MAD LOVE MONDAY | MYX Beauty

Introducing to you a brand new beauty salon that just opened up this month called MYX Beauty. The owners Hair By Shakera and Hair By Lauren Kyle are over the moon excited about this new venture they are creating for Hairstylists in YEG.

Hello Ladies! My name is Lauren I am one of the owners of MYX Beauty. I’ve been doing hair for over 7 years. I started out in the Hair Industry at a very young age and got my red seal at the age of 19. I use to work at many high end salons around Edmonton but I learnt quickly that working for another company wasn't my passion. Two years ago I opened up my first one chair salon that was located in a beauty house just off Whyte Ave. Shortly after opening my salon I reconnected with Shakera. We use to work with eachother at a past salon. Shakera and I always got along. Anytime Shakera was doing the extension install and I was doing the colour our clients would tell us we are the “dream team” haha it sounds so silly but it was true! We understood eachother like we were sisters growing up together for years! It always felt so natural. This moment on I knew Shakera and I would be the perfect match to create a successful business. This is when we started MYX Beauty.

Shakera & Lauren

What is your professional goal for your business?

Our goal for MYX Beauty is to create a atmosphere for all stylists to own their own business. We help all our staff understand what it takes to own a business for example how much money you need to save for taxes & GST, What cashing out system / booking system you should use, how to advertise your business and the quickest most effective way to build a successful clientele. Most salons don’t want their staff to own their own business as their goal is for them to stay working under their salon. BUT MYX Beauty is a one of a kind salon. We consider our salon a support group for all independent stylists to have guidance for a successful future! We still have room for more stylist to join in the future so if you’re thinking about making that jump into owning your own business Keep MYX Beauty in your mind!

What Platform do you find most success from?

I feel like every company is different depending on their clientele they are trying to attract. Personally I found more success from Instagram but Shakera found more success from Facebook. I have a younger clientele as I specialize in Long Hair Balayage. Shakera has a older clientele because she specializes in Hair Replacement & Extensions. For some reason that’s just how social media is going these days!

Did you ever have times where you wanted to give up? How did you overcome that feeling?

Shakera and I had lots of moments where we felt that way. What’s amazing about having a business partner is the support. One day I’ll feel so overwhelmed that I just want to quit but then Shakera will bring me back up and give me that confidence that all this work will pay off one day... which eventually it did! If you’re stuck in that moment where you want to give up and don’t have the support like I did from my amazing business partner then that’s when you turn to a community like YEG BOSS BABES. Everyone on this page will give you that motivation to keep going! We are all here to help!

Interested in being featured? email us at yegbossbabes@gmail.com 

MAD LOVE MONDAY | Bailey Brown - Below Hair Studio

How did you find out you have a passion for being a Hair Stylist?

I would say my passion in hair and make up began at a very young age! I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by hair and make up my entire life! When I was really young I would attend hair and nail conferences with my mom as she was a nail tech. My mom always let me do whatever I wanted to my hair, and which I totally regret some decisions, my creative juices were always flowing! My sister was also in the beauty industry, she was a make up artist. When I wasn’t being used as her guinea pig for makeup, I was sneaking into her bathroom to steal all the cool make up she owned. Needless to say, my mother didn’t raise tomboys, I was destined to be in the beauty industry!

When did you know that you wanted to become a salon owner instead of just being behind the chair?

Let’s just say I was never someone to take direction easily from others haha. My personality definitely conflicted with what the definition of being a good employee was! I’m loud, I love to crack jokes, I love coming up with new ideas, etc. I needed an outlet that I could just be myself and surround myself with people like me. When the decision was made to enter into the world of self-employment, I remember my dad saying to me, “I knew this day would come, I always knew you needed to be your own boss.”

Why did you decided to expand your salon / how did you know it was the right time to expand?

I started Below Hair Studio in my basement with one of my best friends Danielle. We made it our mission to have the salon atmosphere that we always wanted. A fun, friendly, high end vibe that at the end of the day, just had a good time! All of our clients became more like family to us, and we decided we needed an assistant. I hired someone to help us with day to day duties that we were finding to be too much for us to do on our own. Before we knew it, our social media presence was making an uproar and we weren’t able to keep up with the amount of people that wanted to book with us. After 4 very fast years in the basement, the perfect store front location became available and my curiosity led me to look into it. I had always talked about expanding but never took it too seriously. When I went to look at the space, I had the same feeling im sure that a bride would get when she found the perfect wedding dress. Everything just felt right, nothing was rushed, it was time to expand. We knew we had outgrown the basement salon, we needed more people! We had become one of the most followed salon instagrams in Edmonton and we were in a 500 sqft basement! We made an unbelievably smooth transition to the bigger space and flash forward a year and a half later, we have 8 stylists on our amazing team and rent out a room to an awesome eyelash technician.

What makes you happy about being your own boss babe?

I would like to say that if you’re your own boss you can do whatever you want and take as much time off as you’d like, but it’s quite the contrary. My hours have grown longer, vacations have become fewer, and the hours behind the scenes that no one sees are the hardest. There is not a lot of glamour in being the boss, but the incredible feeling I get watching Below Hair Studio grow into what I always dreamed of is priceless. I’m happy that we’ve created a community of amazing stylists, developed so many new relationships with clients, and have a platform to share our passion the way we want it shared. Those are some of the many things that make me happy about being a boss babe.

If you could go back and tell yourself one thing in your first year of business what would it be?

OMG where do I start?! I would say my biggest piece of advice I would give to myself would be to take the time to understand the actual BUSINESS side! Source deductions, gst remittances, budgeting... I didn’t want to believe there would be actual numbers to crunch in owning a business! Thankfully my mom,  Shelley, took care of all of that for me so I could put more focus into growing the business, but not everyone has a Shelley in their back pocket like I did! Learn about your business taxes, hold on to ALL of your receipts, know your inventory...they are a very important part of running a successful business. (But for real thank god for Shelley haha)

Find Below Hair Studio here

on Facebook

and on Instagram.

MAD LOVE MONDAY - Kaitlyn Breederland | Heritage Birth Services

Birthing a Business

Hey bossbabes!

I’m Kaitlyn Breederland, labour doula and co-founder of Heritage Birth Services, an Edmonton-based doula agency. I married young, and shortly after became a mom. Before having kids I worked with seniors in a long-term care facility, but I never really found a traditional career I was truly passionate about.

After my first daughter was born, I started to think about becoming a labour doula. It all started so naturally, having become a mom before many of my friends, they came to me for support and encouragement during their first pregnancies and births. I became passionate about nurturing that relationship and found real joy in empowering them in the months and days leading up to their births. Then, a friend asked me to attend her birth as a support person. I knew it was time to embrace this calling and take doula training. So I did.

Ever since, I have never doubted that I was created to do this. When I started out, I just knew that I wanted to be a doula. What I didn’t realize, at first, is that to practise my passion I also had to embrace being a business owner. I would have to do the “business stuff” first in order to be able to get to the part that I was super-passionate about.

Birth work is a heart-centred industry, so turning my passion into a profitable, sustainable career was easier said then done. I quickly realized, however, that if I wanted to do this (and do it well!) I had to treat it like a business. I had to give it my all, and I had to charge my worth. I can empower women through birth and postpartum till the cows come home, but the turning point for my business was when I firmly decided to empower myself. I decided to charge my worth and in so doing have turned my passion into a career.

This does not mean there have not been times when I wanted to quit! Absolutely I have had moments when imposter syndrome has hit me like a ton of bricks, when my inner critic tells me “I can’t do this! I can’t be a boss and run my own business … are you kidding me?” But. Just like when a woman in labour looks at me in the eyes and says “Kaitlyn, I can’t do this” and I reply “It’s too late, you’re already doing it. You're in it, and you're doing amazing!” Just as I encourage women in that moment, I too have to encourage myself. Like a woman giving birth, I’m too far into it to just up and quit, so I do the only thing to do and just keep moving forward! And it’s been a beautiful, thrilling, eye-opening experience.

My goal and my dream now is not just to work with and empower women in birth, but also in business. Heritage Birth Services has blossomed in the past year to become a doula agency where women—labour doulas, postpartum doulas, childbirth educators, and lactation consultants—can come alongside us and work with mothers and mothers-to-be without ever doubting that their work is a viable career and that they deserve to earn a living doing it.

I'm not really in a place to give advice. This is all still so new. But one thing I know to be true is this: Value yourself and always charge your worth. And when you doubt yourself and your abilities doula yourself through it. Look in the mirror and tell yourself “I'm doing this, and I'm doing awesome!”

Well, there you have it. I’m Kaitlyn, a doula, turned accidental business owner, turned passionate entrepreneur, and now a #bossbabe!