Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracy Vasquez.
Tracy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
There are three things that I have done longer than anything else in my life at 38 years of age. The first is being a mother since I had my daughter at 16 years old (my then boyfriend was 18) this Sept. 30, she turns 22. The second being a wife since my daughter’s father Richie Vasquez and I was married at age 17 and 19. The third is being a professional hairstylist since completing cosmetology school right after my wedding, 21 years ago this October. I have almost always wanted to be a hairstylist or makeup artist or even fashion designer as long as I could remember. After having my daughter at 16, I knew I wanted to focus more than ever on getting a cosmetology license.
Over the last 21 years, I can honestly say I love doing hair now more than ever. I always knew I wanted to have my own hair salon. Early on, I had envisioned what my space would look like. Like most young hairdressers, I didn’t necessarily work at the salon of my dreams right out of hair school. The first one I ever worked in was a barbershop, for the most part, I was probably there about six months. After that, I went to a hair salon for about a year, that still didn’t necessarily quite have the atmosphere or attract the clientele that I was looking for.
Almost two years into doing hair, I found a salon in Wellington and hit it off straight away with the owner who was as passionate about doing hair and education like I was, Tom Monticello. VISIONS hair salon ended up being the salon that I called home for the next almost 17 years of my career. I would say about 3 years into being a hairdresser is when I became a professional educator as well for a new up and coming color brand at the time. Education allowed me the opportunity to connect with other professional hairdressers who wanted to advance their craft.
Rather than just being a hairstylist behind the chair, I enjoyed traveling periodically teaching in other salons and this pushed me to be more creative. I enjoyed coming up with new color and cutting techniques and methods that I could teach other professionals. In addition to traveling and educating for multiple color brands through the years, I also became a creative director for the in-house training program at Visions. During this time, approximately 10 years after we had our daughter Gabriella, we were pregnant with our first boy and every 2 years after that, another boy came until there were 3 boys! Our boys now are 12-Jaden, 10-Derek, 8-Nico.
It was shortly after having Nico, my husband and I began to plan more for the future of owning our own business. We knew that as our youngest got closer to age 4/5, he would be in school full time and that’s when we hoped the door would be open for us to open our own salon. We kept our eyes open for potential spaces. I had a great desire for our salon to be downtown West Palm Beach in a much more progressive, urban setting. Shortly after Nico turned 4, the opportunity for a space opened up right in the heart of downtown West Palm Beach. No demolition was needed since it had been an existing salon which was very ideal for us since we didn’t have any major investors and didn’t have a whole lot of money to our name. Richie and I both felt it was a unique opportunity that wouldn’t come often… so, WE DID IT! I can remember writing down tons of potential salon names.
Since we are both very much foodies, we often watch food shows… I remember watching the show all about peppers and their heat index all the sudden they began talking about Scotch Bonnet pepper… and I just started saying the name out loud and then started googling things about it, LOL. I learned that the nickname for a Scotch Bonnet pepper is called a Scotty Bon. I learned that this pepper is one of the hottest peppers in the world and even though it’s small, it’s brightly colored and full of flavor. I almost immediately just started correlating it with insanely HOT hair! I had asked Richie what he thought of Scotch Bonnet Hair Studio as a name and he liked it immediately as well! Stepping out into salon ownership was a big risk, it happened pretty fast, but we both felt it was time. So, we have now been salon owners for the last almost 4 years. We are now about to go into our next location, still in downtown WPB but BIGGER and better. What a ride it has been!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
LOL… not what I would describe as a smooth road at all. As you can imagine, transitioning from hairstylist to adding salon owner can present it’s own challenges all together let alone hairstylist, (salon)/business owner, mother of 4, oh ya and still making time for the hubs! For 6 years, while our boys were smaller, I worked a more part-time schedule. We do have an incredible support system of a family! You have to become very purposeful in the time that you have which is always still a challenge. At work – be purposeful in building, learning, growing, at home – be purposeful in having fun with your family and spending quality time. Try to make moments even if it’s brief to play a game with the kids or still make it a point to have dinner at the table. You have to try and disconnect from the challenging things that happen in the business so you can still be present with the people you love.
Opening a salon 25-30 minutes from where I worked previously definitely required a lot of rebuilding. I was OK with that though. I began to attract other local creative‘s in the area through Instagram and social media. That really sparked a steady flow of referral business for me. I was always ok with growing slowly and honing in on the type of clientele I wanted to attract and the type of hair I wanted to put out. Little by little, I would have new clients come in and tell me our little studio was the getting a lot of buzz downtown! I have always believed that you will attract what you put out, so if there is a type of work you want to do you may initially need to put the type of work out there that you want to get back. In my industry, this means finding models that let you kind of do what you want so they could attract more of the same. Growing myself hasn’t been what’s proved to be the most challenging but growing a team of other people, the right people is more challenging than most think. In the last 3 and half years, I’ve had staff come and go. Some have moved away, some just weren’t a good fit, and life just happens. We currently have a growing staff of 3 hairstylists in addition to myself.
My advice for young hairstylists or even people in other creative fields is this: don’t expect to make real money for at least a few years but look at it as graduate school in a way. Try to get a job in a learning/ teaching environment, in the field you want to pursue and just be a sponge! When you find a mentor, don’t leave their side, be willing to work hard to learn everything it is they have to teach. My mentor would always say: “you’ll pay for your education one way or another either in a classroom or in the street…” or in the field if you prefer… so to speak. Haha!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Scotch Bonnet Hair Studio – what should we know?
I am a hairstylist who focuses primarily on cutting and coloring hair. I have become known for my seamless approach to cutting and color. Razor cutting is a huge part of how I create that SEAMLESS effect. What do I mean by seamless? Think of precision with soft edges. I enjoy the satisfaction of short that’s just perfectly blended without seeing cutting lines at all. I’ve been razor cutting ever since I was in hair school, I always loved that tool in particular. Over 10 years ago, I became connected with the brand ARROJO and began to work on mastering the straight razor and upon opening my salon, we became an Arrojo ambassador salon. Being connected, the Arrojo culture has pushed me to elevate my craft even more. Up to this point, I had always razor cut using a guarded razor. Learning how to cut hair with a straight edge razor is much more difficult and I suppose could be more impressive (due to the danger factor). LOL… it’s actually not that scary after a while.
I’ve had the opportunity numerous times to work on stage with Nick Arrojo in NY and in Florida at numerous events. It’s a privilege for me to consider him a mentor. I love texture & movement, and dry cutting curly hair is another one of my specialties as well. This technique is honestly something that I developed more of myself over the years prior to popular companies like divacurl and ouidad. My husband’s family is Puerto Rican and Dominican, so I’ve always loved curly hair and had to figure out how to work with it… which I’m so grateful for! So, I suppose those things could set me apart since highly textured curly hair scares some hairdressers as well as cutting hair with a straight razor. If I had to say what really sets me apart, it’s just my desire to always do better and push myself to elevate my craft as well as those around me. I’m never satisfied with being a good hairdresser. I want to be the best or at least strive for it! I have a very critical eye and even when I’m happy with my work, I could probably point out something that I would do a little differently next time.
Which women have inspired you in your life?
My Mom first of all. She’s always been one of the hardest working women I know! She also loves her family and would do absolutely anything for us. She also didn’t have a college degree but over time became certified in early childhood development and has more credentials than I could list! For the over 30 years, she’s been the preschool director of one of the largest successful preschools in our area and manages, mentors, and guides 100’s of teachers, toddlers, and parents! No thanks! Lol! She’s incredible!
In my career… early influences were Sonya Dove… watching her on stage made me want to be an educator and platform artist! She’s still killing it! Lina Arrojo is an incredible haircutter one of the most creative cutters I know. I could rattle off a bunch of amazing hairdressers for sure! Right now, some of the biggest inspirations for me are my local creative women in business. One of the unexpected things after opening my own salon has been this incredible creative community that has really been primarily made up of these strong creative business women that are doing things from creating some of the most stunning wedding cakes to the most insane photographers to creating floral design or even some that just do incredible creative art installations or others that have just had the balls to open up their own little boutique! Downtown West Palm Beach is just saturated with amazing creative business women that all want to be the best at what they do and strive for excellence. That is the freaking TRUTH! Definitely, throughout my journey of being a creative business owner, these women have been the biggest influences to me.
And our daughter Gabriella, has been a huge part of keeping the salon going since we’ve opened. She manages the front desk, takes care of inventory and manages our social media w/ me and is kind of my right hand, she’s pretty awesome. My husband does the business side since I am behind the chair so much. Definitely family business.
Pricing:
- Haircut w/ Tracy starts at $98+
- Seamless color highlight $200+
Contact Info:
- Address: 480 Hibiscus St.
- Website: www.scotchbonnethair.com
- Phone: 561.249.6407
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @scotchbonnethairstudio
- Facebook: Scotch Bonnet Hair Studio
- Other: @tracyvasquezhair
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