I chose the name Black Sheep Salon because

I spent the majority of my life struggling to find a my place in the world. I’ve always felt like the black sheep everywhere I went but I didn’t understand why until I found out that I’m autistic. I wanted to create a space where I felt comfortable enough to unmask, be my authentic self, and advocate for my needs without shame or embarrassment.

My goal is to create a more intersectional salon experience for both stylists and guests by centering BIPOC, disabled, queer, trans, and fat experiences. I work with a judgement-free and harm reductionist approach to hair as many of my guests are coming into a salon for the first time in quite a white, so I think it’s extremely important to meet everywhere where they are at.

Image description: Fair skinned chubby person with a mint green buzzcut and large black framed glasses and a black and grey tattoo sleeve.

I was barely graduating high school with several undiagnosed learning disabilities, so college was not a strong option for me. I decided to turn my special interest of doing punk kitchen hair into a career and sign up for beauty school.

Halfway through beauty school in 2010 I started my career at a local barbershop in Long Beach and shortly after graduating I enrolled in barber school. I worked in barbershops for the first few years or my career because it was gender affirming for me to work in masculine spaces, but the pressure of presenting as a woman in a male dominated industry pushed me back into the salon world. I began learning color a few years into my career which became a big passion for me.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was fortunate to find online education through Cut it Kinky, a group of Black women who taught pros to work with tight curl clients in their natural state. I had no idea at the time how much this would impact my future career, but I became passionate about challenging stylists to learn to work with all hair textures confidently. I eventually grew frustrated working around other stylists who did not share my values and decided to open my own space in 2021.