Good Neighbor Podcast: Frisco

EP 318: Hair is more than just style—it's ministry and connection.

• Sophia Yvette

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What makes Grae Wilson-Scott with Favor Salon a Good Neighbor?

Step into the world of hair artistry and spiritual connection with Grae Wilson-Scott, the visionary behind Favor Salon. Her journey began with childlike curiosity, helping her older sister style her hair for special occasions and being fascinated by the mystery of hair extensions. That fascination blossomed into formal training through her high school's cosmetology program, launching a career that has now spanned decades and touched countless lives.

Grae's approach to hair transcends traditional styling. "This is not just a career for me, this is my ministry," she shares, describing how each client who sits in her chair feels divinely appointed. From her two salon locations in Plano and Duncanville, Texas, she serves a diverse clientele across all hair textures, cultures, and ages—"from two to 92." Her 90-year-old client who rocks pixie cuts with spikes exemplifies the transformative power Grae brings to each appointment.

The conversation reveals both practical wisdom and profound insights. Grae dispels common misconceptions, like the trend of clients pre-shampooing before appointments, explaining how professional salon shampooing offers a therapeutic experience through scalp massage and pressure point stimulation that simply can't be replicated at home. More movingly, she shares her personal battles with thyroid and uterine cancer, using her testimony to encourage clients facing similar health challenges.

What emerges is a portrait of a stylist who sees beyond hair to the heart of each person in her chair. "We're more alike than we are different," Grae reflects, describing connections that cross boundaries of race, religion, and background. Whether you're seeking a stunning new look or a space for healing and connection, Grae's story reminds us that sometimes the most profound transformations begin with something as seemingly simple as a haircut.

To learn more about Favor Salon go to: 🌐 favorsalon.com

 Favor Salon
 📞 +1 817-938-0077

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Sophia Yvette.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a hair salon? Well, one may be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor Gray Wilson Scott with the Favor Salon. Gray, how are you this morning?

Speaker 3:

I am exceptionally awesome. How about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that answer. Yeah, I am feeling great myself too. Now we are excited to learn all about you and your business. Can you start off by telling our listeners just a little bit about your company?

Speaker 3:

Well, I am known to the industry as Favorite Salon. Again, my name is Gray. I'm a multicultural full service salon located in Plano, texas, and I actually have two locations. I'm also located in Duncanville, so I'm pretty spread in between the two locations and it is exciting to offer services to all types of cultures, all type of hair textures, from two to 92.

Speaker 2:

Wow, now I'm sure you have an exciting story when it comes to this, but how do you get started in this business?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's interesting enough, I have an older sister and she started me with assisting her with getting her hair together for dances, dates, things of that nature. She's five years older than I am, so she would call me in to help her curl the back of her head that she can see, or to tease or to cover holes that she can see in her perfect hairstyle. So I took that and ran with it. She actually wore extensions in high school and when she would ask me to come in and assist her I was so curious as a child. I'm like how do they do this? That's the first time I'd ever been introduced to sew-ins and the nine-year-old or nine and a half year old mind was how did they sew the hair in without her having pain or scabs or things like that? So I was naturally curious about how they actually installed extensions. So I traveled with her to her salon appointment and that opened up everything for me. I was so amazed at how the stylist used braiding and the threading to add extensions and how she cut and curl and I'm like, oh my goodness, every doll, every Barbie, every Farrah Fawcett mannequin head that I could get my hands on. I was trying to do something similar or to recreate that hairstyle to those.

Speaker 3:

So as I grew older, my high school offered a cosmetology program and my mom was the stickler If you can get a certification coming out of high, get it. So I adventured and took the class. It was daunting at the time because it took up three classes my junior and senior year so I had to be selective in classes and be on point and make sure my grades were great so I could keep everything together. But I did graduate at the top of my class with a cosmetology license which opened the door right after high school. I didn't have to chase for a career. I had my eyes set what I wanted to do before I even graduated high school. So that has afforded me a very lovely lifestyle, from just styling hair to extensions not just installing but selling them, creating medical grade wigs and units and, you know, personality pieces. So it's been a great, great ride and journey.

Speaker 2:

Wow, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Now, what is the most common myth or misconception you come across in your industry?

Speaker 3:

Recently it's been arriving to your appointment pre-shampooed have heard of such but the last 10 to 15 clients transparency moment that I've had come into my salon have asked me prior to their appointment do I need to be shampooed or do I need to wash my hair? And that makes me cringe because as professional stylists we know we only wash clothes and cars. We shampoo hair, so those main things. That's taking one of the most enjoyable services that we give away from us. We love to shampoo and that's relaxing and your quote unquote wash is totally different than our shampoo in the salon you actually get it feels different when you have another person's fingers on your scalp and massaging and we're hitting pressure points and it's just a relaxing part of the service that's being taken away. I don't understand why they don't do that anymore. That's a misconception. You have to get your hair salon shampooed. It's totally different. It's totally different. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

As someone who loves getting my hair done myself, I would agree 100%.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Now we know marketing is the heart of every business. Who are your target clients and how do you currently attract them?

Speaker 3:

are those professional women. I am a retired educator myself, so I tend to gravitate toward those women and young ladies that are educators, corporate, but very stylish and savvy, if that makes sense, and my clientele ranges from 19 to 90. I have a 90-year-old client that is sassy as they come. She loves her pixies with her spikes and her tapered sides with her salt and pepper silver hair. It is amazing how a hairst, a hairstyle, can change a woman and she just comes alive. She comes in one way. She gets her hair done. She finds that perfect cut and or that perfect style that just wakes her up. It is amazing. They turn around, they see themselves in the mirror a totally different way than they did when they arrived. It's a brush, I love it, so that's. It doesn't matter the hair texture, the hair length or whatever Hair is hair.

Speaker 3:

In my book, how I came up, I'm one of those. What do they call them? Old school stylists. So nothing in my 30. There's nothing that I haven't seen or tried or come across that I can't handle color cutting, shampooing, even the the dark side, when they come in and they're experiencing hair loss, the alopecia that I'm seeing a lot of due to medications and births and breastfeeding, and how they come in thinking that they are experiencing the worst hair devastation that they've ever come across. And it's an easy fix, something as simple as continuing to take your prenatal vitamins or not drinking a soda before you come in, because it gets your pH off. So it's a lot of different things that we can do. It's interesting. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2:

Now, have you ever thought about having your own podcast?

Speaker 3:

I have, I have and it's in the works. Actually, I'm just trying to hone in on exactly what I want to talk about, because there's so many things I want to express, because this is not just a career for me, this is my ministry, so I know my talent was given to me by God. It's not just for me. And with each client that comes in I don't necessarily go out to gather clients. I depend on God to send them, because he knows exactly what I need, he knows what they need, he knows what I have in me and what they have in them. And when they come and sit in my chair it's almost climactic come and sit, how the sparks fly and how the conversation goes and you just never know. I've seen people that have experienced their spouses dying and they come in and they feel so much better. God always gives me a word to give them, to encourage them and help them. Or someone that experienced a miscarriage.

Speaker 3:

And recently we've had a couple of clients to come in and they have had bouts with cancer and I've had cancer twice and they look at me and they don't understand how I look and move and perform the way I do. And it's God I have to give them my testimony and how I had thyroid cancer in 2012. And I had it for seven years and they couldn't find it. They didn't understand what it was until it was removed and it was kept in stage zero the entire time, that it didn't grow and didn't get into my lymph nodes and I'm still able to talk, I'm still able to sing in my church choir and I'm healthy. And then for uterine cancer to show up in 2012, I mean 2021, excuse me and how it was caught by my gynecologist before I even made it to my uterine wall.

Speaker 3:

Things like that To keep people encouraged, to know that there's something bigger than us that connects us all and the state of the world, what it's in. We're more alike than we are different. And that's the part I love about whoever comes to sit in my chair black, white, jewish, uh, indian, it doesn't matter. They all different creeds, color, style, whatever they come and sit in the chair and I try to connect with them on some level and it becomes a relationship and it's it's amazing to me. I'm so grateful that whoever comes to sit in my chair, how I try to make them feel welcome, that there you have a listening ear, you have a shoulder and it's. It's a journey that we can all go on together, so I hope that wasn't too well well, that certainly sounds like a movement from God.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for sharing that beautiful story with our listeners today. And where can our listeners go to learn more about the Favor?

Speaker 3:

Salon. Well, like I said before, I am located in Plano, texas, at the corner of Alma and West Parker Road, and in Duncanville I am at Camp Wisdom and Main Street in Salon 215. In Plano, I am located in Salon 74.

Speaker 2:

Website. Is there a good website?

Speaker 3:

It is actually I am rebranding, so it is coming soon. It is the Favor Collective that's also coming, is the favor collective that's also coming. And you can reach me at oh Instagram, GL Wilson 45, or at the favorite salon.

Speaker 2:

Well, great. I really appreciate you being on this show. We wish you and your business the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Friscocom. That's GNP Friscocom, or call 4, 6, 9, 2, 2, 1, 9, 3, 4, 5. 1-9-3-4-5.