4 - How Following Her Passion Changed Nichole Clark’s Life

Nestled in the heart of North Florida, Clean & Curly Salon is more than a hair salon — it’s a calming space where women are encouraged to embrace their natural beauty and feel confident in their curls. Nichole Clark shares her inspiring journey from social work and therapy to becoming a curly hair specialist and entrepreneur, building a business rooted in authenticity, clean beauty, wellness, and genuine connection.

This conversation explores entrepreneurship, motherhood, personal growth, and the courage it takes to leave behind a career that no longer aligns. Nichole opens up about building a purpose-driven business, creating a serene experience for her clients, and why “sometimes pain is necessary for growth.” A heartfelt episode for entrepreneurs, creatives, and anyone learning to trust themselves and follow what truly lights them up.

Connect with Nichole Clark: @SalonCleanCurly

This episode's Founding Sponsor: www.anastasiadesigngroup.com and find them on social media:  IG @AnastasiaDesignGroup and on FB @AnastasiaDesignGroup

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to Clean & Curly Salon
01:05 – From Social Work to the Hair Industry
02:47 – Leaving a Career That No Longer Felt Aligned
04:21 – Discovering a Passion for Curly Hair
09:20 – Becoming a Business Owner Unexpectedly
14:32 – Building a Salon Focused on Comfort & Connection
18:17 – Motherhood, Entrepreneurship & Flexibility
22:43 – Morning Routines, Family Life & Balance
33:28 – Clean Beauty, Non-Toxic Products & Healthy Hair
43:11 – Mantras, Growth & Following Your Purpose

Connect with Host Leandra Sweet: @TheSoulLedSessions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

I moved here to St. Augustine, Florida, to live my dream life. It didn't take long to realize, other people did too. People who took a leap, followed what they loved, and built something of their own in this magical little town. The Soul led sessions is about those people, the stories behind the businesses you see, visit, and fall in love with. Not just what they've created, but what it really took to get there. The risks, the pivots, the moments that changed everything, and what it actually looks like to build a life that feels aligned. These conversations are here to connect you to the heart of entrepreneurship and maybe even to what's possible for your own life.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

I'm here with Nicole Clark at Cleaning Curly Salon in Mandarin in North Florida. Hi Nicole, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm great, thank you. Um, I want to talk a little bit about your beautiful salon, your space here, dedicated to curly haired ladies all over Florida, really, and Georgia.

SPEAKER_05 1:15

Yeah, we do. We actually do get some people from Georgia.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Awesome. Tell us a little bit about how you got started in the hair industry.

SPEAKER_05 1:23

Oh, in the hair industry. Okay. I was actually in college. I was going for a completely different. I was going to college for social work.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:31

That was my major. And I happened to answer an ad out of the paper because that's how you found jobs. Way back then. Uh they were looking for an assistant manager for a hair salon. And that's what I did. I I got the job. It was great. That's what I did while I was in college. Um, and I fell in love with hair then. At the time, it was not my intention to go into hair. I just feel like I lucked into it and I I kind of dabbled ever since then. So I ended up doing social work for a long time. I actually um went on and got a master's degree and a license. So I uh was a licensed therapist until about six months ago. I I let my license go. But yeah, I could I could have done like private practice and all that stuff. But I just I never loved it. And I always in the back of my mind was thinking back to hair and I would do my friends' hair and stuff on the side. And I finally, when I was 31, I was just tired of hating my job.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Nice.

SPEAKER_05 2:23

I was tired of waking up crying on Monday mornings. And I at 31 signed up for hair school and started at 32. 31 and 32. Wow. And that was the end of that. That was really bad. No. I I had to work the whole time I was in hair school, so it took me a really long time to get through. I was working. So you were still working as a social worker. I was working in substance abuse treatment. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

That's heavy.

SPEAKER_05 2:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

This is much lighter. Although there is a therapy to care.

SPEAKER_05 2:52

There really is. Yeah, there really is. But I I really credit my my time as a social worker with teaching me how to open up and communicate. I was very, very shy as a kid. Very like painfully, painfully shy. I was like the nerdy kid. And I I really, as a because of social work, I had to learn how to be a good communicator and be direct and be able to ask people questions. And I credit that with you know with my ability to communicate with my clients now and be able to try to you know parcel out what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Anything.

SPEAKER_05 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Wow. When I spoke with you um another time, you told me that you think of I forget how you put it, your your therapy, you you do more for your clients now than you did as a therapist.

SPEAKER_05 3:39

So much.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

So much more.

SPEAKER_05 3:41

So much more. Because, you know, in the the fields that I was in as a social worker, people were mandated. You know, they weren't forced by the courts or by like child protected services to go to treatment. They didn't want to. No.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Oh, that makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

It makes a huge difference. And you know, people come here because they're seeking out what we do.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

So tell us a little bit about how you honed in on curly hair and made that your passion.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

Yeah, I feel like that was also by accident. Like I just, you know, there's so many things in life that are just so serendipitous. I had um spent the first seven years of my hair career working at a place called Naked Hair in Delry Beach, Florida. And I still think of that as very much my hair home. It was the first place I near hair home. Yeah. I've not heard that before. Yeah. You know, it was a husband and wife that owned it, and they were they were great. But at the end, but right before I ended up leaving, you could kind of tell that the the writing was on the wall, the the salon was going to close very soon. And I had gone to a curly hair salon that was in the area. I cheated on my salon and I went to go get a curly cut because I kept getting even from my coworkers who were very good hairdressers. I kept getting messed up haircuts. And I ended up with you know one that had layers up to here on one side and down to here on the other side. And I was like, I need to go get this fixed. Wow. So I went to this curly salon, and the woman that ended up cutting my hair was the manager at the time. And when she found out I did hair, she's like, You need to come work here. She said she was moving in a couple of months, so she was gonna train me how to do curly hair and then give me her finance. Oh my goodness. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Fell into your lap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Sounds like every step of the way happened that way. Serendipitous thing.

SPEAKER_05 5:28

I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

Sometimes life gifts it to you that way.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 5:32

You know?

SPEAKER_04 5:33

How beautiful. But you were open to that. You were open to receive that.

SPEAKER_05 5:35

And so I mean, I'm not saying I didn't have it in the back of my mind that, like, you know, that I was sort of checking out the place. I checked out a few other places. I would go in as a client, I would go to get a blow dryer or something like that, just to see how it felt as a client before I walked in as an employee. Oh, that's smart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

So then you took over her client.

SPEAKER_05 5:54

So I I left I left naked hair and there was a lot of tears involved, and I felt horrible giving my notice. And uh but I went to you know, I went to this other place, and that's what happened. There, um, she helped train me for a little bit, and they did a couple of like in salon trainings that were provided by DivaCurl, which were great. Yeah, divacurl was the business back then when it came to curly hair training.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

10-15 years ago or this was 17, 2017. Oh, okay. And not even 10. Yeah. Wow, yeah. And then you got that full training through DevaCurl.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Through DevaCurl. We did a couple at the shop, and just being immersed in it, you're gonna learn more every day. You're touching all these different kinds of curls. And you know, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but I learned, you know, you weren't. Yeah, a little bit. And then um I took the level two training through DevaCurl in New York. It was a like a three-day, very intense, really good education. Wow. Yeah, probably still the best curly hair education class I've ever taken. And I'm so sad that they don't have those anymore.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

They don't do them anymore. Oh, so your your knowledge is even more coveted. Your knowledge is even more coveted because it's you can't go out there and get it anymore.

SPEAKER_05 7:12

Not that particular brand. Yeah, there are some other coding companies that have similar techniques, similar um ideas. Um, but Rezo does a lot of really good curly stuff. I've taken a couple of their trainings. Um I did uh curl by curl with Laurie Nassi, who's who founded Diva Curl. She was great. I've taken um the raw curls training, which was mixed wet and dry cutting.

SPEAKER_04 7:38

Um interesting.

SPEAKER_05 7:40

Yeah. And I've done some online stuff too.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

And you're always open to more education.

SPEAKER_05 7:44

Oh, yeah, that's definitely my plan for 2026 is to take myself and whoever happens to be here with me at the time to something.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Wow. To go get training.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

That's cool.

SPEAKER_05 7:55

You always have to be continuing your education. Absolutely. Even when you niche down an air, there's so much to learn. There's always a new technique or a new and at this point, I don't feel like there's going to be anything like super groundbreaking to learn. Um, but there's always that little improvement or that that little thing that maybe you didn't think of before you can pick up.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

And new products probably that come out. And that's really with any any industry though. You you if you close off to that education, your learning ends and your growth ends, right? You want to keep growing as a business owner and as an entrepreneur, as a stylist, yeah, as a master of your craft, right? Yeah, that's cool. So then tell us how you transitioned from working for someone else in a salon to having your own place.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

I never really wanted to be a business owner.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

You didn't? No. Oh.

SPEAKER_05 8:44

I never came into this with the intention of like, I'm gonna open a shop. But I I moved to Jacksonville um in 2020, like right before the pandemic. And after everything opened up in Florida, I was working at a salon in World Golf Village as a booth renter. And I was like marketing and advertising and trying to get in new people. And within a year of starting there, I had to stop taking new clients because I was booked out too far. Wow. And it was stressing me out. It was I was booked out like 13 or 14 weeks at that point.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

And you were just renting a chair in a salon.

SPEAKER_05 9:19

Yeah. And it, you know, it's it's a great problem to have, but it stresses you out because like if one of the kids ever got sick, or if I ever got sick and I had to reschedule somebody, it'd be three or four months before I could get them back in. And that's not like that to me, that's not service. No, right. And service is like this is the service industry, like whatever you know. I know I don't want I don't mean this to sound away, but like I know a lot of successful hairdressers are like, I'm an artist, I'm a this, I'm a that. But if it if if you're not serving your clientele, like you you you have to be service-minded. You have to think about how long does it take somebody to get in for an appointment? How easy is it to make an appointment?

SPEAKER_04 9:55

You know, but you're just a natural entrepreneur. You have this natural ability to recognize the industry that you're in, what your clientele wants. Like it's really, it just flows with you, it seems. You don't have to overthink it, or do you?

SPEAKER_05 10:10

I don't know. I never really thought of that that way. But just some so having that experience, I did start thinking about if if I'm booked out this far after only a year in this area, like that is a shortage of this service for curly haired people in this area. Yeah. That means that there's a hole that needs to be filled.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Right.

SPEAKER_05 10:30

So that's kind of when I started thinking about maybe I do need to open something up. And I like I thought about it and I hemmed and haunted, and I kind of contemplated it for probably two years, started gathering ideas and just thinking if I did do this, like what would I what would I want it to look like? You know, and I started kind of looking for places. I I think I saw a salon that had gone out of business, and I was like, you know, if I could like scoot into there and just take over that space, like maybe that would make sense. And you know, obviously that one didn't work out, and it took me about another two years to actually find this space. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

So two years of thinking and and planning and waiting for a place to open up, but you already kind of had by the time the place was available, you already sort of had the plan, right? What'd you say?

SPEAKER_05 11:21

I would say for the most part, yeah. I I had you know snooped around and like what chairs would I uh you know, what chairs would I have because you want a chair that reclines, you want your client to be comfortable. Right. So I found ones that have like a little neck thing that comes up so that there's support on your head while you're reclining. So just little details like that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

You're so conscious of that, of the the details and and really pleasing your client, really. I try to be.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

And I know I know that not everybody that sat in my chair has has loved me, unfortunately. That's I mean, that's true with parts of the parts, right? Yeah, but I really, you know, I've been a client, so I try to think about things from that point of view. Like, you know, my my first curly cut that I got for the styling, she she flipped me forward to put in all the product, and then I stayed forward the whole time she was drying my hair. So I was upside down for like 30 minutes at that point, and yeah, it was like my back hurt, my neck hurt. So it was I, you know, you kind of when you've been through the experience, you think about it from that point of view also. Like, how can I make this comfortable for someone so that their back isn't hurting or their neck isn't hurting? That's the only time I've ever had a curly cut is forward.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

Yeah, upside down.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Yeah. So that's why you know, when we when we had the chairs that recline, you can you can go back, you can go forward, you can beautiful change positions every once in a while.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

When you started your business, did you set a goal? It sounds like everything just fell into place for you and you got booked before you even had time to set a goal or a chance to set a goal. But did you have a goal in mind when as far as this place goes? Both maybe before you had your own place and this place. I guess this place. Let's focus on this place.

SPEAKER_05 12:55

Um, I don't know that I had a specific goal in mind when I started. I think I had spent so much time thinking about just getting it off the ground that that was really my first, that was my focus for the, you know, the six months leading up to it, and then the six months after we opened, is just like getting things up and operational. And you know, it took it took a long time for some of the other things to fall in place. Yeah. Like retail was a big thing in the beginning. I opened in October and I don't think I had retail until like mid-November because just waiting on paper. A lot, sure.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

But my my goal at this point, now that we've been open for a year, my goal at this point is to really build up the one stylist that I have and then possibly bring in another stylist once she's built. I don't want to like overload and spread the workout too far so that nobody's you know, you don't want competition within your own salon. Yeah. You know, I want us all to be able to be successful and feed our families and ourselves and all of that kind of stuff. So I've worked places where they just overload the floor. They'll have eight stylists on the floor and like two walk-ins a day, and you're literally sitting in the back room for like eight hours going, like, I gotta feed my kids. What am I gonna do? Yeah, that's awful. So I've never wanted to do that.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Right. I like that plan is to have yourself fulfill and your your employee fulfill. Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

And then possibly bring on, you know, another another person who wants to specialize in curl.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Amazing. So you continue to set goals. That was my next question. Is you had a goal that when you got started, but you continue to set goals along the way, especially once everything gets put into place, all the pieces start to fit.

SPEAKER_05 14:35

Yeah, yeah. And and once you see how things shake out, you know, sometimes you have to pivot.

SPEAKER_04 14:41

Um pivoting.

SPEAKER_05 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

Yes, that's important. I think in any business to pivot to learn how to pivot. You get good at pivoting as a business owner.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

We've had some just this week. Really? Just this week. What was your um biggest surprise or biggest thing that was the most unexpected thing that happened since you started?

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Since I've started.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Um that's a tough question, I know.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

I think the the biggest surprise upon opening was that I was fully staffed when I was open. When I opened it, and I didn't think that that would happen. Wow. Yeah. I am no longer fully staffed though.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

Yeah. Um that's amazing. Yeah. It was at the time. How long did it take your business from the time you found the place, let's say, because there were there was like a two-year period you said before the time you found a place until the time you opened for business. How long?

SPEAKER_05 15:44

It actually felt really fast. I want to say it was either like late June or early July when I actually found this spot quite by accident. And then I opened on October 1st. October 1st, yeah.

unknown 15:59

My gosh, what awesome.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

It's like two or three months. Yeah, I opened on my mom's birthday. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, I was I once I saw that it was a possibility, I like really pushed for it. Like my mom has been a huge supporter. I I honestly wouldn't be where I am without my mom. That's another question I have for you, really. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

She's like my mom has mine back in so many ways. Uh she's local. Oh, so she comes in here and supports you too.

SPEAKER_05 16:24

She's my only straight hair client.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

Really? Oh, I love that. Not no curly hair from mom.

SPEAKER_05 16:29

No, no, definitely came from dad's side. Well, she's your only straight hair client. She's my only hair client. No, well, I maybe have one or two sprinkled and I'm not taking it up. But like she's my she's my she's my straight hair client. Whenever whenever anyone asks me if I do straight hair, I'm like, yes, I see my mom. But she's why we moved up here. We wanted uh to be closer to family.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

So nice.

SPEAKER_05 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

And you have one son.

SPEAKER_05 16:51

I have one son and one daughter.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

One daughter, right? And they're how old are they?

SPEAKER_05 16:55

Um, she's 10 and he will be seven in um a month. Oh, nice. Yeah. Wow. I was pregnant with him when I opened my suite in 2018.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

Okay. So 2018 when you opened your suite. Oh.

SPEAKER_05 17:11

And you were pregnant, very pregnant. I was like, I was probably six months pregnant.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

Wow. So nothing stops you really from I guess not pursuing your dreams.

SPEAKER_05 17:19

I didn't really think about it. Yeah. It that felt like a had to at a time at that time. It really felt like a had to.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Yeah. You felt the pressure, or you felt just the push, or the how honest do you want me to be? Honest. Honest.

SPEAKER_05 17:32

I was working in a very toxic environment and had to get out.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Toxic, physically toxic, mentally, both emotionally toxic. Mentally. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 17:41

We had absentee owners, and the place was basically being run by the set receptionist. And she was, she was a potster. She fly. She would engineer situations to make people look bad. And I don't know why she would like have access to do my own booking. So they had to go through her to book. And she like the final straw was like one of my clients had texted me and said, Can I get an appointment? So I said to her, hey, my client wants to book an appointment. And she said, They have to call. So my client then called the shop and she walked out of the shop to go outside and smoke a cigarette instead of taking my client's phone call after she told them to call the shop. Oh my goodness. That was the final straw, and that wasn't even it. It wasn't even it. Yeah, that was just no. I'm pretty sure she was stealing tips the entire time.

SPEAKER_04 18:28

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 18:29

Yeah, it was bad. That's all.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

And I just couldn't, I couldn't do it anyway. So you knew you had to get out, and that's so that was that was when you started your own chair. You rented a chair.

SPEAKER_05 18:39

And that was when I opened it.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

So there was like a there was like a five-year period between that time and opening your own shop completely.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

Um yeah, so that was I had that one for a year. And I actually closed it because we were gonna move up here. So I had it from 2018 to 2019, and then we moved up here in January 2020, and then I opened this October of 24.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Oh my god. That's fine.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

I'm in that time flying zone too. I don't know what's happening. So you're able to work full time here while your kids are in school, while your kids are being cared for, and nights as well, weekends as well.

SPEAKER_05 19:28

Um, I try to do every other Saturday. I don't like working Saturdays because I do miss that time with my family. But I understand that some people can only come on Saturday. So every other is a yeah, I was doing every for a long time and it just we had no family time.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

We had no because when you're, you know, when when dad works Monday through Friday and mom works whatever, and Saturday, your only family day is Sunday, and we would be playing catch-up every Sunday and just doing chores, and and we would never have any fun together as a family. So, like for the sake of my family, I stepped back on Saturdays and took like a pretty good hit to my income.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Good for you though, for recognizing that you needed that time together and prioritizing. I think that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur as well, is even if it means sacrifice in areas, you know, in financial areas or in other areas, you're you can you have the the ability to prioritize family first if you want to.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

It's it's I'm very blessed.

SPEAKER_05 20:26

Yeah. Like if I had continued on as a social worker, I would not have the flexibility to be with my kids as much as I am. Right. To set my own hours so that I can work around their schedule.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:37

You know, I get them off to school and then I get ready for work and then it's so nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

So you can take a leisurely morning.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

I mean, I wouldn't call it leisurely.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

I was gonna ask you if you have a morning routine.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

I yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_04 20:49

I like to hear um successful people whether or not they have a morning routine. I think it's really I just think it's always telling. Really? I think so.

SPEAKER_05 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

What is your morning routine if you don't mind sharing?

SPEAKER_05 21:01

Um, well, the alarm goes off at six. I usually hit snooze. I'm a sleeper. I would sleep, you know, I I bought it. Usually sleep, absolutely. I usually then go and wake up my daughter, and the dog follows me into her room night. The dog has to make sure both the kids are up before she'll come downstairs for the day. So I'll go, I'll go wake up my daughter and send her downstairs to start eating breakfast with dad, and then I'll go get my son up. And then we'll go downstairs together.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Nice.

SPEAKER_05 21:34

And um, it's it's you know, getting the lunches together, yeah, getting them like a couple days a week. I'd walk my daughter to school.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

Yeah, and I I really like where we live because it is it is walkable, it's bikeable. You know what I mean? It's it's nice to be close to we're close to the pool, we're close to the playground, we're close to, you know, and I I wanted that. Like I had looked at those community spaces.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:57

Um, and you would have had to drive everywhere, and it was just

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Right. No. No. I like that too. Walking around.

SPEAKER_05 22:03

Yeah. And then and it honestly it it gets I get to exercise. Yeah. Oh sure. Go for a walk in the morning.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

And nothing's better than fresh air in the morning. So nice. I know that's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

The weather this morning was just perfect. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I walk her to school and then um some days we get my son on the bus and then some days I drive him to therapy. Depending on the day. And then just depending on the day after she's at school or after he's on the bus, I will I'm jumbling because it's different, it's different every day. No, it's okay. The days that I take him to the bus, I try to work out at the house. Nice. So like if I t if I walk her, that's my workout for the day. If I take him to the bus, I come home and I do some weightlifting while I watch trash TV.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Nice. Yeah, I love it. Trash TV.

SPEAKER_05 22:49

So do some weightlifting because you know at our age we have to keep the muscle. Yeah, can't lose muscle. Absolutely. And then I get ready for work and come here. I usually take my first client at 10. I try to get here by like 9:30 just because there's always something that needs to be done.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_05 23:04

Yeah. So, you know, come in here and night clean up a little bit and get the day.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

First client at 10.

SPEAKER_05 23:09

First clients at 10. And then I'll work till you know, it depends on the day, anywhere between like six and eight.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

Oh, really? So you do work into the evening. Yeah. Nice. To keep those that clientele coming in. That's a that's a long day. Ten to six or ten to eight is long.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

Yeah. Well, Wednesday's my short day. So I'm here Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every other Saturday, and then there's a lot of you know behind the scenes work. So Wednesdays are pretty short. So it all evens out. You know.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

Do you hire out for any of the work that you don't like doing, or do you do it all yourself?

SPEAKER_05 23:41

Everything.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

Everything. All the bookkeeping, all the ordering, all the yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

All the all the accounting, which is a struggle. Like it's not my I honestly wish that I could afford to hire all that out and just do the hair. Yeah. You know? Well, someday.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

That's that's a goal, sounds like that a goal.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Yeah. That's great. So you must be working a lot at home as well, beyond the hours that you're here.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

I do I do, you know, most of the social media. Wow. Most of the SEO. Wow. All of the SEO. Amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

That's a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

It is. But you know, I'm trying to build and I'm I'm trying to build myself and I'm trying to build my stylus. And you know, I I really valuable, I'm really valuable. I really value the stylus that I have here. She's um, she's young, she's really talented, she's really smart, she's really open to learning. Wow. I just I feel really blessed to have her. You know, she puts in a lot of work too. And so I'm really, I really am trying very hard to like work on building the recognition and and making sure that like when people search, we come up pretty high on the list so that I can support her in her career too, you know.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

What a great feeling to be able to not only support yourself and your family, but someone else and their family. That's huge. That's like even just one person right now is that's like the culmination of entrepreneurship. Like that's the goal, right? Yeah, is to be able to to afford to provide for someone else's family. That's huge.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Amazing. What an accomplishment. In just one year.

SPEAKER_05 25:25

Well, I don't know if I've accomplished that yet, but we're we're trying. We're trying. We're trying. And you know, eventually I'd like to have all of the chairs filled and just keep a nice, cozy little, like it it feels very much it's calm here, it's serene, it's not insane, it's not loud, it's not, you know what I mean? Like it's very chill and I like it.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Yeah, I like it that way. You don't want it to be fast-paced and quick and in and out.

SPEAKER_05 25:55

I don't want it to be one of these high-end, like super busy, like noise everywhere. Like, I value serenity. And I feel it for the most part, it feels pretty serene here.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Absolutely. The energy in here is beautiful. And I feel like it's it feels very unrust and very, but you're getting it done too. I mean, you're not taking so much time that it's slowing people down in their day. You're like, you're balancing just enough time with your client with getting the job done, but making them feel unrushed, making them feel welcome.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

I we uh that's really that really is the goal. Like I've worked places where we had to do a curly cut start to finish in an hour, and it's just not enough time. It's just not a way, especially like as much hair as you thought, right? Yeah. Like I we had assistance there, so there would be somebody else doing part of the work. Right. But I really like it to feel very personal. Like I want to take my client, I want to take my client to the shampoo bowl and start to finish. Literally, this is how you shampoo your hair. Yeah, this is how you make sure that you set the canvas for your hair to accept conditioner. This is how you apply your conditioner to make sure that your hair is able to soak up everything it needs to soak up.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Because that's a whole thing with curly hair. And I've learned this in my probably 25 years of educating myself. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing when I was younger, but I just throw some mousse in it and go. Um, and using, you know, my mom, I won't even tell you the things that my mom did with my hair as a kid, but she did not know what to do with my hair. But there is a system, and everybody's different because we all have different curl patterns and textures, and right. So, and you're dealing with all kinds of different ethnicities with curly hair as well. So having that knowledge and educating your client so they go home and they can do that at home rather than just saying, Oh, you look pretty today and off you go. See you in eight weeks. You're giving them that training so they can get that at home, which is huge. 100%.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

And that is such a big part of the focus, is that it's like, I want to teach you everything you need to know about how to do your hair yourself so that you can like it every day. Yeah. Not just when you leave here.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

That's that's a whole different ballgame when it comes to hair in any salon, I feel like not not anybody, certainly not everybody, gets education when they go to a salon, whether you have straight hair, curly hair, whatever, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:18

Well, I mean, you know, like we've we've grown up getting bad advice. Yes. And sometimes you there's so much information out there online. Yeah. It's you can muddle through hours and hours and hours. Yeah. And there's some good information, and there's some information that's not going to apply to every person because not every curl is this true. Yeah. So to have somebody who understands the different who can just like whittle it down for you. Right. And be like, don't worry about what all of the influencers said. This is what I think applies best to your own hair.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Exactly. Because they're coming in then probably with questions and with here's what I saw on TikTok.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

All the time. This is what AI told me.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

That's the one that we're hearing.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

This is what AI told me to do. Um no. Yeah. So like we've been we've been fed a lot of bad information. So like to rush you through a cut or to rush you through a style is not doing you any service. No, absolutely not. It's, you know, how do you how do you learn how to love your hair? Like so many of us were taught that we had bad hair or frizzy hair or poofy hair, or you know, like let's teach you.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Creepy hair is what I was told. Actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

Yeah. So let's teach you how to love what you're naturally given. And then not have to alter yourself to feel accepted.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

Right. Because how many curly haired girls, and this is probably a place to a lot of you go and straighten their hair, get it chemically straightened, try to use straighteners, which is horrible for your hair to burn it out like that on the day, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

Doing the opposite of what I used to even dye my hair black when I was young with with, you know, washout. It was supposed to be like a six-week thing that ended up being quite permanent.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

And that was not a fun experience. But you know, doing things like that to change instead of just embracing what you have.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Yeah. I mean, we live in Florida. You straighten your hair and then you walk outside and it comes right back up.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Like, no kidding. You know, right away.

SPEAKER_05 30:19

Why did I spend all that time and sweat and energy and you know, yeah, yeah. You gotta learn how to love in in all weather. Yeah, you know, you straighten your hair and then you feel like you can't go outside because it's gonna get wet. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

Oh my gosh, can't get wet. Yeah, I've done that many times.

SPEAKER_05 30:36

And then you know, the chemical straighteners, you mentioned the chemical straighteners, they're so toxic.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Oh, they're so toxic. The chemical straighteners. I don't even know how people their hair doesn't just burn out. I mean, it does fry it.

SPEAKER_05 30:48

Sometimes it does. Yeah, sometimes it really does, and it depends on like which which chemical straightener is used. But you you you see, sometimes people's hair is so damaged that the curl will never recover, and you literally have to grow it out, cut it, read just redo it.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

I mean, just completely start new.

SPEAKER_05 31:04

Start from scratch.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Man, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

Yeah, and that's you know, a big part of you know, the name Clean and Curly is because my first love and hair was clean. I worked at an organic salon, I sought that out on purpose.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Oh. Um, I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah. So you value organic ingredients, non-toxic, yeah, no fragrances, no chemicals.

SPEAKER_05 31:26

Very much. You know, we're we're working with this stuff every single day. Absolutely. I'm working with color all day long every day. I don't want to breathe an ammonia all day long every day. It doesn't, you know, we worked with ammoniated color in school and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Oh, I can't imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

So you only use tell tell us more about your products and what you use both for color and for styling.

SPEAKER_05 31:49

Um, so for color, I primarily use a brand called Original and Mineral. So it's it's ammonia-free, so you don't have that immediate smell while you're putting it on. Um, it's PPD free. PPD is it's one of the pigments in hair color.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 32:06

But if you've had an allergic reaction to hair color where you've your scalp has turned really red, sometimes uh people will swell really badly and the swelling can extend like all the way down into their eyes. That's usually a PPD allergy. Wow. So they've taken that out and they've replaced it with pigments that actually work. Oh, great. It's resortinol-free, and resourcinol is another thing that's in a lot of color, even like very clean colors. Um it's an endocrine disruptor. So yeah, so you're putting it on your scalp, it's absorbing right in. Normally in that in hair dyes. It's in most hair dyes, yeah. So this one has as none of that. It gives really good gray coverage and it doesn't fade.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

So great.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

It doesn't fade super fast. I've worked with a lot of organic colors that they look okay day one, and then the first time you wash them, they turn orange. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

Yeah, it's not fun. Good for you for sourcing those, yeah, those really high quality, not only non-toxic, but high quality, non-toxic organic ingredients.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

Definitely very, it's a very high quality line. I don't know that I would say that it's actually organic because there's not all organic ingredients in the color. Right. But it's it's very high quality. It's very, it's yeah, it's as low toxic as you can get in hair color and it it worked and it works. And that's the that's the most important thing because you know, even the cleanest of our our crunchiest of crunchy friends, yeah, yeah, right. If it doesn't work, they don't want to use it. Right. So when you can find something that is clean and performs well, that's you know that's a winner, a winner. Very big winner.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

That's awesome. I was gonna ask you what fuels you every day. What continues to fuel you every day? Like what gets you up in the morning and going and doing this every day.

SPEAKER_05 33:48

Honestly, at this point, it's my family. It's this is how I provide for my family right now. Yeah. And also, I really like what I do. Right. I'm I love what I do. The win-win. It's it's I get to I get to help people in a way that I didn't think I was gonna be able to help people. I get to help people feel good about themselves. I get to help people look good. Our hair is so important to us, you know what I mean? Like they didn't coin the term bad hair day for no reason. When our hair is off, we just don't feel like ourselves, right? Yeah. So I get to help people feel good. I get to work in an environment that I really love. Like this is my sanctuary. Oh wow and um, and I get to provide for my family all at the same time. It's like I can't imagine doing anything else. I don't want to do anything else at this point. I feel like if I if I ever had to leave hair, I don't I don't know what I would do.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Really? Yeah, it's just your your passion and your family.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

I feel like this is where I belong, and especially with the curly girls, like this is where I belong. Like these are my people. Like it's as soon as I went from like working with all of the hair to doing the curly hair, I just felt like I was at home.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Wow. Cool. Yeah, did you always have a handle on your own hair, like your curls? No, not until you learned the education behind it, right?

SPEAKER_05 35:02

Yeah, and I continue to learn, I continue to play with products and try different techniques. Um, you know, it's um no, I no, I did not always have no.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

None of us did, especially in the 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

I feel like that time for curl-year curls was I mean, for so many years I was washing my hair every day and and then putting it in a bun to get a week out of it or something.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Just ripping it. I used to sleep with ponytail and oh what's been the hardest thing? I don't know if you've answered this already, but what's been the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_05 35:36

I'm gonna say the time involvement, it takes a lot of time. You know, when I was working in somebody else's salon, I could show up 15 minutes that before my first client and maybe spend 20 minutes cleaning up at the end of the day. Wow. And now it's I'm here 30 minutes before and I'm here an hour to two hours after every client, and then all the time you spend at home, and it's just it's it's a big investment in time.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:03

Um, and I do feel like other parts of my life are kind of falling by the wayside a little bit, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

That's part that's normal, I think, to let things slip and yeah, have loads of laundry piling up and oh girl. You don't want to see yeah. Um, what about the easiest thing? What's been the easiest thing about being an S I would say the freedom.

SPEAKER_05 36:27

You know what I mean? Like I can I can be here when I need to be here, I can take off when I need to take off. Yeah, and that was true even when I was booth renting, though. Like, you know, Thanksgiving, the kids are off the entire week of school, so I'm also off.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_05 36:41

You know what I mean? I just I'm so cool. I get the school calendar at the beginning of the year, and if they're off, I mark off. And sometimes I may add in a day here and there, but like I get to, you know, I get to adjust my schedule as I need to. And be with them when be with my kids when they're home. Beautiful. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

Oh, do you do you collaborate with other businesses, any other local businesses at all, I guess. Any anyone. Um, or do you think about collaborating, like doing um pop-ups here or doing anything like that? Or do you think about doing anything like that?

SPEAKER_05 37:14

I haven't thought about any of that kind of stuff. I've been so focused on the day to day and just like getting getting this place built that I I think it's a a great idea. Um, and I I think my my brain doesn't go to that right stuff.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Because you're still in build mode, you're still in like let's get this started mode.

SPEAKER_05 37:34

Very much.

SPEAKER_04 37:34

That'd be a cool idea though.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Have little, you know, little people selling jewelry or whatever their thing is, and yeah, having like an open house type keeping appointments, but having people come in and just visit. Maybe there's some curly haired dancers that need a club, but they haven't been sure whether or not they want to come here. I'm always coming up with ideas like this. You are the brain is like you're I don't know. I don't know why I'm I'm good at that, really. It just comes to me. What quote lights you up? Do you have a quote that you are inspired by or that you think of maybe on hard days or not every day? Um I don't think I have a quote. I have some mantras. Okay, but you'd mind sharing the mantras.

SPEAKER_05 38:18

Yeah. Um the serenity prayer.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 38:22

Yeah, I really like the serenity prayer. Yeah. It keeps it really simple.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Um I love the serenity prayer also.

SPEAKER_05 38:29

Yeah. And uh I took a meditation class with a friend a long time ago, and they had this list of mantras to kind of help you. And the one that really stuck with me is just be still and know that I am God. I love that one. And and and you can you can breathe with that one. Just be still and know that I am God. So when I really need to like calm and chill, it's a good deep breath. Yeah. And and and I feel like it's a really good, it's a good one because it it's whatever God means to you. God is different to so many people. Totally. Yeah. And it's, you know, whatever that means to you, whatever resonates with you. And uh just reminds you that whatever it is, the universe, serendipity, God, it's your back is gotten. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like somebody's got your back. Yep. And you don't have to control everything, and you don't have to worry about everything. Sometimes you just need to button.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

I love it. That's a great one. Okay, what words of advice do you have for a new entrepreneur just getting started in your industry or in any any field?

SPEAKER_05 39:38

I guess I still don't really think of myself as an entrepreneur. I think of myself as a hairdresser who happens to own a business. So if I had words of advice for a new person in the hair industry, I would say explore. I see a lot of people wanting to specialize right out of school, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. And my one employee is that's exactly what she's doing. She's specializing right out of school. But I'm really glad that I had the ex the first seven years of my career working with all different textures, all different techniques, all different types of services. Because I still call on those things, sure, even when I'm working on just curls. So get a good base of knowledge before you really decide what your passion is and what you want to narrow. And it might be something that you didn't think. Right, right, true.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

And you have an an opportunity to explore and find that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:38

Like even as a social worker, I I really thought that I wanted to work with children and families. And that is what I did initially, but I you know, I did some internships with adults. I did some internships with it was like a mental health hospital. Wow. You know what I mean? And I I tried a bunch of different things before I ended up where I ended up, which was in substance abuse.

SPEAKER_04 40:59

Sure. Yeah. Um and how would you have known that if you hadn't tried it several different things?

SPEAKER_05 41:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

That's great advice. Really great advice. Two more questions. Um, what do you wish you could tell your 18-year-old self? If you could go back and tell yourself something about adulthood.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Yeah. Man. She was in college. She was flunking out of UF. Oh.

SPEAKER_05 41:29

Um but honestly, even that experience was really valuable. Yeah. So it's, you know, maybe I would tell her like this seems this seems like a hard time right now. But through every season of pain we grow. Um those are the things that bring us to our faith and to our spirituality. And we don't see growth until we're in pain. So sometimes pain is necessary.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Absolutely. Great, great advice. And final question Do you do you feel as though you're living your dream life right now? I'm close.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

Beautiful. I loved this. Thank you so much for being here with us and for sharing your space and your knowledge and your thank you for reaching out.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

I trust that whatever was meant for you in this conversation will remind you there's a way to build a life you love. Follow where it leads. And I'll see you in the next session. Be sure to like and subscribe and never miss an episode.