STARKVILLE — Karen West has worked in hair salons across the Golden Triangle, from Blade”s Hair Styling in Columbus to Tokros in Starkville.
Now, she finally has her own business and it”s located in the heart of Starkville”s Cotton District.
West recently opened her own hair salon, at the corner of University Drive and Maxwell Street, in the space previously occupied by Boardwalk Beauty Salon.
As West put highlights in the hair of Mississippi State University graduate student Abby Werth Friday afternoon, she talked excitedly about her plans for the shop. She will soon rename it Si Belle, which translates to “So Beautiful” in French. She also plans to redecorate the inside of the shop with her own personal touch.
So how did you get in to the hairstyling business?
I actually graduated from (Mississippi University for Women) in 2000 with a degree in Elementary Education and I realized during my student teaching that it wasn”t my calling in life. I had always been interested in hair and makeup. I had done hair and makeup for two of the plays while I was at MUW, so I took a summer off after I graduated and it started there.
So talk about what you”re doing here.
Well, the opportunity presented itself to buy my own salon, which I”ve always wanted to do, so this is it.
What is it about working at a salon that appealed to you?
You get to meet so many people every day. You are in constant contact with people. There”s that social element. And when you do people”s hair, you make them feel pretty. You kind of make them feel good about themselves and you boost their ego. I”m really just drawn to it. It”s a job that I”m very happy to have and I don”t mind getting out of bed for it in the morning.
Do you have any specialties?
Well, I love to do color, and cut. I will do a perm, but I hate it.
Do you have mostly female customers or do you have males, as well?
Oh, no. I do guys, girls, kids. I have whole families that come to me.
What are some of the difficulties you face as a stylist?
You just have to accept the fact that you”re not going to please everybody. Somebody told me a long time ago, “You can”t take it personally. If one person could do everyone”s hair, there wouldn”t be a need for so many stylists.” So, I always try to follow that motto.
How is it being a new business owner?
Scary. Very scary. In this economy, I have to say I haven”t lost any clients because people have to have their hair cut. Now, color spots are stretching it a little longer. If they”re doing it every four weeks, they might come every six to eight, but we are still ticking right along. It hasn”t been as bad as some places in the United States.
Do you do your own hair?
Oh, Lord, I”m not that talented. Only if we have to.
As a stylist, when somebody walks in, do you immediately size up their haircut? Do you ever think, “Man, that looks terrible?”
Oh, yeah. I actually had a guy come in (Thursday). He had gone somewhere else in town and, unfortunately, they didn”t do that great of a job, so I had to fix it for him. But, yeah, when he walked in the door, I mean, I was thinking “How do you even get that line on the side like that?” But, yeah, not necessarily just people that come in to the shop. That happens everywhere. When I”m out grocery shopping, I”m looking at people in line and I”m thinking, “Oh, she needs to get her eyebrows waxed,” or “Oh, she needs to get those roots touched up.” I just haven”t found a way to gracefully hand somebody my business card and explain “You need my help” without getting insulting.
What do you get personally out of doing this job?
I”ve just always been a bit of a social butterfly, so I still get to have that. I”m not trapped in a cubicle every day. I get different people in my chair every day. I get different stuff. No one day is the same. That”s what I love about it. We laugh and talk and complain about our husbands or wives, whatever the case may be, and what the kids are doing these days. The fact is that no two days are the same.
Do you ever get any outlandish hair requests?
Oh, yeah. I actually had a lady one time who wanted me to cut a hole, basically, where her ears would poke out. I said, “No, I can”t do it.” She wanted to tuck her hair. She said, “I like that look where you have some hair in the front and some hair in the back.” She actually wanted me to cut it to do that, so I had to draw the line somewhere.
That was my next question. Do you ever have to turn a request down?
Yeah. You have to draw the line somewhere. The bad publicity gets around a lot faster than the good, so if I would have actually done that to her, do you realize how many people in town would have been like, “Oh, don”t go to her?”
Is there anything you can”t do style-wise or do you handle everything?
I would love to be able to do extensions. I don”t know how to do those, but I would like to be able to do the really good extensions where you actually fuse the fake hair in instead of braiding it in or sewing it in. I”d love to be able to do that.
How is the market here in Starkville? I know there are a lot of hair places.
Yeah, there”s a hair place around every corner, I think, but each one has to get their own little niche, their own little thing that makes them special, that makes them different. And I think that, really, personality will help you choose a stylist. If you are sitting in somebody”s chair and you don”t really care about their views on life or you have a different lifestyle or just, well, it”s not going to work. I mean, I”m the old married lady with kids. That”s just my lifestyle, so more people like that are attracted to my chair. Someone else who is young and partied all night, they might have younger people in their chair talking about what they did the night before, or something like that. A lot of it is based on personality.
Are you building much of a following at your new location?
Oh, yeah. I love being in this location because we get a lot of walk-in traffic. There are just so many people that live around here. There is always something going on. It”s just always lively. I love being in the Cotton District.
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