Lessons From Every Woman Who Has Sat in My Chair

By Janelle Alexis | Behind the Chair

The salon chair is one of the most honest places I know. Something about the combination of your hair being wet, a cape around your shoulders, and a stylist you trust creates a particular kind of openness. Women tell me things in my chair that they have not told their closest friends. And over the years, I have learned more about life and human nature from the women who have trusted me with their hair than from almost any other source.

Lesson 1: Everyone Is Carrying Something

The woman who looks the most put-together is often carrying the heaviest load. I have had clients who come in looking flawless — perfect makeup, perfect outfit, not a hair out of place — and by the time I have the cape on them, they are telling me about a marriage that is falling apart, a diagnosis they just received, a parent they are slowly losing. Do not judge what you see on the surface. Be gentle with people. You do not know their full story.

Lesson 2: Hair Is Not Just Hair

I say this constantly and I mean it every time. When a woman sits down and says she wants to change her hair, she is often communicating something much larger. A divorce often precedes a dramatic color change. A new job prompts a completely different style. A health crisis might bring a client in to talk about solutions for thinning hair with tears in their eyes. Hair is one of the ways women exert control over how the world sees them. That is not vanity — that is agency.

Lesson 3: Women Are More Resilient Than They Know

The stories I have heard in that chair over the years — of survival, of rebuilding, of choosing to keep going against impossible odds — have made me more optimistic about humanity, not less. Women are quietly extraordinary. Not in the headline-making way, though sometimes that too. But in the everyday, get-up-and-keep-going, make-dinner-and-still-smile way. That kind of strength does not get enough credit.

Lesson 4: Being Truly Heard Is Rare and Precious

I listen in my salon. Not just to what clients say about their hair — to what they say about their lives. And I have noticed that simply being truly listened to is something many women do not experience often enough. They leave the salon not just feeling good about their hair but feeling lighter. Less alone. That has become as much a part of what I do as the technical work itself.

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— Janelle Alexis