVF soon.
But we're really really struggling with that right now.
So when a client is like pregnant or You know talking about I weren't even trying and wegot pregnant like those things are so upsetting for me to hear
And it's really, really hard to set boundaries around that because first of all, like Idon't want to talk to every client about my personal life.
(50:38):
Like I just don't feel like comfortable with every single person and I don't want to havethat conversation eight times a day.
You know, I'm picky and choosy about like who I talk to ah and how many times I talk aboutit before I'm burnt out.
So I think things like that, things that like kind of trigger what you're already goingthrough is the most difficult thing for me to navigate ah because it's awkward.
(51:00):
Like the obvious is
say, you know, this is kind of hard for me to talk about.
Can we talk about something else?
But like, let's be so real right now.
That is so awkward.
That's so awkward.
And like, are you going to hurt their feelings?
Like they're excited or maybe they're talking about...
Um, their dog dying, like, you know, and maybe your dog just died.
(51:22):
And so those things, and it's like, it's just not always like comfortable to set thatboundary verbally.
So I think silent boundaries are like really great in that moment.
Like, Oh, you know, I need to go, um, make some more color or you know what this, thisviscosity is not right.
I need to go like put more developer and just go into that and like, just take a moment tobreathe, you know, ground yourself, do your five, four, three, two, one, all the things.
(51:48):
to kind of like get you back into your body and then if you do need to continue talkingabout that conversation like try to pivot very gently try to pivot or um you know come
back and just be like my gosh I had this crazy thing happen to me yesterday and just takethe subject yeah
Yeah, I think that's brilliant.
I think that's absolutely the right way to do it.
(52:11):
And um you essentially interrupt the conversation, you know, by leaving, you know, goingand doing something that's not awkward, but, you know, part of the process and just
changing the subject 100%.
Yeah, great answer.
If you could wave a wand and change anything about the industry at all right now, whatwould it be?
(52:35):
You've kind of already said it.
You already said that more mental health discussion.
Yeah, that's the obvious, right?
And like, yeah, that is what I would choose.
But I have kind of, I do have like a controversial answer to that.
Okay, this is like a personal opinion.
I know other people agree too, but I might ruffle some feathers.
(52:57):
I think that men in this industry are highlighted way too much.
I think that men are highlighted more than women and it's a female dominated industry.
And I think that, you know,
when it comes to, think of like the famous hairdressers, right?
um
Like Chris Appleton, I'm just naming like random men that I know like, Appleton or likewhatever.
(53:21):
I don't think that as much attention is put on women as men.
think men get a really easy pass in this industry because they're a man.
Because they're like, I don't know, first of all, because they're a man, right?
In the patriarchy.
But like secondly, because they're different, they're not a woman.
And it's so easy to overlook women and men are also so much more like assertive anddominant.
(53:43):
And when women are like that, including myself, we are called too much.
So I think that like giving uh all of those opportunities to men more, I see it a lotmore.
It's just my personal opinion.
I haven't done any data on it, but it's my personal opinion that I see a lot morerecognition towards male hairdressers than I do towards female hairdressers.
(54:04):
And in a female dominated industry, I find that weird.
Yeah, no, I hear you and I'm a man.
No, that's not awkward at all.
No, I think you got a point there.
I like that answer and I'm a man.
and you're a man, so I applaud you.
You're comfortable in your sexuality, I love it.
(54:25):
So, hair horror stories is typically, this is the part of the conversation where we talkabout hair horror stories.
I was gonna interrupt you early on in the conversation because you had talked about allyour hair horror stories of the early years and how.
are like social horror stories.
Yeah, well, I mean, the hair horror stories can be social.
(54:48):
know, anything that happened in the salon.
ah Of course, we have lots that are like, you know, I didn't know she had so much, youknow, metal in her hair and her hair burnt off and all that kind of stuff.
We have tons of those.
So I think that, you know, anything interesting is always informative to the audience.
(55:10):
Yeah.
Well, I'll give you a fun one since it's been kind of heavy topic, so I'll give you a funone.
When I was in beauty school, and if there's any beauty school listeners listening to this,I really hope this provides you some comfort.
When I was in beauty school and in high school, I was really anxious.
Remember we talked about PTSD and all those things.
I was really anxious and was convinced I was being bullied, but I wasn't.
(55:31):
uh So in beauty school, this popular girl from high school came to get her hair done byme.
And I was so nervous because she's popular.
and I like just left high school like I was still in that mindset.
Did she know you too?
you from, no, did she know you as well?
(55:53):
You remember her, did she remember you?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I looked back and like, yeah, I should have been more confident in high school.
But anyway, yeah.
all should have been more confident.
oh
little brains are just not developed.
But anyway, she comes in for a balayage and I am like so nervous, but I also was likeoverly confident with balayage in beauty school.
(56:19):
This was when balayage first started, but I was so nervous so I wanted to do a really goodjob.
So I spent four hours applying this balayage perfectly on her.
And when I say perfectly, I mean like...
perfect lines that are all like the same.
Like that does not create a good, like too perfect.
Like that perfect and like no sections in between skipped.
(56:43):
So, and I think I was using like 30 or 40 volume and, Red can flash lift with like, whichis my opinion.
think it sucks, but this girl's hair and I put plastic in between, not even close.
This girl's hair melted off, melted off.
And she was like the popular girl.
I was mortified and like nobody taught us toners in school.
(57:05):
I went to like a school through my community college.
So I didn't even have a teacher for the first few months.
It was just like, yeah, it was a little bit rough.
uh But yeah, I melted off this girl's hair and she didn't say anything in the moment.
It looked so bad.
It was like this brown, yellow, straight line, just like, it's awful.
(57:25):
And the next post I saw on her Instagram was that she went to a salon and cut all her hairoff.
And I will never forget that moment.
That is like probably my biggest, besides like cutting through someone's ear once, that'slike my biggest hair horror story.
Yeah.
the dynamics of the girl there in the high school and everything, yeah.
(57:49):
That's horrible.
That's when you want to just like quail together.
Yeah, totally.
They do!
They do and then 10 years later you're like, that's funny!
Right, we can all laugh about it on a podcast 15 years later.
her hair grew back.
It's fine.
Yeah.
oh
any last words for the community?
(58:12):
Well, I guess if you liked anything we talked about or if you feel um like you'restruggling in the place that you're at, please feel free to message me.
I love it when people message me and talk to me about these things.
think growing a community um is the most important.
Like we said, it's like my wish I could wave a magic wand.
(58:33):
yeah, message me.
I swear I'm not like scary or gonna be mean or bite you.
So that's what I have to say,
Amazing.
Love it.
Tina underscore does hair.
Thank you so much.
This is a great conversation.
I loved it
much for having me.
Hi Tina, how are you?
Good, so I was just told by Tina that if you've known her for more than 20 or so years,you can call her Chrissy.
Otherwise it's Tina because, let me see if I got this right, some guy at Starbucks whenyou were working there called you Tina and that was it.
For the rest of your life, you're Tina.
(00:23):
There you go.
What was it like working at Starbucks?
How long did you work there?
Oh, I worked there.
Oh my gosh, it's actually, I'll keep it quick.
It's actually kind of a funny story.
I was out of school.
I was a sophomore in high school and I had this like crazy fluke heart problem and Iwasn't allowed to go back to school because it was like too much stress on my heart.
(00:43):
So I got a job at Starbucks because for some reason that's less stressful than school andlike getting a-
right?
Yeah, I don't know why my mom let me do that.
ah So I got a job there when I was 16 and they don't usually hire you that young becauseyou know you're in school.
Also I had to get like a permit and all the things.
I worked there until I was like 19 em and I quit when I went to hair school.
(01:10):
Yeah.
a pretty good amount of time.
Three years at Starbucks.
So you could whip out those frappuccinos.
my God, those were the worst ones to make.
Oh, they just like, require so many steps and everyone wants like all the caramel likelined in the cup and extra caramel.
And I'm just just like, it's like the most, I love doing like lattes and cappuccinos andstuff like that.
(01:35):
Yeah.
So isn't there I'm a little bit of a coffee snob I have to admit at the risk of Myaudience thinking differently of me thinking poorly of me ah I'm a little bit of a coffee
snob.
So it's Starbucks.
Is it the like the latte?
it a button pushing exercise?
That the workers have to do there
(01:56):
Their espresso machine is a button pusher, so you would hate that.
I think it's called like their Virtuo or something.
forget what it's called.
It's been so long.
But yeah, the espresso is a button.
You do have to like calibrate it, but it's a button.
And then, you you have the frother, you know, whatever, but like you can't make latte art.
(02:18):
Like it's not, it's not that good.
Yeah.
not like a real espresso drink, you know, where they, it's not very good.
I'll just go ahead and say that.
Again, at the risk of my audience thinking less of me, because I'm sure we have lots ofStarbucks drinkers listening, the reality is that there's better coffee out there.
(02:38):
so many so yeah there's a lot there's a lot better coffee.
Yeah.
Okay.
But we digress right out of the gate.
We digress.
All right.
For those who don't know you, Tina, you're an award winning color specialist from OrangeCounty, California, who also has a foundation of mental health knowledge that you bring to
your clients, which I think is cool.
We're going to talk about that.
(02:59):
You're sponsored by K-18 and Oligo Pro as well.
And
moon foils.
Moon foils.
That's interesting.
breaking but they're great foils.
I'm inter- what are moon foils?
Moon foils are, well it's a new foil brand, they're sold on Ubali Pro and they have thethickness kind of in between like from Mar foils and the Reynolds foils that the old
(03:32):
school stylists use.
It's kind of like in between the two.
So they have a really good thickness that doesn't just rip through it and then they have alot of sizes but they don't have any prints on them which I really like because when you
are sponsoring
sponsored by different companies.
don't like you to have uh sponsored products in your content.
em Also when you're working on like more high end clients, they don't want like, you know,dog foils on their head.
(03:57):
They want more like professional kind of stuff.
And I like both.
I think the print is really fun, but there is like the client that's paying, you know,like $800 for me to highlight their hair.
And I'm like, okay, let's be a little more professional.
Yeah.
All right, well, that's how free advertising works, everybody.
Moon foils, there you go.
Free advertising.
(04:19):
So also, before we move on, you also do uh permanent makeup, right?
I mean, em you had an interesting term for it.
Talk about that.
It's interesting because most of our hair guests, they don't do things like permanentmakeup, but you do.
Talk about that for a second.
Yeah, I've been doing hair for so long.
I started my hair business when I was 14, and I'm sure we'll get into that.
(04:42):
But at...
Maybe like 10 years in, I was just bored.
Honestly, I was just really bored and uh I had started blowing up for color melting and soI was doing the same color melting all day, just color melting the way I like it.
So this was when microblading came to America and got really popular.
So I got my eyebrows microbladed and I was like, I could do that.
(05:03):
That doesn't look that difficult, you know?
So I went to school for it.
uh I like tattoos.
I like eyebrows, you know?
I like shaping them.
So I went to school for it.
I started doing
microblading in like my tiny little studio that was like way too small for that.
uh And I did that for a few years and then I took a few years off after getting in a caraccident.
(05:25):
uh And then when I came back, microblading was kind of out.
And so now it's called nano brow tattoo, which is probably what you're referring to.
And it's done differently.
Microblading is with a manual blade.
It's like little paper cuts in the skin, but it doesn't heal well and you're not supposedto do it on oily skin.
But nobody listens to that right because like more than 50 % of the population has likeoily eyebrows So they just want their eyebrows tattooed so the nano brow
(05:55):
it works well on all skin types.
Microblading will just blur out into this like gray blob and that's why everyone is liketraumatized by permanent makeup.
But Nano Browse is done with a machine so it heals very crisp, the color is true to tone,uh it's harder, it was like a longer learning curve for sure.
But it's more fun and now that I work with a machine I just tattoo myself.
(06:18):
it's like this like new trait.
Yeah.
uh
did it.
Yeah, that's why I actually just wanted to stop paying for tattoos.
yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, very cool.
Well, uh let's hear from you.
are you from originally and why did you get into this business?
(06:39):
Okay, yeah, I'm from Orange County, California.
uh I've never left.
I grew up in Southern California or Southern Orange County, California.
uh Middle school was San Clemente, high school was Mission Viejo High School.
uh
areas, such great areas.
Yeah.
I mean, the beach and the weather is so good for anybody who doesn't know it.
(07:02):
It's just so ideal.
It's like so beautiful.
Yeah, there's definitely, yeah, a lot of privilege growing up there that I did not evenrealize at the time.
em And so when I was in high school living in Mission Viejo, I started doing, I had alwaysbeen the friend hair cutter, like use the razor to shave my legs, to cut the scene bangs.
(07:23):
We all had the emo hair or whatever.
So I was always the designated hair friend.
um
So when I was 14, my family was kind of poor at the time and I wanted money, right?
But I wasn't old enough to work.
So I started a hair extension business because you're not, you don't need to be licensedto do hair extensions.
fact or braids.
(07:43):
Um, so I started doing hair extensions and I was kind of good at them, surprisingly at 14.
My mom was also doing them for like grocery money and stuff.
So she kind of taught me how to do them and I am very detail oriented.
So it took me like four hours to put in like one
set of hair extensions, but my clients were not children.
They were my friend's moms.
(08:05):
yeah, and I maybe had like eight clients talks and I would do it in like my living room,but I had like business cards and this was like pre we had, we had my space, but this was
like pre Instagram and all that kind of
you're not, you weren't around in MySpace days.
Are you serious?
(08:25):
I don't know, you're half my age.
What are you talking about?
Really?
All right.
I think you're fooling me, but you did mention MySpace.
So that is kind of street cred.
I was the scene queen on MySpace.
I to think I was.
(08:46):
I like to think I was.
I probably was a lot lamer than I remember, though, to be honest.
You can't log in.
I've tried.
Yeah, you can't log in.
I think it's still...
I was crushing Myspace back in the day.
Yeah.
I had all like the background, my background was dialed in, my top, Yeah, yeah, I had itall like formatted right.
(09:11):
My top, was it top six or top nine friends?
Top.
these days, like picking your top eight, like the drama that would start.
my God, so scandalous.
no, you get in a fight with your friend and you like move them to like number six insteadof number two.
(09:32):
Yeah.
know.
Some listeners are like, we have no idea what you're talking about.
I guess if you're below the age of like 20 and you probably don't know what my space is.
Probably or even I don't know even 30 something I to do the math on that but okay, soSorry, you threw me for a loop with the myspace comment.
(09:54):
Okay Yeah So I actually like talking about it because it's so interesting it was preFacebook right and then Facebook came out with Ya
they were happening like in conjunction because I had both.
Yeah, well, I mean they overlapped certainly but it but my space was first and
(10:15):
am too young to like know the beginning of MySpace.
I'm too young for that.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
there was, I'm old enough to know the only MySpace days.
And actually I've had conversations where people are like, oh, well, you weren't, you'renot old enough to know Vine or whatever.
Then the like name one that might've come before MySpace.
(10:38):
And that's beyond my knowledge.
But anyway, then Facebook comes out and it's all like boring page with the blue writing.
And I was like, what is this?
This is garbage.
And of course, that's how wrong I was.
You can't put your favorite song on it.
oh
You can't these are a lot of things you can't do on it.
But anyway, obviously there was a winner in that battle Okay, so you're doing a lot ofscene stuff and doing a lot of uh you're doing your parents friends hair You're you're
(11:10):
doing your friends parents
doing her friends.
I was doing my friends' parents.
Got it.
So you're doing adults in your living room at 14 years old extensions.
That's wild stuff.
charged $100.
That's $25 an hour at 14.
And that was back in 2000...
What year is that?
Like 2009 or something?
That's crazy.
(11:32):
That's a lot of money.
Yeah.
right, well that was the the budding career.
All right, so then so you and you liked it and you're like, this is what I'm going to do.
No, actually, no I wasn't.
I was like, I really like this, but this is not what I'm gonna do.
uh My plan was, well I tried to get into the cosmetology program in sophomore year, likeROC program, but they uh got rid of it that year.
(11:56):
So my plan was to finish high school.
I never took like college.
SATs or whatever those tests are because I just knew I wasn't gonna do it um But I wasn'tgonna go to a university, but I finished high school I went straight into beauty school
finished beauty school almost quit but finished beauty school because beauty school ishard and and Started working at a salon and immediately enrolled in school because I had
(12:19):
convinced myself that I was gonna be a doctor I Don't I don't know what um well it changeda lot
Okay, sure.
Right, because you're young, of course.
Yeah.
from a young age, I really did find it really fascinating.
I used to like study anatomy and stuff when I was in grade school.
(12:42):
I did find it fascinating.
But when I was in school, I was like, I don't think I even really like this.
And I think at this point, I'm just trying to prove something.
So I did a full year of school.
But during that year, my first year in the salon, I had a full book of plans and I waslike doing homework in between classes.
(13:03):
and my coworkers were actually like, what the hell are you doing?
Like just quit school.
You should just do hair.
And I'm like, no, no, no, hair is not a career.
Like I was always told like hair is not a career.
Like my grandma would like make fun of me if I was a hairdresser.
So I didn't, just didn't want to quit and wanted to prove to myself.
And then I finally let my ego down and
(13:26):
I quit school and I said, I'll go back if I want to.
And then my hair career took off really, really quickly.
So I was really fortunate in that uh and realized like, what was I doing?
Like, I don't want to be a doctor.
That's so ridiculous.
Yeah, so what did you attribute, what do you attribute that kind of fast launch in thesalon to?
(13:47):
I don't know, caused a lot of problems for me, to be honest.
um I think...
Why, because you had money flowing?
because I was just busy fast and like some of the stylists had been there a long time.
Oh, like social problems amongst the...
problems.
Yeah, yeah social problem when I first got hired like there was no problems, right?
(14:10):
But yeah when I started building pretty quickly there was like a lot of tension thatstarted to grow so I started kind of like keeping myself a little bit Or at least trying
to the most you can in a salon, but my books were full like within a year I think I fullyassisted for like three months, which at the time I didn't really realize was crazy But
(14:32):
now you know so many years and I realized like that that is crazy
I just had like a natural knack for it, but I made like so many mistakes.
Like nobody like truly mentored me at all.
Like people would get like annoyed if I asked questions.
There was like times where they were like helpful, of course, like a couple of times, butlike most of the time they would like get annoyed.
(14:55):
So ah I just made like a lot of mistakes, a ton of mistakes.
I am surprised I didn't get sued, but
I learned quickly, you know, you learn from making your mistakes.
uh I try to help my assistants now and stylists now not make the mistakes I made.
uh But I think also like I'm a pretty outgoing person.
I'm one of 10 siblings.
(15:17):
I yeah, I just like.
Nine nine nine.
minus one, you have nine brothers and sisters.
Amazing.
Yeah, so I'm pretty outgoing and like I can be like quite bossy, you know, because they'reall like younger than me.
So um I just didn't really have like that hard of a time talking to clients.
(15:39):
And I just really got along with people really well.
So well, my clients mostly.
So I just built a clientele fast.
I think it was like a combination of, you're like pretty decent at hair.
Your prices are cheap because you're new.
And then also like we enjoy spending time with you kind of thing.
So
it just blew up.
honestly just enjoyed doing hair.
(16:00):
I wasn't trying to make money for it.
It was like paying my rent, which was like $300 at the time.
So that's all it really was for me.
And I really do think that that was like a huge part of it too, like not working for themoney, but more for just like the love of it.
So I'm glad it happened that way.
Honestly, I mean, it's kind of what made me realize like, I think this could be a realcareer.
(16:21):
Yeah.
pretty good.
Okay, so uh you were in this situation, you launched pretty quickly, it uh caused someanimosity in the salon, maybe some jealousy from some of the other people in the salon,
and did you end up leaving the salon?
Oh my God, that's a whole story.
(16:42):
Yeah, I actually got fired from the salon.
um
Yeah, I'll keep it quick, I suppose, because I don't really want to spend too much time onthis anyway.
But I assisted the owner of the salon, and it's a tale as old as time.
Just very, like, a lot of sexual harassment.
You know, he was my age now, and I was 20 at the time.
(17:05):
So I have an assistant that old now.
And so I think about this all the time now, just how inappropriate so many things were.
I think I like realize more and more how inappropriate things were.
So after denying him a few times and like, I mean, even as far as like pushing him off ofme when he's drunk kind of thing.
(17:28):
Yeah.
work?
That one wasn't at work, but there was like ass slapping and like suggestive comments andlike I'm a baby.
I just like didn't really like whatever.
just went along with it.
But it wasn't just me that it was happening to.
It was like all the younger stylists.
So anyway, so he didn't like me after that.
(17:48):
He didn't like me after like three months of not getting anything out of me, I guess.
So there was a lot of tension the next like I only worked there for like two and a halfyears.
There was a lot of tension after that for sure.
because there was this competition and jealousy amongst the other stylists, and then therewas tension because of the owner and not liking me, and then a lot of very childish stuff.
(18:13):
Eventually...
uh
Eventually he pushed me out and blamed it on some Yelp review from like two years prior emand blocked me from my client list, sat down everyone at the salon and told them that they
are not allowed to talk to me or help me with my client list.
So it was pretty rough.
It was pretty rough for me.
(18:34):
Working there was probably one of the most traumatic things I think I've ever beenthrough.
I still have nightmares about it.
uh
But it was honestly a good thing because when you're in those, and you know, going intothe mental health aspect of it, when you're in those like abusive environments, part of
the abuse is to try to get you to think that like, you can't do any better.
(18:56):
You can't be anywhere better.
You're the best.
Yeah, exactly.
We're the best place that you could be.
I don't know if I would have left soon.
I feel like I would have kind of stayed in the abusive environment and like kept having totake Xanax to go to work.
Like it was crazy, you know?
(19:16):
And I was like, by the time I got fired, I was only 22.
So I was still a baby.
So after that, this was two weeks before Christmas, I didn't want to go to another salonbecause I was terrified.
Honestly.
I scared.
thought about quitting hair, but I really liked hair.
So I rented out a room, just like a little studio, not even in one of those like salonsuites, just like a room in a business.
(19:42):
uh And my social media took off.
uh I found my confidence.
I was in just like a more controlled environment.
uh I controlled who came in and out of my room.
So I found my piece there.
uh
Yeah, it was really amazing.
It was amazing.
So I stayed there for three years and my, like I said, my social media blew up because Istarted doing this color melting thing that not many people were doing.
(20:11):
And I got my first sponsorship, uh started traveling, started teaching classes, all thesethings.
uh Yeah, 22.
And with no client list.
I didn't have my client list.
It was crazy.
Yeah, they were.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
they all reached out to me and were like, uh, hello.
Yeah.
(20:31):
So I have, I still have quite a few clients from like the very beginning there.
I cherish them.
that's great.
Okay, so you had all that growth on your own, which is so awesome.
Okay, so kind of bring us up to current day now.
Yeah, so 2020, um the business that I was working in, I could just tell they weren't onthe same values as me as COVID guidelines.
(21:02):
okay.
Yeah.
uh into a double suite in just one of those places or whatever the, you know what I'mtalking about.
And then we shut down again, you know, but they wanted to keep charging rent.
And I was like, I cannot afford that.
So I all my stuff into my assistance.
uh
(21:24):
know it's been a few years, but we did not charge rent when we were shut down.
happened.
Yeah, they totally are.
Well, they kept it open and yeah, they wanted to charge us all rent.
It was crazy.
Yeah, who can afford that?
My rent was like $2,300 a month.
Like, not even working.
So anyway, I put all my things in my assistant's garage.
Like, bless their hearts for staying with us through this.
(21:45):
uh And I decided, you know what?
This is the time I'm going to open a salon.
Best time, I guess.
That's funny that you're laughing like that.
I mean, it was crazy, during COVID.
But at the same time, there was a lot of smart business decisions during that time.
(22:06):
Like a lot of offices were vacant.
There wasn't anyone to rent them out.
um
like wood prices and stuff I think had gone up, but there wasn't really like lot ofconstruction work going on.
So I did capitalize on some of that and the salon, like we weren't allowed to work.
(22:26):
So I had time to build out this salon.
I took this space that was three separate offices and like tore down all the walls andjust fully built it out.
So I had the time to do that.
And right when we uh opened back up is I opened the salon and everyone that I was withpreviously stayed and then we've hired in some new
since then and so now we're a group of five looking to expand but we're in this like crazyscenario again that I don't might put it off for a little bit but but it's doing great I
(22:54):
mean it's very successful
You know, just like the tariff, raising all the prices with all the tariffs, uhconstruction prices are going to go up with tariffs.
So I don't think building out a salon right now is practical or smart.
The cost of borrowing money is very expensive.
It's going to just go up.
Also with this new bill and with the tariffs, know, the interest rates are going to go up.
(23:18):
So I don't think it's a smart time.
think COVID was like risky, but there were like some areas that I was like, OK, I think Ithink I can cop
on this but like this scenario right now I think is like too risky to be expanding intosomething large.
If I found something that was like already a salon and I just had to decorate and didn'thave to do like plumbing and electrical and like borrow $100,000 you know that would be a
(23:43):
different situation but I don't think it's smart right now fiscally to be expanding anddoing these crazy big you know business ventures.
Well, that makes sense.
mean, during COVID, there were things that were happening, but those things were going toend at a certain point, right?
And then, you know, things would be possible.
(24:05):
um Now, it seems like a lot of what's happening are just kind of, it's just inflationarykind of for the long term.
And construction prices certainly have gone nutty.
You know, there's no doubt about it, you know, to get in labor prices to get somebody topaint.
A salon, you know, is double what it was four years ago.
(24:28):
Right now everyone's oh
right.
that costs, ah So all that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so you have kind of a group of five and you've got your clients and you're doingyour thing.
And how do you split your time between satisfying your relationship with your sponsors andyour demands of the clients?
(24:55):
Well, I work three days behind the chair.
I do 12 to 15 hour days.
I put all my energy into that.
Yeah, long day.
Yeah, I kind of like, I thrive with those long days.
I just have this like...
I have ADHD.
know, I mean, I was diagnosed with as a child.
So it's probably a bit of that not being medicated.
(25:18):
So just a lot of like energy to keep going.
But like more than three days at my age now is too much.
I used to do like five, 12 hour days.
That was crazy.
And then I do a six to eight hour day of tattooing once a week.
And then I travel, I work in Ireland as well.
So
I just got back from, I went to Dublin, I went to London, I went to Scotland.
(25:44):
I know enough about you to know that you go to Dublin.
And so that's really neat.
How often do you go?
I try to go twice a year, but honestly most of the time I end up just going once a year.
We're actually going
in August so he'll be there in August.
I'll be working there in September.
uh Collabing with a barber over there, Kieron, uh I can't remember his last name, Colpoli?
(26:08):
Colopy?
Colpoli?
Anyway, he owns a really cool studio in Temple Bar so I rent out his studio when I workthere and I love it.
I love it so much.
I have like my tiny little clientele there and I'm just like, you know, slowly picking upnew people so it's really fun.
It's fun.
I mean, honestly, it's not even for the money.
It's for like, it's for growing.
my business over there as well, but it's just fun.
(26:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so what kind of hair do you do over there?
You color?
Okay.
I thought it was very interesting to see the different hairstyles, particularly with theguys.
The guys kind of have that crop.
They've got that skin fade, the kind of low, medium skin fade with a crop.
(26:57):
it's like every...
Right, right across the forehead.
And it's like every guy has the exact same hair, you know, between those kind of ages of,know, teenage-y kind of up into like 30.
Well, they all have mullets now.
Now everyone when you go everywhere you see is just a mullet.
(27:19):
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't go to the cool enough areas, but it kind of seemed like that, you know, schoolage, you know, university age kids, they all had that same kind of skin thing.
Yeah.
Like here, here is all the kids have like the mop, right?
It's just.
my god, that like, what is that like fluffy bang and oh my god.
(27:45):
Yes!
Yeah.
You're getting perm's.
Yes!
Some of my Asian friends, have kids with stick straight hair and the kids are going to thesalon to get their stick straight hair permed.
And then on top of it, they have this, you know how every hairstyle, well, some hairstyleshave some sort of like
(28:12):
physical motion that kind of goes with it, you know as as the kids trying to like get youknow, hold their style in place so like Very famously, you know the Justin Bieber He used
to go like this all the time with his neck Of course the listeners can't see me whippingmy neck, but everybody knows what I'm talking about Well nowadays these kids and like my
(28:32):
12 year old son He's just he's like aspiring to be what I'm describing right now wherethey the the the boy takes his palm
right to the front of his head and then goes like this.
Yes, essentially teasing the front of the hairstyle.
So then poofs into kind of like this moppy thing.
(28:56):
You haven't seen this yet?
yeah.
Yeah.
develop like a little brush for them.
m
like some sort of, almost like one of those handheld fans and just put like a Brillo atthe end of the fan and just stick it right on the right in your bangs.
I mean, to be honest, I think the little kids are cute with it.
(29:17):
I think it's cute.
But once they get a little bit older into like, you know, they're 20 to 25 and they haveit, I'm like, okay, I can't tell.
Are these like the F boys of the young 20s?
I can't tell.
But I feel like that's like the vibe.
Yeah.
all very entertaining, especially when you see like 10 of them, like in a group and theyall have the same hair.
(29:42):
And at any given moment, like five of the 10 will be doing that thing where they're wherethey're frizzing the front.
And then they stop because they got all frizzed.
And then the other five go and they frizz their foot and they all like put their head downwhen they do it as if to be a little incognito about it.
I'm really hoping that the listeners know what I'm talking about right now because
(30:04):
You know what it reminds me of?
When the scene kids at teenage years, the boy scene kids, they would like, know, again,you won't know if you're just on audio here, but the scene flip, that was such a thing.
Yeah, like swooping from one side to the next with your hand.
Okay, so you're splitting your time pretty well.
(30:27):
I think it's so neat that you have that kind of second thing.
You don't consider it a second thing.
Maybe I shouldn't have called it that.
But with your nano brow, just to keep it interesting.
Yeah.
if I don't have clients that wait for it, I really don't care.
It's just like another day off.
(30:47):
Like I don't even include it into my budget calculations and like, you know, predictionsfor the month.
It's just for fun.
I just really enjoy it.
Yeah, that's cool.
All right.
We'll talk about mental health.
You're you you have a basis of knowledge and experience with mental health and it and Iget the sense that you really bring that to the experience with your clients.
(31:12):
And so talk about how that started.
Yeah, um I had a pretty difficult childhood, um very difficult.
My dad has antisocial personality disorder um and it's pretty intense.
And my mom, we suspected borderline personality disorder.
So unfortunately I don't talk to either of them.
(31:36):
And yeah.
you explain for the listeners what is antisocial disorder?
Yeah, so more commonly known as like psychopath, sociopath, those kinds of words, butthose are not, I think they're not in the DSM-5 anymore, they're not like a...
like a proper word to call it anymore.
(31:56):
think now it's antisocial personality disorder.
So it's a complete lack of empathy.
uh you know, there's, from my knowledge, there's 4 % of the population that has antisocialpersonality disorder.
uh Some metrics will say it's 4 % of business owners, overall I found most of the studiessay it's 4 % of the population.
(32:18):
And so a lot, obviously 4 % of the population are not murderers and whatever.
it can manifest or not not manifest but like look like depression or You know somewhat andlike isolated or like in cells or something like that But really they just lack emotion
their brains just don't have that same Chemical that everyone else does their brains arejust working differently uh So what happens is like the majority of them?
(32:48):
probably don't even know they have antisocial personality disorder.
Maybe they think they're like on the spectrum.
They probably know that they're a little different.
But if you never had empathy to begin with, you probably wouldn't really know like whatyou're missing, right?
You probably just like look at other people and you're like, you like cry when something'ssad and like, I don't do that.
So you probably know you're like a little bit different.
(33:09):
But then there's the group of people with antisocial personality disorder that havechildhood trauma.
And that group is the group that's
harmful, the murderers, the rapists, all that crazy kind of stuff.
And so that's the group that my dad is in.
uh And it's scary.
It's really scary stuff.
He's in Russia hiding from the FBI.
(33:30):
So it is really intense.
um Yeah, so.
Yeah, it's really crazy.
um So growing up with that, he was really abusive, uh really abusive to mostly the girls,mostly like me and my mom.
uh And I was like just uh one feisty child.
(33:50):
I'm like very proud of myself for this.
would always fight back.
So very proud of myself for that.
But because of that, there was like I took a lot of the brunt of the abuse as well, butmostly towards my mom.
And my mom had a terrible childhood as well.
she's just like the two of them just
they just had like no chance, no chance I don't think.
(34:14):
And then they had 10 kids, well six of them are from them but my mom got pregnant in highschool, different guy and then she got remarried to this other guy who sucks and they have
three kids and it's just this cycle that's regenerating.
It's just like.
You know, I'm really hoping that my siblings are also cycle breakers.
(34:34):
My sister, I have eight brothers and one sister.
My older brother seems like he's doing pretty good.
And then my sister recently kind of like had an epiphany.
So I have hope for them.
But that's where not my interest, but like awareness in mental health came from.
because as you can imagine, like child going through those things, like I was obviously avery troubled child.
(34:59):
And so when I started working at this salon, this first salon that I was working at, I wasso triggered, so triggered, and I didn't know why.
And now later on, I know it's because of this like...
man in power that's being abusive and it was like triggering my dad stuff and whatever allthat stuff so I put myself in therapy uh when I was like 20 I put myself in therapy and
(35:25):
she just changed my life I've been going to her every week for 11 years now yeah and so Imean I I joke that like I swear I have like a
my own like PhD at this point.
Like I know, I know so much about mental health and just like the way that I, that Ireally like work through these things is understanding why these things happen because I
(35:48):
just try to like make sense of it.
And there are things that you can't make sense of, right?
Like, like murder and like rape and like crazy stuff like that.
Like you really cannot make sense of that because it's nonsensical, but you can understandlike why that person is so different from the rest of society and how their brain is
different.
So I've studied, I've read books and studies and
just like really, really focused on that.
(36:09):
uh And so when I left my first salon, it was not an emotionally supportive environmenteither.
It was very like taboo to talk about emotions and anxiety.
And I obviously had anxiety.
I'm diagnosed with PTSD, so I struggle with that.
uh And it wasn't a supportive environment for that.
So I never wanted to be a salon owner, but I was like so just traumatized by the salon.
(36:32):
So I went and opened up my own salon and said, I'm going to open a salon.
but I'm gonna...
My whole mission statement for this salon is creating a safe space.
I do think that there's a lack of that in this industry.
I think that the Me Too movement never made it to the hair industry.
I think that mental health is taboo to talk about still, not on amongst all.
(36:55):
There is a community that I have in this industry that is very open to talking about it,but it's smaller, I think, than most industries.
And so I just wanted a place for hairstylists to come work at that are mental health
informed or want to be, or maybe they struggle with anxiety or depression and I can be theboss that like understands that, you know, and like helps support them through it because
(37:19):
I am so educated on mental health and also clients as well, you know, like, I got a lot offeedback at my first salon that clients didn't feel comfortable, they didn't feel safe,
they didn't feel comfortable, they felt like not cool enough, they sensed it.
enough, uh okay.
Well, probably a whole range of things that are making them uncomfortable.
Yeah, so many things.
(37:40):
mean, it was true that in the back room, they're all like yapping, talking shit, all thatkind it was very toxic.
So I wanted a space that like is just not like that.
And we've created it.
I mean, we've been open for five years now.
So this space is exactly what I dreamed of.
It's so amazing.
Our clients feel so comfortable.
We get a lot of clients that like find us specifically because of that, um because theyjust, maybe they're neurodivergent and salons scare them.
(38:07):
Maybe they need special
accommodations um Maybe they have extreme anxiety and they need a room that is empty andthey need someone to just like focus on them They can't be around other people and like
we're that space that is informed enough to understand those disabilities I would call itand and really help, you know help them and understand them.
(38:30):
So uh I didn't realize that going to therapy would do all of that, but it did and I'm veryvery passionate about
it.
I'm very passionate about it.
I want to be definitely like a voice of change in this industry and making it more likenormal to talk about, just normalize it.
Okay, so these clients are finding you.
(38:51):
So do you have it on your website?
How are they finding you?
Okay, yeah, so.
a lot of referrals.
We do have a lot of good reviews, so we get a lot of people from that, but a lot ofreferrals and then it's on our website as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how much time every week is spent working with your coworkers on this?
(39:20):
Because if it's part of your brand, which it is, then kind of everybody there needs to beon board.
But it's something that's, I mean, it's not easy to understand and takes time to learn.
And maybe not everybody is going to be as emotionally intelligent about it, right?
Yeah, absolutely, and you don't need to be like this emotionally intelligent, traumainformed person to work at Crick and Co.
(39:47):
But you do have to like be open to those discussions.
And I'm very, very, very picky with who I hire.
uh So I've hired a team that...
All of them are pretty trauma informed.
um All of them are pretty open about their own anxieties, their own depression.
We talk about it a lot.
(40:08):
don't have like trainings on mental health with my staff.
don't do that.
But you know, we at least at least every day that I'm there, we're talking about what'sgoing on in your life.
And, know, are you seeing a therapist?
Are you on medication?
Are you OK?
How is like your workload hurting you right now?
And especially right now,
I was actually just today talking to my therapist about this, how overwhelming it is whenlike the world is kind of on fire and there's a lot of like tension in the world and
(40:38):
people take it out on service providers.
So we've been noticing a lot more of that.
I'm getting like one to two times a week.
I'm getting like bitched out by clients then and that is not normal for us at all.
My coworkers are experiencing it too.
And it's a lot of like.
just things that are like not happening kind of like in their head or like misreadingscenarios.
(41:03):
And it's just like, it just happens with service providers.
So that's taking an effect on everyone's mental health.
And then, you know, just cause we're mental health informed does not mean we put up withthat, you know, like you, so.
Well, a lot of our media these days, there's so much out there about the way that ourmedia is these days and has been for a number of years and whether the human brain was
(41:27):
really built to take in information the way that the media is giving us the information,right?
And kind of boiled down to the general essence of our brain is not used to waking up.
and immediately recognizing all of the horrible things that are happening in the worldevery single day, right?
(41:50):
Which is a lot of what the media is, depending on, of course, which media you consume.
And it's also just on the negative as well because that's what gets clicks.
That's what gets clicks and that's what gets the attention.
so it's social media, of course, the algorithm, if you particularly are into notnecessarily into, but you know, your attention is particularly drawn to, you know, X issue
(42:16):
or Y issue or Z issue, whatever you get inundated with this.
it's like all day, every time you open the app, you're inundated with it.
And our brain's not really built to
Absorb and process that properly of course some people are gonna do it better than others,but I think it it It has caused some issues with customer service and personal care
(42:40):
service uh people
bringing out a lot of already present mental health issues and amplifying them as well.
Like say a client already suffers with bipolar and they're seeing all these things allover and it's overwhelming them and they start having an episode.
Well, they might start acting, I don't want to say crazy, I don't really like that word,but start acting abnormal.
(43:04):
and yeah upset.
Yeah.
And like there's only like so much as a service provider that you really should put upwith.
think boundaries are so important.
Boundaries is such a buzzword right now.
I hate that it's therapy speak as a buzzword, or like buzzwords.
But it really is important to have boundaries with your clients.
(43:24):
They respect you more for it.
And when you don't have them, they will just walk all over you.
So is this like, you know,
give and take kind of thing.
Like I respect you, you respect me.
But it's just, yeah, the chaos is a lot louder right now.
And it's really disheartening.
And even for a salon that is so mental health informed and so kind, I don't think we'veever had like, we've never had a bad review saying that we were like not nice to someone.
(43:52):
Like we really are so kind and compassionate.
And to be getting these texts that, you know, are so like outside of our values is crazy.
We've never received anything like this.
So
I'm sure every hairdresser that is like behind the chair listening can also identify withthat right now.
It's hard.
(44:12):
All right, a little gear shifting here.
I love your uh March 2024 post that you've pinned to your Instagram profile that tellspeople who you are in several colorful descriptive, you know, paragraphs.
And this is something that uh has been talked about for years, you know, ever since wehave this
(44:37):
kind of marketing tool called Instagram or Facebook.
And some people do it, way too many people don't do it and you've done it amazingly well.
So talk about the value of having such a thing.
And maybe for the listeners, I'll be a little bit more descriptive.
it's, I mean, you talk about, you know, who you are, where you're from, the things you'reinto, a little personal stuff in there.
(45:04):
And you basically say, you know,
that this is who I am, you know?
And it satisfies a void that so many social media accounts have, which is like, who isthis person?
It's just a bunch of heads of clients, you know?
And that's not good enough.
(45:25):
So talk about that.
Why should beauty professionals do a post like that?
I think it's so important.
There's a lot of reasons going through my head right now.
I guess the biggest reason going through my head is like, we do not sit with our clientsfor 45 minutes, like a barber.
You know, if you're a colorist, especially, you sit with your clients.
(45:49):
I sit with my clients for like six to nine hours.
Like I'm like with them all day.
So.
If I were a client looking for someone to sit with for that long, I would want to makesure that I wouldn't want to like, you know, jump off the balcony.
Like I want to like enjoy being with this person or we don't have to have like similar,like the same interest or like the exact same values or whatever.
(46:12):
But I want to make sure that this is like a person I want to be around.
First of all, I want to like this person.
And I think that's
really important to a lot of people.
I've gotten that feedback from a lot of people that like they will not go back to someoneeven if their hair rolls, if they just did not like the vibe.
So I think putting out like your vibe is really important.
(46:33):
There's not, you know, not every client is gonna like me.
I know that there's like probably more than half the population that does not wanna sit ina mental health informed, super liberal hairdresser's chair.
I get that, you know?
So I wanna make it very apparent because I also don't wanna spend time with those peoplethat are like that.
So I think making it very clear who you are and not like, you know, you don't need to deepdive into like...
(46:56):
politics or things like that, but making like, you kind of have some of your values clear,think is really important.
uh Putting your interests up there as well.
uh Say there's a client who's like really into music and you play guitar or you were in aband, like they might want to come to you because just because of that.
uh It just puts a face to the brand.
makes you feel more relatable, makes you uh more likeable.
(47:21):
uh Well, I guess to...
certain people.
And yeah, really just puts a face to the brain.
It makes them feel like they kind of already know you.
Also, with neurodivergent people, it's difficult to go into a space where you don't knowthe outcome.
It's very scary.
So if you can figure out who this person is and have like, yourself a little bit, it's alot more comforting.
(47:43):
So yeah, I think it's important for those reasons.
I mean, there's like a hundred reasons it's important.
it's a match.
It's a it's a you're looking for a good match, right with a client and same with a clientwith a hairdresser and you know, it's uh when you know, my friends not in the industry or
shopping for a hairdresser, they're looking for a match just not with the quality of theservice and the type of service, etc.
(48:09):
And price, it's it's that personality match the way you're describing it.
in many ways, it's more important.
So for you to be able to put that out there onto Instagram, and I recommend to everybodyto go to Tina underscore does hair and look at that first post that she has posted on
there that she has pinned on there as kind of a good guide for, you know, the types ofthings that you can share.
(48:35):
And yet I could see some people being like, unsure of how much to share.
And I think you had just a great balance of it.
And so it's it's a really good example.
Thank you.
So given all the things that we talked about, ah what's the most difficult conversationyou've ever had with a client in the chair?
(48:58):
question.
It's not loaded.
It's just, you know, I think it's, I think it's...
Go ahead.
The most difficult conversation I've had with a client like, ugh, like in terms of theirhair.
It could be anything emotional difficulty, you know, I like, I like for our guests on thepod to talk about the difficult things they experience, you know, behind the chair,
(49:28):
because I think it's, it's helpful to the listeners, you know, that, um, the, uh, learningways, learning things, learning that things happen, you know, and other people's chairs
and how to, how to address it.
and give them ideas of how to best do difficult parts of the job.
(49:51):
Yeah, I think there's like the very obvious of like, this color isn't gonna look good onyou, like how to approach that, that's the obvious.
ah But what really sticks out for me, I mean, I am a mental health focused professional,so what really sticks out for me is like when I'm going through something personal, like
for example, my husband and I are diagnosed with infertility, so we're really strugglingwith it right now.
(50:16):
Thank you, we're starting IVF soon.
But we're really really struggling with that right now.
So when a client is like pregnant or You know talking about I weren't even trying and wegot pregnant like those things are so upsetting for me to hear
And it's really, really hard to set boundaries around that because first of all, like Idon't want to talk to every client about my personal life.
(50:38):
Like I just don't feel like comfortable with every single person and I don't want to havethat conversation eight times a day.
You know, I'm picky and choosy about like who I talk to ah and how many times I talk aboutit before I'm burnt out.
So I think things like that, things that like kind of trigger what you're already goingthrough is the most difficult thing for me to navigate ah because it's awkward.
(51:00):
Like the obvious is
say, you know, this is kind of hard for me to talk about.
Can we talk about something else?
But like, let's be so real right now.
That is so awkward.
That's so awkward.
And like, are you going to hurt their feelings?
Like they're excited or maybe they're talking about...
Um, their dog dying, like, you know, and maybe your dog just died.
(51:22):
And so those things, and it's like, it's just not always like comfortable to set thatboundary verbally.
So I think silent boundaries are like really great in that moment.
Like, Oh, you know, I need to go, um, make some more color or you know what this, thisviscosity is not right.
I need to go like put more developer and just go into that and like, just take a moment tobreathe, you know, ground yourself, do your five, four, three, two, one, all the things.
(51:48):
to kind of like get you back into your body and then if you do need to continue talkingabout that conversation like try to pivot very gently try to pivot or um you know come
back and just be like my gosh I had this crazy thing happen to me yesterday and just takethe subject yeah
Yeah, I think that's brilliant.
I think that's absolutely the right way to do it.
(52:11):
And um you essentially interrupt the conversation, you know, by leaving, you know, goingand doing something that's not awkward, but, you know, part of the process and just
changing the subject 100%.
Yeah, great answer.
If you could wave a wand and change anything about the industry at all right now, whatwould it be?
(52:35):
You've kind of already said it.
You already said that more mental health discussion.
Yeah, that's the obvious, right?
And like, yeah, that is what I would choose.
But I have kind of, I do have like a controversial answer to that.
Okay, this is like a personal opinion.
I know other people agree too, but I might ruffle some feathers.
(52:57):
I think that men in this industry are highlighted way too much.
I think that men are highlighted more than women and it's a female dominated industry.
And I think that, you know,
when it comes to, think of like the famous hairdressers, right?
um
Like Chris Appleton, I'm just naming like random men that I know like, Appleton or likewhatever.
(53:21):
I don't think that as much attention is put on women as men.
think men get a really easy pass in this industry because they're a man.
Because they're like, I don't know, first of all, because they're a man, right?
In the patriarchy.
But like secondly, because they're different, they're not a woman.
And it's so easy to overlook women and men are also so much more like assertive anddominant.
(53:43):
And when women are like that, including myself, we are called too much.
So I think that like giving uh all of those opportunities to men more, I see it a lotmore.
It's just my personal opinion.
I haven't done any data on it, but it's my personal opinion that I see a lot morerecognition towards male hairdressers than I do towards female hairdressers.
(54:04):
And in a female dominated industry, I find that weird.
Yeah, no, I hear you and I'm a man.
No, that's not awkward at all.
No, I think you got a point there.
I like that answer and I'm a man.
and you're a man, so I applaud you.
You're comfortable in your sexuality, I love it.
(54:25):
So, hair horror stories is typically, this is the part of the conversation where we talkabout hair horror stories.
I was gonna interrupt you early on in the conversation because you had talked about allyour hair horror stories of the early years and how.
are like social horror stories.
Yeah, well, I mean, the hair horror stories can be social.
(54:48):
know, anything that happened in the salon.
ah Of course, we have lots that are like, you know, I didn't know she had so much, youknow, metal in her hair and her hair burnt off and all that kind of stuff.
We have tons of those.
So I think that, you know, anything interesting is always informative to the audience.
(55:10):
Yeah.
Well, I'll give you a fun one since it's been kind of heavy topic, so I'll give you a funone.
When I was in beauty school, and if there's any beauty school listeners listening to this,I really hope this provides you some comfort.
When I was in beauty school and in high school, I was really anxious.
Remember we talked about PTSD and all those things.
I was really anxious and was convinced I was being bullied, but I wasn't.
(55:31):
uh So in beauty school, this popular girl from high school came to get her hair done byme.
And I was so nervous because she's popular.
and I like just left high school like I was still in that mindset.
Did she know you too?
you from, no, did she know you as well?
(55:53):
You remember her, did she remember you?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I looked back and like, yeah, I should have been more confident in high school.
But anyway, yeah.
all should have been more confident.
oh
little brains are just not developed.
But anyway, she comes in for a balayage and I am like so nervous, but I also was likeoverly confident with balayage in beauty school.
(56:19):
This was when balayage first started, but I was so nervous so I wanted to do a really goodjob.
So I spent four hours applying this balayage perfectly on her.
And when I say perfectly, I mean like...
perfect lines that are all like the same.
Like that does not create a good, like too perfect.
Like that perfect and like no sections in between skipped.
(56:43):
So, and I think I was using like 30 or 40 volume and, Red can flash lift with like, whichis my opinion.
think it sucks, but this girl's hair and I put plastic in between, not even close.
This girl's hair melted off, melted off.
And she was like the popular girl.
I was mortified and like nobody taught us toners in school.
(57:05):
I went to like a school through my community college.
So I didn't even have a teacher for the first few months.
It was just like, yeah, it was a little bit rough.
uh But yeah, I melted off this girl's hair and she didn't say anything in the moment.
It looked so bad.
It was like this brown, yellow, straight line, just like, it's awful.
(57:25):
And the next post I saw on her Instagram was that she went to a salon and cut all her hairoff.
And I will never forget that moment.
That is like probably my biggest, besides like cutting through someone's ear once, that'slike my biggest hair horror story.
Yeah.
the dynamics of the girl there in the high school and everything, yeah.
(57:49):
That's horrible.
That's when you want to just like quail together.
Yeah, totally.
They do!
They do and then 10 years later you're like, that's funny!
Right, we can all laugh about it on a podcast 15 years later.
her hair grew back.
It's fine.
Yeah.
oh
any last words for the community?
(58:12):
Well, I guess if you liked anything we talked about or if you feel um like you'restruggling in the place that you're at, please feel free to message me.
I love it when people message me and talk to me about these things.
think growing a community um is the most important.
Like we said, it's like my wish I could wave a magic wand.
(58:33):
yeah, message me.
I swear I'm not like scary or gonna be mean or bite you.
So that's what I have to say,
Amazing.
Love it.
Tina underscore does hair.
Thank you so much.
This is a great conversation.
I loved it
much for having me.
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