Setting a goal For the past twelve years, my goal has been to become the best curly hair stylist in Denver. I don’t know if I have achieved that goal yet, but I currently have about 1,000 curly haired clients, so I must be doing something right. Many of my clients ask me “Why did you decide to specialize in curly hair?” The short answer is that I wanted to eat good food and travel, and I knew that if I became good at cutting and coloring curly hair then I’d be able to do that. But in truth, it goes deeper than that. The real story I am an artist and have a great appreciation for beauty, and to me, curly hair is beautiful. My fondness for curls goes back to before I had any idea that curly hair would become my specialty. When I was a student in Cosmetology school, any straight haired women who dared to let me touch her hair left the salon with her hair big and curly. I liked to create voluptuous, outrageously curly hair. Maybe I was a hairstylist from Texas in a past life. Curly hair start After I graduated from Cosmetology school, I got a job at the Aveda Academy where I learned the Aveda cutting techniques. One of the stylists there saw my interest in curly hair and recommended that I read the book, Curly Girl, by Lorraine Massey. This book revealed a whole new world to me and gave me the idea of specializing in curly hair. It became obvious that most curly girls were being mistreated by hair stylists who had no idea that curly hair requires a different technique than straight hair. I decided I wanted to learn from the best, and so I went to New York and did some training at Devachan Salon, where I trained with Lorraine Massey’s partner, Dennis Da Silva. The start of Curl Culture When I returned to Denver, my three curly clients that I had at the time were thrilled with my new techniques. They even wrote wonderful reviews about me and posted them on www.naturallycurly.com claiming I was “amazing at doing curly hair”. Well, I knew I was still a beginner, and although I enjoyed having a great reputation, I felt like it was better than I deserved. So, in order to live up to my reputation, I decided to return to New York and take some more classes with Dennis Da Silva. After a few more trips to the DevaCurl Academy, my cutting and coloring techniques were finally getting good. It took six or seven years of continual practice and training, but I finally reached the point where I felt like I had mastered the art of cutting, coloring and styling curly hair. What’s next I am not done learning yet. I still take classes whenever I can, and I just saw that the DevaCurl Academy is offering a new class on styling tightly textured hair. Since I love to travel, eat good food, and learn more about curly hair, it looks like it is time for another trip to New York and a visit with my friends at the DevaCurl Academy.
