1) Ringlet Muse: Change your perspective on curly hair with Unruly Curls: How to Manage, Style and Love Your Curly Hair (Hardie Grant, 2017). Written by Unruly Curls salon owner Michael Price, this helpful guide features easy-to-follow how-tos for switching up coiled styles, daily maintenance hacks and whirly techniques, such as how to get the best haircut for waves, tight ringlets and beyond.
2) True Colors: This read is an inspiring tale about how one woman turned a dental supply company into a household beauty name. Told from the trendsetter herself, I’m Not Really a Waitress: How One Woman Took Over the Beauty Industry ... One Color at a Time (Seal Press; 2019) by OPI cofounder Suzi Weiss-Fischmann details everything from her early beginning as she and her family fled communist Hungary to New York City and the birth of the brand’s most famous shades like Lincoln Park After Dark.
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3) Come Together: Antony Whitaker’s Grow collection provides useful tips and tricks for anyone who wants to excel their salon business. The four-part series gives insight into gaining repeat clients, how to be the “coach” of your salon team, creating a vision for your salon, and understanding your target market.
4) Deep Roots: Hair is more than a superficial feature on the body; it contains deep roots that recall family, race, values, culture, and history. In Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession (Elizabeth Benedict; Algonquin Books, 2015), 27 essays explore stories about hair, and the lives and truths intertwined within each strand.
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5) Keep Moving Forward: Whether you’re already a business owner or have aspirations to be one, BennieFactor president Bennie Pollard’s Small Business for the Rest of Us: One Dude’s Journey (The Frontispiece, 2018) provides guidance for all levels of entrepreneurs in the beauty salon business. Pollard reveals both his successes and failures in business and explores how he navigated through tough decisions that forged him into the leader he is today.
–by Jasmine Brown and Merryl Simon
This story first appeared in the January issue of Beauty Launchpad magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
[Images: Courtesy of Armando Sanchez]
