Helping Clients Express Their Authentic Self w/ Jules Heron
Salon owner and hair cutting specialist Jules Heron started @hairforhumans to help their community feel supported.
Salon owner and hair cutting specialist Jules Heron started @hairforhumans to help their community feel supported. They share the impact of somatic therapy, and how creativity has become a vital outlet for managing anxiety.
We also discuss the importance of consultations in understanding client needs and the emotional connections formed during hair transformations.
The Hair Game (00: 00)
Hey, Jules, how's it going? Doing well. So Jules and I are meeting for the first time. You're a Portland, Oregon hairdresser who focuses on cutting. And I dove deep into your Instagram.
Jules (00: 02)
Good, are you?
The Hair Game (00: 15)
And I love it because you're bringing a lot of things to the fore and you talk a lot of things that I think people find very, very valuable. But before we get into that, ⁓ I want you to start with just kind of your origin story, you know, where you're from and how you got in there.
Jules (00: 33)
Yeah, I moved up to Portland when I was 13. I'm from a really small town in Northern California. My parents forced me up here and I'm glad they did. I was upset about it at the time, but stoked that I'm here now. Yeah, yep, yeah, right before eighth grade. So Portland since, you know, eighth grade and went to high school here and love it.
The Hair Game (00: 45)
So your family moved and dragged you along. Yeah.
And so hold on, sorry,
I'm gonna interrupt, because I'm naturally curious. So my kids are about that age, and I can only imagine how difficult that was, because they've just gotten to the point where they're getting good friends, and they're feeling comfortable in their school and stuff. And that would be very hard to uproot them.
Jules (00: 57)
Sure. Love it. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it sucked. mean, from my small town in Northern California, ⁓ I had known those people since I was four. So my whole life, pretty much, was with those people. And then my parents were like, okay, well, we're gonna move up to Portland now. And I was already an anxious kid.
And I think having those friends, those really close friends in California really helped me bring me out of my shell and make me a little less anxious and then being uprooted, moved up to Portland to a big city. Yeah, it really sucks. So I pretty much shut down ⁓ coming up here. And I didn't really find myself until I started doing hair, which I started doing hair in 2017 is when I went to school. So…
The Hair Game (02: 07)
And you were
how old then?
Jules (02: 12)
I think I was 32. Yeah.
The Hair Game (02: 16)
my God. Okay.
So from 13 to 32, it was hard for you to come back out of your shell.
Jules (02: 20)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah, so I always felt the pressure to go to college after school, not from my parents, but just the fact that my parents went to college. I thought that's what I was supposed to do. So I tried college. I tried community college twice and dropped out twice. And then I just ended up working at New Seasons, which is a grocery store here for about 12 years. And that's how I put myself through hair school. But not realizing that I was trans, I…
felt completely out of my element. didn't feel comfortable with who I was. And after I had top surgery in 2017, that's when I realized that I wasn't happy at New Seasons anymore. I had never really felt like myself ⁓ until having top surgery. And then that's kind of what gave me the final push to start doing hair, which is what I had been doing on my off time was cutting my own hair, cutting my friend's hair. ⁓ And so kind of starting to feel like myself helped me.
push me into the hair industry. yeah, doing hair, I got so obsessed with it that I stopped drinking, I stopped smoking, I stopped doing all of the unhealthy habits, and I just full force went hair.
The Hair Game (03: 26)
That's amazing.
Wow. and all of this happened about the same time, which was 2017. You had the passion for hair for, I mean, from like what age? Pretty young.
Jules (03: 42)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Pretty young, I mean, coming up to Portland, it's a really queer friendly place. ⁓ And at the same time, I wasn't getting the experience that I was looking for with getting my hair done. And so I felt uncomfortable getting my hair done. I would always get like a feminine version of what I wanted or just not having, ⁓ not feeling comfortable in like barbershops with, you know, a bunch of…
The Hair Game (04: 14)
dudes.
Jules (04: 14)
ultra masculine cis guys, yeah.
And so, yeah, I just started cutting my own hair and I was actually talking to somebody yesterday and for… I also dove deep in the last three years into somatic therapy. ⁓ So I got…
The Hair Game (04: 31)
What is that?
Jules (04: 32)
⁓ So it's like bodywork for anxiety and getting connected to your body. ⁓ And I had realized since doing that, I had been so disconnected from my own experience for so long that I don't remember most of my life. I don't remember ⁓ different things happening because I was so anxious that I was trying to run away from the hypothetical tiger that was in the room with me all the time that…
I don't remember much of it, but I do remember, you know, talking about hair all the time and feeling very, very uncomfortable. So I'll get like little snippets coming back to me every once in a while, but ⁓ I since doing the somatic therapy and unidentifying with my anxiety, I literally feel like a completely different person. I feel like a new person than I was. I don't even recognize the person that I was before, which is crazy. Yeah.
The Hair Game (05: 25)
Wow.
So, and I imagine the drinking and the smoking that you referred to, that was part of your way of, you know, getting out of your discomfort, right? And then, and so you found, you found a place that you liked better, which was the hair world. And the somatic therapy is also helping. And I'm more, I'm curious about the somatic, before we get into the hair stuff, I'm, here's my curiosity leading us.
Jules (05: 35)
Yeah, yep, 100%.
Mm-hmm.
Sure. Yeah.
The Hair Game (05: 54)
⁓ Somatic therapy. So give me like an actual example. Like what do do?
Jules (06: 00)
So the place that I found specialized in OCD
I had never heard of dance movement therapy, which is what I have ended up doing for the last three and a half years. And essentially what it is is the therapist that I had helps you hold the discomfort that you can't hold for yourself yet. And so they kind of teach you how to process your own emotions. ⁓ So when I was growing up, I was highly anxious. I'm a highly sensitive person. I am very affected by different things in the world. And so I really needed to take care of my own energy.
very closely and I need to do a lot of maintenance on that. ⁓ So I had, you know, being trans and growing up in a society that doesn't support that. ⁓ I've had a lot of trauma, a lot of relational trauma, and that's kind of how my OCD manifested was relationship OCD. ⁓ And so coming into a safe relationship that I'm in now…
⁓ It was kind of sabotaging that in my own mind. So finding the dance movement therapy is the therapist helps you hold that discomfort. And so the first session I had with her, she was trying to get me connected to my body and you just kind of do what your body, what you feel like it wants to do. And so I was having discomfort in my chest. She asked me what it felt like it needed to do and I just started squeezing. And then once she started mirroring that back to me, I just burst into tears. And
It was life-changing. It's literally saved my life because it… I mean OCD is one of the high… It's one of the most distressing mental things that you can have and it's really hard to get out of and I'm so grateful to find that therapy. It's insane. Yeah.
The Hair Game (07: 51)
That's amazing.
And this is something you go to how often?
Jules (07: 58)
⁓ so I haven't gone to it in a few months because, ⁓ you know, I had done talk therapy because it worked. Yeah. So I had done talk therapy for, you know, 20 years and. Yeah. And I mean, it, keeps you in your brain.
The Hair Game (08: 01)
⁓ because it worked.
talk therapy, sitting down and talking. Okay?
Jules (08: 14)
I understand where all my trauma comes from but like what do do with that energy? And so having the dance movement therapy, the somatic therapy to actually be able to process my emotions, I don't feel like I need therapy anymore because I know what I need to do for myself to bring my anxiety down now. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Hair Game (08: 33)
Right, amazing, amazing. And so
this is, I mean, I've never heard of it, which kind of, and I live in Los Angeles where we have almost everything. So how do you find somebody who understands that? Because I imagine there might be some somatic therapists who call themselves somatic therapists, but maybe they're not so good because they don't get it. This sounds like it's a very specialized thing that somebody needs to know what they're doing. Where do you find such a person?
Jules (08: 40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the way I found it, ⁓ and it's a very stereotypical OCD story, ⁓ my nervous system got triggered and it felt very urgent, which is why I got diagnosed or how I got diagnosed with OCD. So ⁓ I started researching, like why am I feeling this way? Why am I…
thinking all of these thoughts. And so essentially what OCD is is you have intrusive thoughts, which everybody has, and because the OCD, I don't know, came naturally in my body for whatever reason, ⁓ I get hooked on thoughts. And so you can have harm OCD where you're scared you're gonna harm people. You can have… ⁓
know, contamination OCD, which is the most common thing that people think OCD is. ⁓ And so it's like, if you don't do this thing, something bad will happen. Or if you don't think this right now, then something bad will happen. Or this means something giant about your life. And in reality, it attacks the thing that you care about the most. So if you're scared of getting cancer,
The Hair Game (10: 11)
like sabotage.
Jules (10: 13)
total sabotage in your own brain. And so it's not something that somebody can see from the outside, but you're internally like in this thought prison.
and just going in loops and loops and loops and loops and you get down into a spiral. And so there's like this polyvagal ladder. And so when you get triggered and you get in this really distressing place, you either shut down where your body is like it's way too distressing to feel these emotions. So you just go numb, which is what depression is. ⁓
Or you go into fight-or-flight, which is kind of above and closer to safety, but it's like you either get really angry and irritable or you need to run away from it. And so ⁓ I was highly in… I was mostly in shutdown for most of my life where I was just numb. And so that's why I drank all the time. And yeah, and then hair just kind of helped me focus my brain on something else other than my thoughts.
Yeah, so I… To go back to your original question, I researched it a lot and came upon ⁓ this person that also struggled with OCD and she turned that into a business. ⁓ And now she does somatic therapy and dance movement therapy and helps… And now she's doing a practitioner program where she is helping other therapists become dance movement therapists. So, yeah. Yeah.
The Hair Game (11: 35)
Oh, Yeah, extra amazing.
So as I'm hearing about these challenges that you've gone through, and it seems like you've done an amazing job of figuring out and, you know, mitigating as much as possible, at least managing, you know, however you think about it. Sometimes, you know, I meet people who have challenges and they end up finding, I don't know if you call it an outlet or
probably just a direction and a lot of those challenges, a lot of the strength that comes from them, dealing with the challenges and understanding the challenges helps them in that direction that they're going. And would you say that's true with hair? Would you say that your challenges, all the things you've learned and everything help you be a better hairdresser?
Jules (12: 23)
100%. So one of my favorite fun facts about anxiety is the opposite of anxiety is not calm. The opposite of anxiety is creativity. Yep. So anxious energy is energy that is just working against you. So if you can focus on something and do something creative, that helps you expel that energy.
The Hair Game (12: 35)
The opposite of anxiety is…
Jules (12: 51)
and get it out in a healthier way. And so doing hair for me has been my creative outlet and so when I was in the throes of OCD and spiraling and all that stuff, hair was the thing that I felt I could connect to no matter what. That's always work and creativity has always been like, I can count on hair to be there for me, always. Yeah. It's my grounding force.
The Hair Game (13: 15)
as a savior. Okay, so
yeah, amazing. All right, so then, ⁓ so you go to hair school, and ⁓ were you good at it right out of the gate? You said that you'd been doing it kind of before you decided to formally go to hair school, get license and stuff when you're working at the grocery store. Were you good at it? Did you find that you were good at it in school?
Jules (13: 39)
Yeah.
No. Nope. I… Yeah. I… You know, doing hair has always been… Or rather, building a business has always been hard, but it's always been worth it. So it's never felt like, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this, maybe I should quit. It's always felt worth it to me to do it.
The Hair Game (13: 44)
Another challenge.
Jules (14: 05)
In hair school, I was praised for being really quick at applying color. So I got a lot of color clients, but I never fell in love with color. So getting out of beauty school, I tried to make color a thing. I tried to get into it. I would watch Larissa Love do color and I would just be amazed, but it never gave me that motivation, that drive to say to myself, like, ⁓ want to be able to do that. I would just look at it like an art piece of like, that's crazy. That's insane that you can do that. And there was no follow-up.
in myself to be like, I want to learn how to do that. But with cutting, watching Jake Conn, who's one of my good buddies now, Chen, ⁓ Maddie Conrad, Mari Damonte, all of those people, I'm like, ⁓ I want to be able to do that. And so it's always been giving me that drive to cut. And now I'm just a cutting specialist that specializes in ⁓ transformation cuts. So, yeah.
The Hair Game (15: 01)
And that's what is on your Instagram that makes it so entertaining and educational. One of the things that I love about ⁓ some of your content, particularly on your Instagram, I haven't been to anything else if you have a TikTok and all that, I'm sure it's great too. But you've pinned at the top a post where you just talk about face shape and the shape of haircuts ⁓ and the compatibility of those two things. And I think that…
Jules (15: 07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
The Hair Game (15: 31)
when people kind of, when people behind the chair go on autopilot, I think they lose a little bit of that, ⁓ you know, that analysis of, you know, the best shape for the face. And ⁓ I know that sometimes we're challenged with a client who sits in the chair and they want ⁓ A, B and C when really, you know, what looks, you know, and I'm.
Jules (15: 41)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
The Hair Game (15: 57)
quoting what kind of looks best on them based on the theory, our theory within our industry is maybe X, Y, Z. And so it can be difficult to say, maybe is not gonna be the best for you. And I know that's a challenge and people handle that different ways, but talk a little bit about ⁓ how you think about face shape theory and the best shapes on hair.
Jules (16: 05)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think that people more often than not want to balance out their face shape. ⁓ However, I'm not the end-all be-all of what I'm gonna put on your head. I like to explain it to people. You know, a lot of people come in with dark brown virgin hair and then they bring in a picture of bleached blonde wavy fine hair and, you know, when I first started doing ⁓ hair after I was licensed,
I would just say, okay, I'll try to give you that and then it wouldn't turn out the way that they wanted because they don't have that type of hair. And so in my chair, I just go, okay, well, you have much thicker hair. It's not gonna look the same. Do you still want this shape? And if we do this shape with this length, it's going to look bigger on your head because thick hair takes up more space. So it's going to look poofier. Rather than saying that's gonna look terrible on you, don't do it. I say that's going to look poofy, right? Like I will just say this is going to look
The Hair Game (17: 15)
Bad idea.
Jules (17: 20)
this way, do you want to do that? And then they can say yes or no. And ⁓ yeah, think that there's a ⁓ ton of pride in our industry, understandably so. I take a lot of pride in my work. And at the same time, if you want your haircut to look fucking weird, I will make it the best weird for you that I can.
I'm not walking around with your hair on my head, and so whatever you want to look like in the world, I'm gonna give you the best version of that, and I will give you realistically what that's going to look like before I do it so you can make the choice for yourself.
The Hair Game (17: 56)
manage the expectations properly so they're not terribly disappointed and cry afterwards. Yeah.
Jules (17: 59)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Which is
what I show on my Instagram, you know? It's like, I don't want to force you to do anything that you don't want to do. ⁓ And that's how you retain clientele is this is what it's going to look like. Do you want that? That's it. No judgment. No anything. You know, a lot of dudes with receding hairlines, you're not like, we should cover that.
It looks terrible, you know, and a lot of people do that, but I have a few clients that are like, no, I want to rock it. I'm proud of my recession. It's like, great. Let's embrace it. Love it. Yeah.
The Hair Game (18: 32)
I'm proud of my receiving hairline, damn it.
Let's emphasize it. Let's take it deeper. ⁓ my God, that's really funny.
Jules (18: 38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally.
The Hair Game (18: 45)
Okay, so transformational haircuts is what you like doing the most, it sounds like, ⁓ probably, it's certainly your specialty. ⁓ Is this, are these recurring clients? I'm trying to think of like, you know, the business behind transformational haircuts. And it sounds like that this is, these are clients that you're finding probably, these are first time clients for you, probably. And so where are they finding you?
Jules (18: 47)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
⁓ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. ⁓ Yeah, I mean they…
I don't… ⁓
I don't market myself as like a queer business for queer people.
⁓ The reason my name is Hair for Humans is because I believe that everybody deserves to have haircuts that feel like themself. ⁓ And also being able to have a conversation that's different than like having conversations with people that are different from you. ⁓ Especially in America right now, it's like we're very divided and so I feel like when more people can understand how other people live their life and that we're all just the same, we all have the same worries about our bills and our kids and our pets and our house and whatever.
But we all just want to feel good in our skin and that's my goal. so ⁓ the reason I do transformation cuts is because ⁓ I mean, first of all, I love doing short hair, but I've also found that I originally was catered to the queer community, but now I have a lot of older cis women that come to me. And that's because they feel like when they go to the salon,
their stylist will say, no, I'm not going to use clippers on you, or this is going to look bad. They always get like the Karen haircut, or they don't understand how to do like a short pixie with shorter sides, and they don't want to use clippers, you know? So ⁓ to me, it's like I love making people feel amazing, and there's so many people that don't feel like they're being listened to. And…
That's the thing is like, I was talking to my brother about it, who's a very straightforward, direct guy. And he was like, why do you think you're so booked out? And I was like, because I listen to people and I do what they want with their hair. And he was like, seems pretty simple. And I'm like, I know. And yet it's not happening. What do mean?
The Hair Game (21: 14)
Yeah, but it's different. I mean, you
listen to people and the part that you left out there was you understand people, I think. And it seems like what you described before with the Karen cut, and I totally get it, is that you're gonna get a lot of hairdressers who are going to, they understand that cut and there's an assumption that a certain demo, demographic or profile of person
Jules (21: 23)
I
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
The Hair Game (21: 43)
is going to want that cut. And so you just kind of plug and play. And what you're describing is you listen, but you also understand maybe on an additional level about what the client wants. And then of course you're able to deliver it with the technical expertise. And I think that's different.
Jules (21: 47)
Yep.
What?
Sure. I mean, I think that my goal is to approach my clients without judgment and approach it with curiosity. know, like when we first started talking, you were like, I'm just gonna let my curiosity… ⁓
move this conversation wherever it goes. And that's kind of what I do with my clients. It's like, I love to build my skills behind the chair because I think hair cutting is the best thing on earth. ⁓ And also, I love understanding people. And so when I can couple those two things together, it's like I can take care of people, make them feel good, and use my technical skills. And from what I've learned, because I've just started to get into education and teaching at shows and stuff, ⁓
that more than half of the country doesn't require continued education and So many people have no idea where to start. They have no idea where to start with education They don't know what to do and there's so many people that are like this is the only way to cut hair this is the best way in the only way and this is what you should do and in reality, it's like there's hundreds of ways to cut hair and Whatever feels good to you is what you should do and I have two rules for my hair
Does the client like it and does it grow out well? Everything else literally doesn't matter. You can cut it with your feet. As long as you have those two things, that's all that matters. And, you know, I'm not here trying to impress people on the internet, but with this, you know, new world that I have discovered…
There's so many people that don't feel heard in the chair. They don't feel like they're being taken care of in the chair because the stylist might not have the education behind it. They might have their own biases of what you should look like because of how you present yourself ⁓ or how they see you. And for me, it's like I want people to get what they want. And I don't think that it's too far off, hopefully.
The Hair Game (24: 03)
I mean, it sounds so base, the way that, you know, this is often what I find in the world, the people who are really good at something, they make it sound so simple. And it rarely is as simple as they make it sound, you know, and there's so many analogies to that, ⁓ whether it's, you know, great sportsmen or great artists, or, you know, it just kind of happens in a seamless, graceful, natural way. And I think that's what you're describing. And it comes off so simple, so common sense.
but it not so common, right? ⁓
Jules (24: 36)
Well, and
I think there's a lot of shoulds in the world. No matter what you do, you should be doing this, you should be doing that. And I thought that I should be doing color.
And in reality, I didn't like doing color. I hated it. And I tried to make it work for four years. And then, ultimately, I discovered, I was like, I hate doing color. It's annoying, it takes forever, I don't have the curiosity to understand more, I think it's amazing what people can do with color, I don't have the fucking patience for it. I don't. And that's okay. And in that realm, it's like, I have found the thing that I love doing.
when people were coming to me for color, they could tell that I didn't care. They could tell that I was struggling and with cuts, they can tell that I'm super passionate about it and I can talk your ear off forever about cutting hair. And that's what people are attracted to. They want to get to know you. They want to get to know why you're passionate about it. And when you're doing something that other people care about, no matter what it is, they want to go to somebody that is stoked about it and they can tell. They can tell when you're not. Yeah.
The Hair Game (25: 42)
Absolutely. Okay,
so you talked about maybe educating and doing other things. What's on your mind? What are you thinking?
Jules (25: 47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So, I mean, I'm kind of in the planning stages a little bit. ⁓ I have gone to a few shows. ⁓ Yeah, I've worked with Harebrained a little bit. I'm getting…
Hired by different companies to do, you know a few videos here and there which is super fun ⁓ My dream is to work with babelists. I love babelists. They I've used their clippers since the beginning of my career. They're amazing and Just like the nicest people I've gone to a few shows ⁓ the last big show I went to was ⁓ with Jake Khan and Emily Chen and Ben Ben White and ⁓ Yeah, it was really cool to see
what they do at those shows and getting the opportunity to teach a class at Premier was amazing. And that's what I want to do like a few times a year. ⁓
I'm kind of toying with the idea of either having classes in my shop every few months and just, you know, have people fly in and take a class for me for a day or two. But I'm also planning on hiring people in the future. And so I really do like the hands-on mentorship. ⁓ I was a trainer and supervisor and manager at the grocery store I was at, and I love training people. And so, ⁓ yeah, when I can kind of explain things the way that people can understand. ⁓
I feel like it just simplifies the haircuts for people and it makes it lot easier. And in beauty school, we're not taught how to do consultations, at least in my beauty school. I wasn't taught how to do a consultation, so I just kind of had to figure it out. So I definitely want to teach that too.
The Hair Game (27: 30)
Yeah, no kidding. And I'm glad you mentioned that because as we've been talking, I've been thinking about how important the consultation is for you because it's the listening that you described, the understanding that we talked about, and then the technical execution of the look. ⁓ And it's the management of the expectation that you described with your client. Can you talk about the, since you mentioned it, talk about the consultation.
And, you know, talk to the listeners as if they're in a class, you know, one of your classes or whatever. ⁓ And most of, you know that most of them, let's say you asked them some questions and you've gleaned that most of them aren't doing consultations and it's getting themselves in trouble. So what would you tell them?
Jules (28: 20)
So I would say that ⁓ my therapist would be very proud. Just get curious. Like get curious, you know, like about what works the best for you. So I have taken so many classes from many different people and ⁓ the language that they would use describing the haircuts, like we're doing concave layers and convex layers and flat layers and all of that stuff, that didn't make sense in my brain. ⁓
And I know what they are now, but at the same time, that's not how my brain works. And so ⁓ the way that worked for me and every person is going to be different. So it's like, take what works at each class that you take and take as many classes as you can. Leave what doesn't work. And it's okay that not everything is going to resonate with you.
So really enhancing your skills in what makes sense for me, find the influencers, find the educators that really speak to how your brain works. ⁓ So the language that works for me is what shape am I creating on the head? And especially for transformation cuts, if somebody wants to get a mullet and they have, you know, giant long hair…
How are you going to build that haircut with that person? And so I break it down into sections where, okay, do you want to see skin on the sides? We're gonna go really really short. That's gonna have a weight line up here, and then that's gonna transition to the top. Do you want the top to be heavier? Do you want the front to be longer? ⁓ Do you want a ton of texture? How about the back? Do you want it to be long? Do you want a ton of layers? So it's kind of breaking the head down into digestible sections with your client because if they can see
I feel like a lot of people come in with haircut videos, photos, whatever, and they're like, I like this. And then specifically I go, what do you like about that? And a lot of times they just say, I like the texture. And I'm like, okay, do you like the cut? And they're like, ⁓ it's fine. And I'm like, okay. So maybe not the cut. And I feel like a lot of people just say, okay, that's the cut you want, here you go. ⁓
The Hair Game (30: 22)
You
Jules (30: 29)
And yeah, just getting curious about what your client likes about those photos and build the haircut with them, especially for transformation cuts because it's such a huge chop for people. ⁓ And a lot of people will go a little bit longer just to stay a little bit more safe. ⁓ And I ask my clients, I say, get that you want to be here eventually with this really, really short one. Are you feeling ready to do that? Are you ready to jump off the cliff today or…
Are you needing a little bit more time to kind of lean into it and see how you feel about the shorter hair? So yeah, I think just getting curious about what your clients want, what they like about it and really enhancing your skills on the cutting side because the more confident you can be in your skills, the more confident your client can be to say, hey, I don't like this part. Can we change it? ⁓ And when I started doing hair, you know, seven years ago,
I would get really nervous when somebody would say, want something different with my hair because I didn't know how to change it. I didn't know what I did. I just kind of figured out the shape and was like, okay, here you go. And then freak out if they ever said they wanted something different with it. But now that I've learned ⁓ enough behind the chair.
then I can say, well, if you're wanting more texture, I know how to do that. If you want this shorter, I know how to do that without completely doing an entirely different haircut, so.
The Hair Game (31: 58)
And again, so you're describing kind of a, think an additional depth of understanding as you communicate with the client where, ⁓ you know, they're showing you a picture and, and you describe what humans tend to do is, you know, they, they want to, they may not understand what they like about the hair picture, about the hair on the picture that they're showing you. And I know that, you know, I've been in this business 25 years and
Jules (32: 04)
All
The Hair Game (32: 27)
people will often come up to me and they'll show me a picture and I don't do hair. I've been in the business for 25 years, but I don't do hair. So, but people come up to me and they ask me questions about their hair. And I'm like, I gotta tell you, I mean, I have my opinions, but you know, I'm a professional client, you know, I've maybe been to more hairdressers than anybody else my age, but ⁓ you know, they'll show me a picture and I'm like, I look at the picture and I'm,
Jules (32: 41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah.
The Hair Game (32: 57)
Maybe because I'm a hairdresser, not a hairdresser, I can be a little bit more brash, but I'm like, you're never gonna look like that. I'm like, what do you, first of all, that person you're showing me is Brad Pitt. So, what do you like about it? And if you tell me it has nothing to do with the fact that he's like stunningly handsome, then you're just lying to yourself. So, find somebody.
Jules (33: 05)
Yeah
Yep.
The Hair Game (33: 22)
maybe like Russell Crowe, who has a face shape more like mine, you know, like a round, like an ovally, ovalish ⁓ thing, and find a picture of him or whatever, you know, and ⁓ a picture that makes more sense. And so I often have this conversation and I love how you try to ⁓ get into the nitty gritty of what it is that somebody actually likes about the thing. And again, it's managing all of that.
Jules (33: 27)
Mm-hmm.
The Hair Game (33: 51)
expectation that the client is ultimately going to have with what you give them. And I think it sounds like you do it expertly. So thanks for sharing how you do that.
Jules (34: 01)
Yeah, I mean I try and even a few weeks ago I had a client that was like it's a lot shorter than I expected and I I think most of my clients know what tapered means. Tapered is like it hugs the neck it gets shorter so
that means your hair is going to be short back there and she didn't know what that meant and so at the end of the haircut she was like, it's a lot shorter than I expected and I don't like it and I was like, okay. And now that kind of, you know, makes me reflect a little bit more of like, okay, now I really need to understand that not everybody knows what tapered means. Yep.
The Hair Game (34: 34)
Not everybody knows what tapered means. Yep.
Yeah. Very, very interesting. ⁓
Jules (34: 39)
Yeah.
The Hair Game (34: 41)
I imagine that with all of your transformations that you're doing, ⁓ you get some, you get some, maybe some emotional conversations in the chair with some clients. Talk about maybe some, you know, maybe the most interesting or difficult one that you've had.
Jules (35: 00)
Yeah, mean, ⁓ I've only had one client that I felt like I couldn't work with. ⁓ And that's because every single question that I asked, their answer was, don't know. So, you know, it's like, I'm not here to tell you what you want on your head. So this is definitely like a collaborative ⁓ teamwork thing. And they were not into that. So that was difficult. But ⁓ recently, actually, I had a client come in and do a huge chop.
and ⁓ her hair was, you know, stomach level, very, very long. And we did like a bob with bangs. And ⁓ she loved it, she left. And then the next time she came in, she was like, I'm ready to go for shorter bangs. I want straight across. And I was doing her hair. We were having a good time. And then it got kind of silent. And then I started cutting her bangs and I could tell that her face was starting to get really red. And she started crying and
I'm like getting emotional talk about it. So I was I was cutting her bangs and As she was having this like really intense emotional moment ⁓ I just kind of stopped and I went around to the back of her and I just put my hands on her shoulder and I just started kind of doing like really soft strokes of her shoulders and Just telling her that it was okay and I just sat with her for probably about ten minutes and eventually
In that 10 minutes, I was like, do you want to talk about what's going on or do you not want to talk about what's going on? And she was like, the first time I got my hair cut by you, the first time, she was like, I loved it so much and I wanted bangs and I got bangs last time, but not the bangs that I wanted. I really wanted to go shorter like we're doing. So when you started cutting my bangs, it reminded me of the first time that I got my hair cut. And when I went home, my husband didn't talk to me for three days because I got my hair cut.
And I was like, no fucking way. This is ridiculous. And their marriage hasn't been great for a long time. She really wants to get out of it. However, she has, you know, two or three kids. And she wants to stay together for the kids, you know? And her and I talked about it, you know, like I'm a kid at divorce. And my mom was ready to leave my dad way before they got divorced. And so…
The Hair Game (37: 11)
Yeah. ⁓
Jules (37: 27)
growing up in a household where the parents didn't really like each other and they resented each other a lot is so unhealthy for the children and they can tell, you know? Like they can tell when their parents aren't happy together and knowing my parents now as two separate people that aren't married, I have no idea how they were ever married and nonetheless, like 25 years, like how did you put up with each other because you're so incredibly different? ⁓ But…
The Hair Game (37: 52)
You
Jules (37: 56)
you know, they're so much happier being separate and so it's so much better for the kids to have two healthy parents that are separate than two unhappy parents that are together. ⁓ And so her and I talked about it for a good while during her haircut, but ⁓ yeah, it was really heavy and yeah, the next time she comes in, I'm really excited to hear how she's been doing, you know, because it's a lot to…
The Hair Game (38: 23)
Yeah.
Jules (38: 26)
And the haircut kind of made her realize I'm really unhappy in my marriage and I'm ready to leave. And I was like, damn, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
The Hair Game (38: 31)
Wow.
crazy. Geez.
I almost want a follow-up episode without delving into anyone's privacy. I'm just curious. Okay. Well, well that was a good one. That was a good one. All right. Let's see. Do you have any hair horror stories?
Jules (38: 40)
Yeah, seriously. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, yeah.
probably. I mean, when I was doing color, I melted somebody's hair off of their head. Unfortunately. Yep. Yep. ⁓ you know, it wasn't lifting the way I wanted it to, and I worked in a salon with like eight other people, and I didn't know that you could put people under the dryer to make it speed up, and so I put 20 volume on their head. They wanted just like the stripe up here, blonde, and then the rest of the hair was really dark.
The Hair Game (39: 04)
Yeah, the classic melting somebody's hair off.
Jules (39: 27)
The 20 didn't lift the way I wanted it to, and so I washed it out and then I applied 30 volume and then I put them under the dryer for 15 minutes and it melted their hair off and as I was blow drying, there were just hair flying off of their head. And then they texted me later and they were like, what do I do with this? You know, it's coming out and I was like, just don't brush it. Just don't, just condition it and don't brush it. And yeah.
I feel really bad because I, you know, I didn't know what to do. I was, I think like six months out of beauty school and I just didn't, I didn't know.
The Hair Game (39: 56)
God.
So what's
so funny about the way you tell the story is that you completely skipped over the part where she was in the chair and the hair was falling out. And like, what did you say? Like, did she not notice then?
Jules (40: 12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
No, I turned her away from the mirror. Naturally. I was like, I don't want her to see this, so I just won't show you. Yep. Yep. Yep. But I mean, that's how we learn. And at the same time, it really made me realize how much I didn't learn at beauty school and how much continued education is so important for our industry. And the only continued education we have in Oregon is
The Hair Game (40: 19)
Hahaha
funny, not funny. It's funny in hindsight.
Jules (40: 46)
how to not give people blood-borne pathogens, you know? And that's… hair cutting is not even in the equation, which is crazy.
The Hair Game (40: 53)
I know, it's insane, right? And then we have a pandemic where sanitization is actually important and they shut us down. Yeah. Okay, any last words for the community?
Jules (40: 55)
It's nuts. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. Exactly.
I think try to leave your judgment of people at the door. We're all just people, we're all just trying to make it. And just try to take care of your community around you because we're all going through it no matter what's happening in the world right now. And yeah, just try to take care of each other because like I said with that client who realized from the haircut that she wanted to leave her husband, she was ready to leave. ⁓
you know, we help hold people where they're at ⁓ in their life, whether it's happy or sad. And so just taking care of the people in your chair, it can really make a huge difference. And so just be gentle with each other. We're all going through it. Yeah.
The Hair Game (41: 53)
Absolutely. I wish
I could talk to that husband.
Jules (41: 57)
Same. That was like a haircut made you not talk to her, really? A haircut.
The Hair Game (42: 01)
Yeah,
I know. All right. Jules, your hair for humans on Instagram and probably also the other platforms, hair for humans. Okay.
Jules (42: 12)
Yep. YouTube,
TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. All the things.
The Hair Game (42: 16)
Amazing. Well,
yeah, keep us all updated on your educational efforts and your platform work and all that kind of stuff. And great conversation. And it's great to get to know you.
Jules (42: 21)
I will.
I will.
I know.
Yeah, thanks for having me, Eric. I appreciate it.
