When I sat down with balayage artist and educator Sarah Cabral, it felt less like an interview and more like catching up with a stylist friend who has quietly built a powerhouse career behind the chair — and behind the camera. From trade school teenager to BTC team educator with 100K+ Instagram followers, Sarah’s story is one a lot of stylists will see themselves in.
From vocational high school to 23 years behind the chair
Sarah started early — as in, vocational high school early. While her classmates were stressing over math tests, she was in the shop week, shampooing, sectioning, and learning the basics of hair.
“I actually almost dropped out junior year,” she told me, “but I loved hair too much. I stayed just to get my hairdressing license.”
From there, she jumped through a bunch of salons — chain shops, home salons, larger brands — trying to find “her place” at a time when salons weren’t exactly known for generosity toward new stylists. Education wasn’t as accessible, social media wasn’t a thing, and a lot of seasoned pros guarded their formulas like state secrets.
It wasn’t until around age 20 that she landed in a salon she’d stay at for seven years — long enough to hone her craft, figure out who she was behind the chair, and eventually feel brave enough to go out on her own. She’s been independent since 2010.
When hair color and art finally clicked
If you look at Sarah’s work today — soft, lived-in color, seamless blends, brunettes turned bright without looking over-processed-it – it’s easy to assume she was just “naturally good” at balayage. She’d be the first to tell you that’s not true.
“You should have seen my first ombrés,” she laughed. “They were really bad. My sister was my model… bless her.”
The turning point came around 2017–2018, when balayage really started to explode and Instagram shifted from food pics to serious hair education and marketing. That’s when her two worlds finally fused:
- Her family are painters — her dad, her brother, and Sarah herself all love painting.
- She discovered painting hair felt just like painting a canvas — only with foils and lightener instead of acrylics.
- She learned to film her work, and that after-video became her “reward” at the end of a long service.
“Something about painting the hair really clicked with me,” she said. “My dad is so special to me, my whole family paints… it felt like I got to do both things I love at the same time.”
By pairing that painter’s eye with Instagram, she grew her page to over 100K followers, largely by documenting her balayage and foiliage work and sharing what she was learning along the way.
Balayage, foiliage, and choosing the right tool
For all the balayage hype, Sarah is super honest about one thing a lot of stylists need to hear:
“There’s no magic behind lifting level 2 with clay lightener.”
She loves balayage, especially on brunettes who like warmth or lighter-haired guests who want that soft, lived-in vibe. But when a deep brunette wants to go legit blonde? She’s foiliage all the way.
Right now she says her book is probably 80% foiliage, 20% open-air painting. It’s all about choosing the right tool for the result:
- Balayage for softer lift, warmth, and lived-in texture.
- Foiliage for serious lift and control on darker levels.
- Mixing techniques for dimension — she calls one favorite combo “the trifle”: balayage, a foiliage panel, and a lowlight all in one section.
She also drops those practical geeky nuggets stylists love, like:
- Only mixing two scoops of lightener at a time so it doesn’t oxidize and die in the bowl.
- Preferring clay lightener for open-air painting to reduce bleeding.
- Using cheap chip brushes from Home Depot as paint brushes for balayage because the bristles give her the blend she loves.
It’s the kind of nerdy, real-world color talk you only get from someone who’s done thousands of heads and still isn’t precious about her process.
From “I’ll never go back to that school” to educator
One of my favorite parts of our conversation was hearing how she fell into education.
Remember that vocational high school, she could not wait to leave? A few years later, a fellow stylist invited her back to teach a balayage class there.
“I swore I’d never go back,” she said. “I was so scared. I didn’t know how to teach. These students wouldn’t even know if I was doing it ‘right.’”
She did it anyway. And something clicked.
- The second time she taught there, she realized she had a real calling to teach.
- She started offering independent classes — no brand backing, just her, her techniques, and whoever wanted to learn.
- She battled classic imposter syndrome: “Who am I to call myself an educator?”
- Her first independent class sold 10–15 tickets — and many of those stylists still attend her classes today.
That consistency — tagging @behindthechair for three straight years, creating educational content from every BTC box they sent, and staying patient — eventually led to her being invited onto the BTC Team. Now she creates paid campaigns, goes to One Shot, and still stays brand-independent so she can collaborate with multiple companies instead of being locked into just one.
The reality of money, rent, and knowing your worth
We also got into the unsexy side of our industry: money.
Sarah is blunt about the fact that she “made no money for a lot of my career” and that actually earning a good living only came in the last several years — thanks to a mix of:
- Raising her prices in line with her demand and skill,
- Building a strong independent clientele,
- Teaching classes, and
- Paid brand collaborations and content work.
She’s a big believer in actually doing the math — breaking down your overhead, product costs, and time so you’re not charging 1990s apprentice prices in 2025. If you’re booked solid for a service and known for it, your pricing should reflect that.
“Life is more expensive every year,” she said. “If you’re not raising your prices, you’re literally losing money.”
Hard truth. Necessary truth.
Building a drama-free education hub
Today, Sarah works in a small, 600-square-foot salon in Franklin, Massachusetts with two other heavy hitters — Taylor (Taylor Did My Hair) and Steph (Vivids and Balayage). All three are on the BTC Team, all three teach, and the space is designed around that.
Her favorite part? Having the freedom to say, “Hey, I’m teaching a class this Monday,” and actually having a salon that supports it.
She and Steph have a joint class coming up, demoing two different foiling techniques side-by-side on two models — a look-and-learn that blends their approaches and gives stylists a ton of practical ideas to take back behind the chair. Tickets are linked in her bio at @sarahstyles.
Advice for new (and not-so-new) stylists
If Sarah could talk directly to younger her — or any stylist just starting out — here’s the heart of what she’d say:
- Find a salon that truly feeds into you. Look for places with structured education, regular classes, and owners who want you on the floor — not just as a glorified assistant forever.
- Don’t be afraid to move on. Your first salon doesn’t have to be your forever home. You’ll know when you’ve found the right fit.
- Stay out of drama, stay busy. If you’re not with a guest, be posting, learning, practicing — not living in the back room.
- Work hard, especially when no one’s watching. Do the laundry, clean the windows, sweep the floors. You’re building work ethic and a reputation, not just passing time.
- Invest in your own education. Don’t wait for your boss to hand it to you. Pay for classes, take online education, use all the free content we never had 20 years ago.
- Build your own business. Social media is your storefront now. Your clientele is increasingly yours —not the salon’s. Treat it that way.
“Trade school can take you anywhere in this industry,” she told me near the end of our chat. “Just don’t give up, and stay passionate about what you do.”
Spending this time with Sarah reminded me how much quiet grit sits behind every beautiful blend you see on Instagram. The failed ombrés, the midnight notebook of client phone numbers, the classes taught while shaking from nerves, the price increases you agonize over — that’s the real story of a working stylist.
If you want to hear the full conversation, dig into the technical color talk, and soak up more of Sarah’s honesty about education, pricing, and independence, hit play on the video. This is one you’ll want to watch with a coffee in hand and a notebook nearby.
You can find Sarah at:
https://www.instagram.com/sarahzstylz/?hl=en
Transcript:
Liam Shea (00:03)
Fantastic. ⁓ So welcome to Salon Monsters podcast. ⁓ I’m here with Sarah. Is it Cabral? Fantastic. I’m here with Sarah Cabral. ⁓ Sarah, thanks so much for joining us. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got your start?
Sarah Cabral (00:11)
Good luck. ⁓
Yep.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, actually, I started really early. I went to vocational high school. So I started doing hair in high school.
Liam Shea (00:31)
Okay.
Okay, awesome, that’s rad, I always love that.
Sarah Cabral (00:36)
Mm.
Liam Shea (00:40)
I love that that exists. There used to be a school where I am that had that. It’s such a great thing. I wish there was more trades in school.
Sarah Cabral (00:47)
yeah, it’s like getting really big around where I live. It’s like really hard to get into them now.
Liam Shea (00:52)
Like those high schools in particular? Right. Okay, well guess that makes sense. ⁓ Where are you located? Okay, whereabouts?
Sarah Cabral (00:55)
Yeah.
I’m a Massachusetts. ⁓
I live in Blackstone, but I work in Franklin.
Liam Shea (01:05)
Okay.
Okay. Awesome. So you started right out the gate early on and did you when you finished high school, did you continue with your career in the hair industry at that point?
Sarah Cabral (01:16)
Yes, I’ve actually never stopped doing hair. I’ve been doing hair for 23 years, to be exact. A long time.
Liam Shea (01:20)
amazing i love it
yeah yeah i think i’m at 26 years it’s a weird number to think about because i’m pretty sure i’m still in my early 20s
Sarah Cabral (01:28)
Yeah.
Same.
Liam Shea (01:34)
minus all the gray hairs that I have. Okay, so you got your start there. Where did you go after high school? What was the next step?
Sarah Cabral (01:44)
So I started like being a shampoo girl when I was like 14. So I was in a salon for like, feels like my whole life basically. Like right out of school. I’m trying to remember what my, I mean, I like hopped around a lot at the beginning. So I found a hard time to like really just find my place. I feel like back then other hairstylists weren’t so generous as we are now. Like we love sharing, like educating each other, just like helping each other out I feel like.
Liam Shea (01:50)
Okay.
Sarah Cabral (02:12)
Like the hair industry is a lot different now. We’re very much a community. Back then, like no one was really willing to help the new stylist out. It was very competitive. So I had a hard time just like finding a place that would really just feed, like feed me and like give me that chance. So I from like, I did like cost cutters. I worked at some ladies salon in her house. I worked at Delaria salon. I definitely worked at a good amount of salons until
Liam Shea (02:14)
Yes. Yes.
Sarah Cabral (02:41)
I think I was about 20 when I finally found one that I stuck at for like seven years before I started growing off on my own. So it was definitely a journey.
Liam Shea (02:46)
Okay. Yep. Okay, so after that seven… So
after that you went independent after that seven year stint.
Sarah Cabral (02:54)
Yeah,
yeah, I’ve been independent since 2010. ⁓
Liam Shea (02:59)
Okay, yeah, amazing,
amazing. Yeah, that’s so cool. ⁓ Hey, is there any way, I’ve got a message coming up from my podcast thing saying that asking if I can ask you to turn, can your phone turn to side by side? Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. If it can’t, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.
Sarah Cabral (03:08)
Yeah.
Horizontal. I can try. Yeah. You can try.
But on.
lights.
Liam Shea (03:33)
weird does it just now does it just want to stay sideways is it gonna we’ll see if it asks you a mess it asks you if you want to turn it and if it doesn’t then we’ll just stick with that
Sarah Cabral (03:33)
Is it angle wear now?
You’re like up and down, but I’m sideways. Does it matter? Okay.
Liam Shea (03:46)
Yeah.
That doesn’t make much sense. Switch orientation. Yeah, just turn it back. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Yeah. I mean, if the system’s not going to switch it, then who cares? Right?
Sarah Cabral (03:52)
Yeah, it’s kind of weird looking.
Okay, magnetic sending, here we go.
Liam Shea (04:08)
Okay, so…
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (04:13)
Now we both look the same to me on my end. Okay. Okay.
Liam Shea (04:15)
Right? Exactly. No, no, no, it’s totally good. It was just a message
came up on my screen. I’m like, all right, whatever. ⁓ Okay, so you from 20 to around 27, you were working at your first sort of stay there salon for an extended period of time. ⁓ At what point did you feel like…
Sarah Cabral (04:20)
Bye it.
Yes. Yes.
Liam Shea (04:37)
So you would consider, mean, you specialize in what? Balletage work at this point or for liage or.
Sarah Cabral (04:42)
Yeah, like I love I’d
say like balayage. mean, a lot of it’s more like foiling foil work these days, but lived in color is definitely something I’m passionate about blonde blonding.
Liam Shea (04:49)
Yes. Yes.
At what point did you sort of find that early on? Did it take a while?
Sarah Cabral (05:01)
you should have seen my first, my first ombres. They’re really bad. My sister has always been my model. I think like in 2018 ish around there is when like I started really working with balayage and the funny thing, fun fact, my dad is a painter. So like I grew up with, I love painting. I’ve always liked painting walls. I like actually like, like artwork painting, like acrylic and stuff. So like something about like painting the hair.
Liam Shea (05:04)
Yes.
Okay.
Sarah Cabral (05:30)
really clicked with me. And I feel like it’s like a special thing to me just because my dad is so special to me. My brother’s a painter. Like we’re all like painters in my family. So I thought that was kind of cool that like we’re all very artistic in different ways. And I just love something about like creating a blend is just, it’s so satisfying to me and I’m very passionate about it. So when I paired Balayage and like learning how to use Instagram, kind of at the same time.
Liam Shea (05:43)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
Sarah Cabral (05:58)
is kind of how I grew my page to 100,000 followers basically. This is I really learned how to film my work and be passionate about what I was doing and like the after, the video, that’s like the reward for me is like seeing it on camera kind of.
Liam Shea (06:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. That’s so cool. Yeah. It’s interesting because what so you
Sarah Cabral (06:17)
Yeah, so they kind of like blend together.
Liam Shea (06:23)
You started, you started that salon, okay, so you said you went independent about 2010, did you say? Okay.
Sarah Cabral (06:29)
Yeah,
so like balayage wasn’t like huge when I first, mean, yes, I was still like slowly like learning how to post on Facebook a little bit, but like I didn’t really grow on Instagram until whenever I think it was around 2018 or 17 maybe. I’m 40 my timeline might be off.
Liam Shea (06:45)
Yeah.
No, no. No, you’re about right. I’m just trying to remember. think it was like… Well, I think it came… Exactly. I think it came out in like 2010, 2011, somewhere around there.
Sarah Cabral (06:51)
I’m trying to see when Instagram really became popular. Because that’s when I slowly started, like for hairstylists, yeah.
Yeah, I was definitely after,
I was after, when I didn’t even have it for as a personal account. I literally just started it for my hair business.
Liam Shea (07:12)
Okay,
okay, yeah, because yeah, no, and nobody was even using it for hair to begin with. I mean, I think I took pictures of food and I don’t know. Yeah, my wife or something like that. I that’s about the extent of it. ⁓ Okay, cool. So yeah, right. You were saying hombres. I mean, really, I remember starting with hombre and then moving into balayage is my recollection of it. ⁓
Sarah Cabral (07:16)
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, yes, definitely. Because my ombres
would be like very like uneven because all we did was like tease the bottom of the hair and hope for the best. I have some funny pictures.
Liam Shea (07:44)
Totally. ⁓ my god. Yes Yes,
some like frightening level two on the roots sort of turning into some muddy mid-range color and then yeah And then trying to figure out well, how do you repeat it? How do you keep that light moving up? Yeah, it was horrifying Yeah, mine were so bad to begin with ⁓ Okay, so you started with the ombrés you liked it you obviously had
Sarah Cabral (07:50)
Yeah.
bad.
My god, I know.
Hahaha
Liam Shea (08:12)
Do you feel like you already had a grip on color theory because of your dad being a painter or did that come later? Because I know it’s not the same color theory exactly, but it is sort of.
Sarah Cabral (08:18)
Anyway. Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think like obviously the technical part is more, mean, color theory is just like, you have to learn by experience, basically. And I definitely always loved like the science of hair color theory. But I think the more like the actual act of the painting is something, the physical part is what I really connected with, with my, just, I don’t know, I love painting. So painting hair, how fun. I can do both things I love at the same time. Yeah.
Liam Shea (08:46)
Yes. Yes.
Yes, that’s amazing.
okay, so you shifted like many of us did into balayage and foliage. I know for myself, I actually never got comfortable with hand painting and balayage. didn’t have a chance to get a lot of education with it. But when yes, true. But I’m one of those people who won’t do it. I don’t like not being good at something. So unless I’m ⁓
Sarah Cabral (08:57)
Yeah.
A lot of people don’t actually.
Hmm.
Liam Shea (09:19)
at least vaguely competent or have some level of education. So I found balayage didn’t come natural to me. But when foliage started to begin to happen, I could wrap my head around that better. I also had a lot of guests with really dark color. So I struggled with the sort of the lack of lift with hand painting. And whereas once it was in a foil, I found like I had way more control over it. Did you
Sarah Cabral (09:21)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Liam Shea (09:50)
Did you love balayage right away? Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (09:54)
Yes, I mean, yeah, I was
like, I mean, obviously you wash it out like oops, there’s a spot. No one’s perfect takes practice. I mean, I still like I’m not perfect. You might have a bleeder like a little spot do a root smudge like those ways to perfect the end result. But I would still agree with you that balayage is not for every client. I like to paint a brunette who wants warmth or a level seven. I can get nice and icy blonde, but
Liam Shea (10:00)
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Sarah Cabral (10:22)
If you’re looking for that lift, I’m definitely like 80 % doing foliage right now versus actual physical hand painting on my clients. So it’s still like a great tool to have. You can like mix up techniques. I do that all the time. I love mixing different techniques. I just posted this, I call it the trifle, when I do like balayage and a foliage panel in a low light, so three colors at once. It’s so beautiful because like balayage you get like
Liam Shea (10:27)
Yes.
Sarah Cabral (10:52)
the warmer tone, the foil, get the light more lift and then like the low light. So I just love like dimension. It’s just fun, getting creative and like mixing your techniques and having fun with it.
Liam Shea (10:59)
Yeah.
Yes, that’s so cool. That’s so cool. ⁓
Denver, one of my amazing colleagues, who’s probably who you spoke with the most, Denver handles a lot of our social media, ⁓ wanted me to ask about ⁓ a good way to learn balayage on really dark hair, particularly Asian hair. ⁓ But it sounds like probably foilage makes more sense for that unless of course,
you’re trying to get warm.
Sarah Cabral (11:33)
Exactly,
there’s no magic behind lifting level two with clay lightener. It’s not going to, it’s only going to lift up to like five levels, they say. So definitely I would 100 % use foiliage on my darker brunettes that want a blonde result. And that’s what I do behind the chair.
Liam Shea (11:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Sarah Cabral (11:51)
Yeah, so it’s just like knowing
what tool to use for what look you’re trying to achieve.
Liam Shea (11:57)
Yeah. And so did you, did you have the opportunity to take a lot of education or was a lot of it trial and error for you?
Sarah Cabral (12:06)
I yeah, I do like I do love taking education. I was obsessed with Lisa loves balayage. She’s like my favorite. I learned so much color theory from her also, honestly. So I’ve like took her. I I love camouflage and balayage. All the old school like painters from back in the day, like Catherine Lowe’s color. I’ve always like followed all them and like learned from everyone who’s teaching. I take classes. I do online education. So you definitely have to like
Liam Shea (12:11)
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (12:36)
keep learning, but trial and error is the only way to get there, basically.
Liam Shea (12:41)
know, I know it’s painful. I Well, and I also
found when I like since there was such a huge shift in ⁓ the digital side of our industry through COVID, like the shift towards digital education, I feel like ⁓ when Balayage first started coming out on the scene, either somebody came to the salon you worked at or came through town to another salon, or you traveled somewhere.
Sarah Cabral (12:56)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (13:10)
or you
just weren’t getting. And you know, the smaller the place you’re in, or the more out of the way it is, the less likely it is you get certain people coming through unless you’re at one of those shops where they bring in people. ⁓ Yeah, I know I struggled with that side of things. was, only ever had one class with balletage and it helped a lot, but it taught me. like foyerage. That’s what it taught me.
Sarah Cabral (13:22)
Exactly.
Yeah,
that’s fine. Like I take one. I can go to a class. Everyone paints different too. mean, Joyco has sent me to California a few times and every time we go somebody’s teaching a balayage class and it’s like, all I already paint, but like this person paints differently. So I take like something from what I learned from them and I like make it my own. So like everyone has their own. We all paint differently too. So there’s no like right or wrong way. I teach that in my classes all the time. This is how I do it, but you guys do it however you want.
Just take something from what I’m teaching you and make it your own.
Liam Shea (14:06)
Yeah, that makes sense to me. mean, yeah. At what point did you get into education yourself?
Sarah Cabral (14:15)
So funny story. So like when I went to high school, I actually, I hated school. Like I was not a good academic student. I actually almost dropped out junior year because I just like was miserable, but like I loved hair. So I’m like, I can’t drop out. I have to get my hairdressing license. So that’s kind of like what kept me like in high school because we had shop week and then academic week. So every other week you’d go back and forth. So I’d want to skip all of academic week and go to shop week.
Liam Shea (14:21)
Yes. Nope.
Sarah Cabral (14:43)
So then I finally graduated and I was like, I’ll never return to that school again. And then like a few years later, this girl reached out to me and was like, hey, I’m going to try County Millet High School. Like, do you want to come and teach a balayage class with me? And I was like, ah, I’m like, I guess so. Even though I swore I’d never go back there again. So I actually, I did not know how to teach. I was like so scared, even though these students like wouldn’t know if I’m not telling them the right way. They’re literally just in hairdressing school.
Liam Shea (14:57)
wow.
Sarah Cabral (15:13)
So I actually offered to go teach a class there and I taught my first class with her. So scary out of my comfort zone, but I was like, wow, that was like pretty cool. So then the next year she invited me again. So then by the second time I was like, I just knew I had a calling to teach. So I just really wanted to, I started teaching independently. I didn’t have a brand backing me up. I remember saying like, I wasn’t on the BTC team yet.
Liam Shea (15:21)
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (15:43)
So I just felt like insignificant, like who’s gonna, who am I to like say I’m a teacher? Like, and then I was like, you know what? I just felt like I was supposed to do it. So I like posted my first class and had like 10, 15 students the first time. It was incredible. So like, just like the feedback, I still have the same people that came to my first class, like still coming to my classes. It’s like so, exactly, so I’m like, who am I that like people would still keep?
Liam Shea (16:07)
That’s amazing.
Sarah Cabral (16:12)
think I’m a good educator and keep coming to me. But I feel like when you have like a calling, like you don’t have to have anybody else telling you to do it. Like you just do it.
Liam Shea (16:21)
That’s ⁓
That’s so amazing. It’s interesting listening to you talk about, ⁓ well, what sounds like imposter syndrome when you show up for your first course. It’s such a typical trait in those that get into our industry. It’s like it’s an industry filled with 95 % people who don’t think they can be it. There is that small 5 % of people who are usually… ⁓
Sarah Cabral (16:33)
so much. I still have it. So bad.
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (16:49)
beyond overconfident and think they’re vastly better than they are. And then everyone else just lacks the confidence. But it is fascinating with education when you first realize, especially probably at the end of that first class that you taught, the fact that no one was heckling you or saying this is the worst thing ever or you’re an idiot. And they’re asking you questions and they’re looking at you like the expert that you don’t feel like you are, but that you probably are. ⁓ It’s just never what
Sarah Cabral (16:51)
yeah.
Yeah, they never said give me my money back.
Liam Shea (17:19)
you like the feeling of ⁓ being knowledgeable is never what you think it’s going to feel like, I find.
Sarah Cabral (17:25)
You’re
always like, we’ll question yourself forever. I just taught a class a couple of weeks ago and I was at another salon in a different town and that’s like scary because you’re putting your name out there and you’re selling tickets to a salon that’s not your own. So like you could look like the biggest idiot if you don’t sell any tickets. I say that’s the scariest part of teaching is you put your class out there and then like, all right, you sell one ticket. You’re like, all right. And then a week goes by like, oh shoot, what am going to do? I have one student.
Liam Shea (17:28)
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (17:52)
So then like all of sudden at the last minute it filled in, which was incredible, but it’s still like scary every time. And the ladies there were like, we like loved having you, like you’re welcome back anytime. And I’m like, really? I’m still like always in awe when people like tell me I did a good job. You know? Who am I?
Liam Shea (18:09)
I know it’s…
Yeah, what are you gonna do? I don’t know how much therapy it’s gonna require before that feeling goes away. Maybe there isn’t a quantity and it’s just… Yes. No, I think it’s great. It’s much better than the opposite. So you were independent, educating for quite a while. At what point… So was BTC the first group you became a part of?
Sarah Cabral (18:21)
It’s okay to stay humble, I think. You know?
Mm-hmm.
They’re…
Yeah, and it took me three years of tagging them to get recognized. Yeah. So it’s not like overnight, like every post I’m like, BTC team, behind the chair, BTC team, behind the chair. Then they’ll send you the boxes for anyone that’s interested. Like you reach out to the like BTC team account and you can fill out something to get a box. And then once you get the content box, they want to see you posting. They’re looking for educational videos basically. So like it took me so long of just doing the free boxes.
Liam Shea (18:42)
really? Well, yeah.
Right.
Right? Right.
Sarah Cabral (19:07)
for that phone call and they’re like, Sarah, we wanna get on a call with you. I’m like, this must be it. So then like they invite you to be on the team, but it took like three years of being diligent and not giving up.
Liam Shea (19:17)
Yeah,
that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how long have you been with them now?
Sarah Cabral (19:19)
Mm-hmm.
⁓ like four years, I think, or three or four years. Yeah.
Liam Shea (19:25)
Amazing. Amazing.
Have you gotten to do a bunch of travel with it?
Sarah Cabral (19:30)
no, like they still like you get paid, you get paid boxes now. So now I get campaigns. It’s basically like influencer team. I go like the I go to the BTC. I got like the one shot hair awards every year. But ⁓ no, it’s not even like you have do much like besides like being an influencer for them. Some people will pull out and have like do different things. But I think it’s because I’m as I’m not working under a brand, a lot of the stuff is like brand specific.
Liam Shea (19:35)
Right.
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (20:00)
But I like want to be independent. I don’t want to be exclusive to one brand. So that’s OK. Yeah.
Liam Shea (20:03)
Yeah.
that makes sense bear with me one moment I’m just going
to ⁓ plug in
Plugged in? Is it? Hang on.
It is not. Why is it not plugged in?
I feel super zoomed in.
Sarah Cabral (20:54)
Yeah,
you’re little better. ⁓
Liam Shea (20:59)
So what have you done to me?
Sarah Cabral (21:03)
Don’t zoom in on me. ⁓ he’s gone. There you are.
Liam Shea (21:07)
I’m just clicking it seeing if I can make
it. Why are you so zoomed in? It’s because I did something funny with this. ⁓
Let’s see, can I change it? No. Are you going to let me?
It’s frustrating.
I I’ll just have to be crazy zoomed in. That seems weird. That can’t be.
Sarah Cabral (22:03)
I can back up if you hang
up and do you want to start it? Can you save this and then restart the call so you can fix it? I don’t mind.
Liam Shea (22:10)
I can,
I can. Yeah, I can. I’m just wondering if there’s a way to…
that off, turn that back on.
Hmm.
than resume.
That’s weird. Alright, fine. We’ll just keep going. That’s just fine. That’s just fine. I’ve actually got the camera covering me so I can’t actually see it. Doesn’t seem quite as bad.
Sarah Cabral (22:46)
You have to look at yourself.
Yeah, yeah, doesn’t look that zoomed in on my end.
Liam Shea (22:57)
⁓ Yeah, okay. Love it. Hilarious. Good job. ⁓ Okay, where was I? So we were talking about being you want to… Yeah, and you were saying like, to some degree, you like staying independent from from a specific brand. ⁓
Sarah Cabral (23:06)
BTC team.
Independent. Yes.
Liam Shea (23:17)
Is that particularly just so you have the option to be using whatever products you want to be using? Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (23:20)
Yes, I
can explain why because I get a lot of Instagram paid collaborations with different brands. So if I was exclusive to one brand, wouldn’t be able to, unless they want to pay me a million dollars. If they want to pay me enough where I don’t have to make money through other means, go for it. No one’s offered me that yet. Exactly.
Liam Shea (23:36)
Right, which is just rare in those situ.
100 % no no no it’s just it’s it’s completely rare Unfortunately,
Sarah Cabral (23:48)
And ⁓
Liam Shea (23:48)
that’d be great
Sarah Cabral (23:49)
I love content creation, so I like being able to work with any brand I want to.
Liam Shea (23:54)
Yeah, yeah. When did you start getting comfortable with content creation, with video in particular?
Sarah Cabral (24:02)
I’m to think. Probably just when I started posting on Instagram, you kind of like have to. You buy a tripod, that’s your best friend. I’ve never had an assistant anywhere I’ve worked, so I’ve been on my own forever. So I just had my little tripod that’s always like standing over my shoulder. Then you just start filming.
Liam Shea (24:05)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Nope. Okay.
So
you weren’t making those videos where no one knows that somebody was holding your foils for you and that’s how you did that like 100 % stacked full platinum card where you’re like, it took me 45 minutes. What? That doesn’t…
Sarah Cabral (24:24)
No. Yeah. I don’t have that like assistance
sticking the foil under the strand that I’m no no help ever.
Liam Shea (24:36)
gosh.
Yeah, that’s such a foreign concept to me. I don’t want anybody doing that for me.
Sarah Cabral (24:41)
No, me neither. too
much of a control freak. Like I don’t even want somebody blow drying my client. I’m like, no, thank you. I’ll do the whole thing.
Liam Shea (24:47)
Yep. I actually,
I did an apprenticeship. And when I was coming up the one of the primary people I was sort of I was the salon apprentice. And it was a 12 chair salon, but there were a couple of people in particular that were educators that were just natural educators. And one of them was, was really adamant. He didn’t do book backs. He didn’t like taking appointments in between appointments. He liked being he found
Sarah Cabral (25:12)
Yeah. Present when it’s client.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (25:15)
Yeah, his guests were paying to be with him as much as they were paying
for their service. He was very strong, strongly advocating ⁓ for making sure they stay facing the mirror. Like he said, don’t, I feel like when I turn them away from the mirror, I’m telling them, I don’t want you to see what I’m doing or it doesn’t look good. Obviously, like in barbering and things where you need to be turning and looking at.
Sarah Cabral (25:36)
it.
Yeah. ⁓
Liam Shea (25:42)
shadows
and you’re blending there’s a purpose to it but I always sort of I came away from that with that just independent sense of I’m not I don’t need to be doing anything for me I do things for me and I do things for
Sarah Cabral (25:53)
Yeah, mm-hmm. I’m kind of like that too,
just because I’ve never had an assistant.
Liam Shea (25:58)
yeah
yeah like i’m not saying i’d be opposed to the concept of it but ⁓ yeah yeah fascinating ⁓ okay so
when it came to choosing products, ⁓ have things changed dramatically for you from like when you began doing balayage and foillage to now? I mean, it seems like when balayage began, I don’t even know if there were clay lighteners to begin with.
Sarah Cabral (26:27)
Yeah, ⁓
yeah, I definitely like have my specific products I like for different reasons. I, some people paint with regular lightener. I personally don’t like to, cause I feel like I get more bleeding that way. I love the clay shell that it creates. I paint with actually a paint brush. ⁓ I like to paint with a paint brush. I’ll buy chip brushes from Amazon. They’re my favorite. They’re like the throw away ones cause they have like the neck.
Liam Shea (26:34)
Yeah.
you do? Love it. Love it.
Okay.
Sarah Cabral (26:56)
They’re like the lightest bristle. I do like the Power Painter from like From R and those types for like thicker hair. But like sometimes I just love like an actual chip brush, which is funny.
Liam Shea (26:58)
Okay.
Yep. Yep.
Okay, what do you, and for
those that don’t know what exactly is a chip brush.
Sarah Cabral (27:10)
It’s like from like an arts and crafts store. I don’t know what they’re really for. Probably like, ⁓ I don’t know, painting wood. It’s like you can get them at Home Depot. They look ⁓ like wood and they’re just like very like soft bristles. they like get the bleach eats away at them. So you don’t want to keep reusing it. Just chuck it. It’s so cheap.
Liam Shea (27:13)
Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. I love it.
Right, fair enough.
⁓ Do you use clay lightener for inside foils as well when doing foilage or just for open air? No. Yeah, okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Anything that takes seven minutes, I would like it to take seven minutes. Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (27:41)
No, I use like traditional lightener. Give me that nine levels of lift and I’m happy. I have a lot of brunette clients that want to be blonde. Yes, exactly.
Liam Shea (27:54)
I remember when I first learned, like, you can start with a low volume of peroxide and remix and finish with a higher volume of peroxide. That blew my mind. Like what? Or actually blew my mind even when I found out. I mean, when I started, I don’t ever remember anybody mixing more color except for when they ran out. Nobody was mixing more bleach ⁓ to have it be fresher. Nobody was doing that. They were just mixing it.
Sarah Cabral (28:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, that’s right. That’s true.
Liam Shea (28:22)
I’d see somebody after like 90 minutes of applications with that all bubbled out, lifted up, and you’re like, okay, cool.
Sarah Cabral (28:24)
It’s like, yes.
I always
say like I only I do two scoops at a time. Like I’m not mixing more than that. If somebody mixes a whole bowl, it’s going to be like 10 inches high when it pops out.
Liam Shea (28:31)
yeah yeah i know you’re also going to be pouring a whole bowl out ⁓
it’s not like it doesn’t begin oxidizing immediately and loses that thing yeah i know it’s fun when you start discovering those little things it also saves you money and time ⁓ and then you don’t have to deal with that whole i remember when when bleach foils for because when i started doing hair my apprenticeship began
january 2nd 1999 and there was still a percentage foils had only been around for so long at that point there was still a bunch of people using caps yeah yeah okay you know yeah yeah i remember doing caps and ⁓ you know discovering the the hard way you don’t actually know where the hair is coming from yeah maybe it’s to the root maybe i’m coloring i’m putting it here and it’s coming from over here i don’t know
Sarah Cabral (29:07)
Yeah, I did caps out of school. graduated in 2002. So yeah, we did caps still.
I was just telling my client that you like do this and you hope for the best. Exactly. You
Liam Shea (29:30)
⁓
Sarah Cabral (29:30)
might get a cheetah spot here and there.
Liam Shea (29:32)
Although I don’t know if you ever, I also remember seeing people who could do a crazy full cap in like five, six minutes. They could do, and they would add additional holes to their caps so they could essentially do a full head of foils in like five, six, seven minutes. ⁓ That blew my mind, but yeah, no, when foils came out it was amazing. ⁓ Yes, big time.
Sarah Cabral (29:44)
Bye bye. Yeah.
That’s a good thing.
Liam Shea (29:58)
OK, so if.
I’m a brand new stylist or somebody thinking about becoming a stylist. ⁓ What type of advice would you give someone either who’s about to get into the industry or has just completed education? ⁓ You know, obviously it’s very different now than it was when both you and I got out of school and apprenticeships. it doesn’t really, I mean, social media wasn’t there at the beginning. ⁓
and getting things like mentors was much more complex because it just had to be a person you knew. If you were you beginning all over again and wanted to fast track to where you are, what would you tell yourself?
Sarah Cabral (30:43)
Well, I’d definitely find a salon that offers education. ⁓ It’s not all the one. mean, the one I stayed at for seven years, we had the Palmetto education, but definitely find people that have like a program where they really feed into their younger stylist. Like I know a few salons around where I live that they love, like they have, they like train the new stylist. They have education, week, bi-weekly, like somebody who really like wants to teach.
and move, don’t work for somebody who’s just looking for a glorified assistant that’s just gonna be their assistant forever and not care about you getting, moving onto the floor and actually like growing in your own career. Does that make sense? Like find people that like want, aren’t gonna keep you forever. Some people hold onto those assistants because they don’t wanna let them go. You find somebody who’s gonna feed into you basically.
Liam Shea (31:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (31:36)
And it’s okay to not find your salon home in the first job that you get out of school. It may take a while to find like where you really belong. You’ll know when you find the right place. Now, I just stay out of drama, like stay out of the drama. Like just don’t find a find a place that’s like really like a family, you know.
Liam Shea (31:45)
Yes, yes, it’s very different when you first discover it. You don’t really, that feels new. ⁓
Yeah.
And be busy. I mean, the thing I found, even at the low drama places that I worked at, I found if you were busy, you weren’t in the back room. And if you weren’t in the back room not being busy, you weren’t part of talking about whoever wasn’t in the back room at that point or whatever I found. if you just get, even for me, when you’re not with a guest,
Sarah Cabral (32:15)
It’s true.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (32:31)
Do something else. Be posting.
Sarah Cabral (32:33)
Exactly. That’s another thing. I
just feel like the work ethic’s a little different these days. When I started assisting, was the coffee girl. I was the laundry girl. I was sweeping the floors. I was window-syncing the windows. I was cleaning. There’s nothing I didn’t have to do for my boss, but doing that, I learned how to work hard. And don’t expect somebody to just hand you everything. you what mean? Be a hard worker, basically, and it will pay off.
Liam Shea (32:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for yourself, be a hard worker for yourself. I mean, I know one of the problems, of course, I see is there’s way less shops that are built.
Sarah Cabral (33:04)
Exactly.
Liam Shea (33:15)
to have that level of education and taking students right out of school. So while it feels sometimes like people aren’t working as hard, there also aren’t the shops probably you and I came up in don’t exist in the same way. People can’t afford as much to have a full-time assistant around. I mean, they exist, they happen, but not to the say it was when I was coming up, I felt like every good salon had at least one assistant, if not two, and they had, you then you became a junior and they’d have two
Sarah Cabral (33:33)
Yeah, very true.
yeah.
Liam Shea (33:45)
three juniors and then you could work your way into either renting a chair or not being a junior anymore whereas it feels like they’re trying to get people out of school and then just tossing them out on the floor and expecting them to be good at it and make money.
Sarah Cabral (33:59)
Yes, I
mean, I would not want to be in that position. It’s scary when you first starting out. And I would say like to students like you need to like go like an amazing example is like the class I just taught. had four girls who are still in hairdressing school like one girl invited three other of her student friends. So four of them were not even graduated from cosmetology school and they came to my yes.
Liam Shea (34:04)
Yeah. Yeah.
they were already taking… wow!
Sarah Cabral (34:28)
This girl’s
blowing my mind. This one girl, she’s just really into education. She’s not even out of school yet. So she’s kind of rubbing off on her whole school and they’re all like, yeah, just like pay for your own education. know nobody has a lot of money, but I would say like invest in yourself as much as you can and don’t rely on your boss or your salon. Don’t rely on anyone else to build your clientele. Like get on social media, post your work. You have to like build your own business.
Liam Shea (34:36)
That’s so great.
figure out how.
No.
Even
even though I have this strong feeling that like if you’re gonna run a commission salon it should be your duty to be putting this in place as a ⁓
service provider and staff member at that place. Yes, it’s unfair if they’re not sorting out the education, but to just complain about it and not do anything about it’s only gonna hurt you anyways. So yeah, I mean, I completely agree. Just figure it out. Also, there’s a lot of free… There was no such…
Sarah Cabral (35:15)
Exactly.
So much free, so much free. Exactly.
We got ripped off.
Liam Shea (35:29)
I remember at the beginning, if you
were lucky, if you were lucky, a product company just happened to make a VHS or a DVD that’s mostly education, like most of its education, ⁓ like product knowledge education, every now and then you’d see someone doing hair. They might not describe what they’re doing it, but you’re like, what’s that? That’s interesting. ⁓ Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (35:33)
Yes.
⁓ huh.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. We don’t have any free. No free.
Liam Shea (35:56)
Yeah, and if you didn’t work around people that liked educating or knew how to, then it was just, it was really, really hard. But yeah, you’ve got video now, so that’s great. ⁓ Okay, and then, so you did seven years at that first salon that you stayed at, and then you went independent. What motivated the move to independence?
Sarah Cabral (36:12)
Amen.
Um, I was just kind of sick of my boss. Exactly. It’s the point where you just like want to work for yourself. And I was like really looking into it. It was like the weirdest thing in my situation because I started like I didn’t even know how much rent was so I’m like, all right, how do I find out like how much does it cost to rent a chair? So then I like I this trip my church that I went to my the pastor’s wife was a hairstylist who owned a salon.
Liam Shea (36:21)
Yeah. Or a boss.
Right.
Sarah Cabral (36:46)
And I came in one Sunday and I was going to be like, oh, I’m like, hey, Mary Ann, I have to ask you a question. I want to ask her because I knew her salon was in a town that wasn’t anywhere near where I was working. I just knew that she knew about like renting, obviously, because she was the owner. And I was like, have a question for you. And she’s like, Sarah, I just bought a new like a bigger salon. And she’s like, I didn’t tell her what my question was. She’s like, Sarah, I have to tell you something. I just bought a huge new salon like
Liam Shea (36:46)
Okay
Right.
Sarah Cabral (37:14)
Would you be willing to come rent a chair? And I was like, huh? And I was like, okay. I just answered yes without even thinking about it. So it was just my personal situation was like crazy because it just like happened. I literally moved my whole clientele a half an hour away from where I was, which is also risky because people don’t want to drive five more minutes. I had to print out postcards because we didn’t even have Instagram yet or anything.
Liam Shea (37:17)
Ugh.
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (37:42)
So I print out postcards, mailed it to every single one of my clients, like announcing where I was moving. It was like crazy, the whole thing, because they didn’t have my cell phone number because I was an employee. So that’s another tricky thing. It’s hard to like, some salons do not, if you leave back then, they are not telling anybody where you went. So I had to like slowly collect my clientele myself and send them a postcard to tell them where I was moving.
Liam Shea (37:56)
rights.
yeah.
That’s
why the midnight moves used to happen, I found. I know when I left the shop, I did my apprenticeship app. And it’s not like they knew I was, I had given notice. There were two bosses. One just said, yep, okay, sorry to see you go. And the other one said, you know what?
You’ve never worked as hard as I wanted you to, so for these next two weeks I want you to work harder than you’ve ever worked.” I’m like, okay, yeah, that’s a good way to end things. But the first one had said, basically, when you… ⁓
If you don’t have any clients, you can be done whenever you want. do anybody that’s on the books for you and then otherwise. And so I went in and because I had been the assistant, I had keys. So I did go in at like 11 o’clock at night and, and hand sit at the book at the front, hand writing down every single person’s name and just trying to like, hopefully their number was there. ⁓ I
Sarah Cabral (38:49)
Really?
Yeah, oh yeah, handwritten. That’s what I had to do. Yeah. You just gave me
PTSD because I forgot my boss wouldn’t let me work my two weeks. She was like, none can be done. I was like, okay. She like fired me basically.
Liam Shea (39:14)
Yes, and that’s common. That’s common, right? It’s like,
I understand from the drama perspective, because sometimes it can be messy having a person that’s leaving for two weeks. And sometimes it’s it’s best to just say, here, I’m going to pay you for the two weeks. But you should first you should be paying the person out. Like if you’re going to tell them to leave, you say, here’s your money. And you can go but it also ⁓ I still see it.
Sarah Cabral (39:30)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (39:41)
so often in the job that I do I mean I do hair two days a week but I also run salon monster and I see it often still the I don’t want people knowing where this stylist is going and it’s so funny because I can just look on Instagram like it’s not it’s yeah when I started yeah if someone left and you didn’t tell their clients where they went they don’t know how to find out
Sarah Cabral (39:47)
Yeah.
Exactly. You can find anybody now.
I know.
Liam Shea (40:09)
But now I’m like, why would you do that? They’re gonna find out and then you’re gonna look silly for telling them ⁓ But yeah, yes the trauma of the midnight moves
Sarah Cabral (40:14)
Exactly.
Yeah, it was kind of scary like quitting a job back then because you you might lose everything. No, so no, me and my my best friend has opened a salon a year like a year and a couple months ago. So it’s me and two other girls. We all we have a little mini salon together. Just three of us. Yeah. No, it’s like a building. My friend bought a building and she did like demoed it and
Liam Shea (40:23)
Yeah. So are you still renting a chair at that shop? No.
Okay.
Love it. Like in a studio suite or you just rented a little space. Okay.
Sarah Cabral (40:48)
It’s like 600 square feet, but that’s enough for three of us. Yeah.
Liam Shea (40:50)
It’s great.
I’m not, you know, I’ve just got two rooms here. I found this spot upstairs, little office space, one chair salon is outside of the window. My friend rents the chair from me when I’m doing this. And then this side’s the office. It’s whatever you can find works. Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (41:01)
Yeah.
Exactly. So like we’re
so happy. You probably, you know who they are. They have huge followings. Taylor did my hair and Vivids and Balayage, Steph, Steph and Taylor. So it’s us three in our own salon in Franklin. So we just had our one year anniversary. ⁓ you want to know what it was?
Liam Shea (41:12)
yeah. Yeah.
Love it.
love it. What was that? Did you? Did you open?
Well, I was gonna say, did you open it together? Did one of you open it? Okay. Okay. So
Sarah Cabral (41:26)
No, like, yeah, one opened it and we rent. And we all teach
so we can teach out of it, which is my goal. It was to be in a place where I could just be like, hey, I’m teaching this class this Monday. And she’s like completely like, that’s why we’re here. So anyone who wants to do a class whenever you want to do that was like another thing why I left my last salon. Like that the past his wife retired, she was older, so she gave it to her son. And like they didn’t really like that. I was teaching, I think, because
Liam Shea (41:40)
Right.
Right.
Sarah Cabral (41:56)
They didn’t really want, he didn’t want me to like have like strangers and cause they’re all renters. He didn’t want to be liable for everyone’s like stuff or whatever. He just gave me a hard time. So I just felt like, all right, I did it like for a couple of years, but I just felt like that was, it felt like it wasn’t like, I knew they didn’t want me teaching there. So I’m like, all right. And I always told Taylor, which is funny cause I met her back up story.
Liam Shea (42:06)
Okay.
Yeah. You knew they didn’t want you to. Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (42:24)
When I went to teach my second class at my old high school is when I met her. So she was a student there. And I knew she was special. And I was like, all right, this girl’s going to go places in this industry. So then she like randomly DM’d me and was like, hey, Sarah, like, can I come shadow you someday? And I was like, of course. So she came and shadowed me. And that’s how we became friends. And here we are. I’m working in her salon now, which is crazy. Yeah, like all these like crazy little connections have happened.
Liam Shea (42:27)
Okay.
Amazing.
Yeah.
That’s so cool.
It’s amazing when you spot it. The first time you see it in a person, you’re like, whoa, that’s a, there’s like a level of hustle. There’s a, like a tenacity and almost like, I mean, not everyone’s like this, but almost a blind ignorance to how difficult things are. Like it doesn’t occur to them.
Sarah Cabral (42:58)
Yeah, I knew I can spot somebody special. I knew it.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (43:17)
Well, you can’t do that. That’s too hard. People don’t do that. They just do things. And wow, OK, you’re just doing a thing. Good for you. Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (43:19)
Exactly.
Exactly.
You just tell them somebody’s a natural and you’re like, all right, they’re going to like do really well. So like long story short, like we opened this salon together and we all like love teaching. We’re all in the BTC team together. We’re kind of very, very, very lucky because we really respect each other. There’s no drama. Like we’re very, very blessed to all three be together. Yeah, exactly. ⁓ Yeah.
Liam Shea (43:34)
Awesome.
Yeah, you’re all professionals running a professional career trying to make a living off of it, which is rare.
Most people leave and most people don’t make money doing this, unfortunately. And they don’t, they don’t tell you either when you start. mean, maybe, maybe they did when you started, but I found you would, you would tend to get told how much you could make.
Sarah Cabral (43:54)
Yeah, it’s a lot of hustle.
Liam Shea (44:05)
but no one would ever tell you what you’ll probably make. They’ll be like, you could make, you could charge a thousand dollars a haircut. And they don’t be like, but you’ll probably make $22,000 a year. yeah. Yes.
Sarah Cabral (44:05)
Yeah, like how? Not like your partner.
Yeah.
I made no money for like a lot of my career, honestly.
I’m finally like the past few years, like you know what it is, like obviously like Ballyage helped blow up my business. Instagram getting paid through like other means like collaborations and teaching. So ⁓ I mean, there are ways to make good money in this industry, but you can’t expect it right out of school.
Liam Shea (44:34)
Yes. Yeah.
No. And it’s rare, it’s even more rare that it’ll come from just doing hair. For me, it’s probably really only the last 10 years. It required a shift from me. I had to sort of shift my perspective and look at it a different way, get comfortable with charging actual money.
Sarah Cabral (44:44)
because I made no money for like 10 years.
Exactly. So true.
Liam Shea (45:07)
and not having prices that were 10 % higher than when I did my apprenticeship. Do you know what I mean? And like, still meet people. ⁓ Well, Brittany, my coworker that rents my chair over there, they got out of hair school. ⁓ And I’ve done a podcast with them and talking about how they grew their business. They’re like the hustler of hustlers. They made it happen so fast. ⁓ But when I first heard that they had done hair school, ⁓ I heard they were like,
Sarah Cabral (45:17)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (45:36)
doing haircuts out of their kitchen for $15. And I contacted them. I’m like, please don’t do that. When I did my apprenticeship in the late 90s, it was, you know, $30 and $40 for haircuts. Don’t charge less or the same as an apprentice from 45 years ago. You can’t do that. It has to be higher. And I get wanting to not rip people off or wanting to be able to have people afford to come in. But yeah, pricing properly and then just…
Sarah Cabral (45:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that’s crazy.
Liam Shea (46:05)
you know, specializing in things, all that stuff. Yeah. Did you find as you stepped further into not just as you stepped further into education and realizing you specialize that you were able to make money off doing hair as well?
Sarah Cabral (46:07)
Exactly.
Yes, definitely. So obviously over the years, I mean, like you said, it’s hard, like especially working for yourself. You like go up 10, maybe five to $10 a year. People complain. But like knowing your worth, I know this is like the cliche, know your worth, but definitely supply and demand. If somebody, if I’m like booking, if you’re like filled with a certain service and you’re known for it, you deserve to be charging more for that.
Liam Shea (46:33)
Yes.
Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (46:49)
And
obviously you can really break down the math of what your overhead is. And have salon scale as ways to see how much you’re spending in product. There’s a lot of ways to do it, but I’m comfortable with my prices today. I think we should always keep going up every year a little bit with inflation and everything. Obviously we have to.
Liam Shea (47:07)
Well, yes.
Yeah. I know, because if you don’t, and this is what I see when I see like labor movements asking for money and people like that’s too much. Like that doesn’t even cover inflation. That’s actually making less money. Like if you’re not raising your your wage every year, you are making less money every year. I get that the numbers are the same, but that’s not how this game works. One of the things I found.
Sarah Cabral (47:19)
Exactly. Yeah.
You’re like losing money. Exactly.
No, because life is more expensive every year.
Liam Shea (47:35)
that was a big shift for me when I start figured out how to make a not horrifying living off of this but but actually like getting paid was ⁓ I got more comfortable with numbers which was not a thing but I didn’t do well in school math was not my strong suit but I but I decided actually start doing my own business taxes and and by doing that I
Sarah Cabral (47:48)
Hmm.
Same.
Liam Shea (48:00)
realized I had the numbers to be able to tell me exactly what my job cost me per hour. Like here’s all my expenses. Yeah. And so like if my job costs me $50 an hour and I’m charging $60 an hour on average, that’s dumb. That’s not why would I want to make below minimum wage or and especially when you’re I mean what that was 10 years ago. So I was over 15 years into it. So I’m like, you can’t be making
Sarah Cabral (48:06)
Yeah, I tried doing that once. Breaking it down. Yeah.
Yeah, you’re making town box.
Liam Shea (48:30)
$16 an hour 15 years into a specialized career. That’s ridiculous
Sarah Cabral (48:35)
Exactly.
But I think that’s, I don’t know why hairstylists in general have struggled with like the pricing thing, but like people will pay boat, give me some Botox, it takes two seconds injection for $400 as nobody complains. But people still complain about our prices. I don’t understand that.
Liam Shea (48:51)
Yeah,
I mean, yeah, I mean, think it’s been getting better the last five years. Like, I think that the movement that happened at the beginning of COVID when everybody was at home for a few months or a few weeks, depending on where each person was and just had time to share information, like there was this crazy thing that happened briefly when we all figured out how to use Zoom at one point. And there was suddenly classes happening and people were talking and coaches were coming up and all sorts of things were happening.
Sarah Cabral (49:04)
Yeah.
you
It’s perfect.
Liam Shea (49:21)
and a big shift happened there. ⁓ But yeah, understanding your numbers, understanding how to charge. I saw ⁓ Tabitha Coffey one time at a hair show here in Vancouver. And I remember somebody asked her, what do you charge? ⁓ And she says, doesn’t matter what I charge for what you charge. And one of the things she was big about was real estate. And what she meant by that is, where are you?
Sarah Cabral (49:32)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly where
you live.
Liam Shea (49:51)
You
know, if you’re in uptown Manhattan, you’re gonna be charging more at the same point in your career than somebody who’s in a small town, or it doesn’t have to be small, in a town where the square footage of commercial real estate is a tenth the cost. So if your costs, yeah. So you don’t need to be charging $160 for a haircut five years into your career if you’re in a place where…
Sarah Cabral (50:08)
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
Liam Shea (50:19)
chair rentals $600 a month. But if you’re paying, you know, $2,500 for chair rental, yeah, you’re gonna need to do that. Yeah, I know that made a big difference for me. And it sounds like you had similar experiences. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Okay, what’s next for you? What’s the next what’s the next thing on? What do want to learn next? What are you going to do next?
Sarah Cabral (50:25)
Exactly.
Yeah, it’s all relative to like where you’re living, cost of living.
Liam Shea (50:45)
What’s, do you have any classes coming up that you’re teaching or anything you’re excited about?
Sarah Cabral (50:48)
Yeah, have me and um,
me and Steph, Viviz and Balayage are teaching a class together in November. We’re teaching, um, we’re going to show on two different foiling techniques at the same time with like two different models. Um, it’s like a look and learn class. I’m very excited about that. Our tickets are for sale right now. Buy them people. The link is in my bio on my Instagram. Sarah, it’s Sarah Styles.
Liam Shea (50:54)
Okay.
yeah i love it where would people buy the tickets where do they find the tickets okay what is your instagram handle
okay love it i’m sure we’ll have that connected to descriptions and whatnot but ⁓ i figured i would ask ⁓ how many classes do you find you do per year these days give or take i’m
Sarah Cabral (51:19)
Thank you.
⁓ probably like
my goal would be amazing if I could do like once a month, but I’d probably say like maybe half of that six depending. It is a lot. It’s like a lot goes into classes. Just like the whole preparation, like getting all the swag bag stuff. I have to email all the brands to get sponsors. just a lot. So exactly. But I would love to teach. mean, I just went to another salon, so I’m
Liam Shea (51:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Cabral (51:55)
so open to like traveling to other salons in my area, also to see.
Liam Shea (51:59)
I was just gonna
ask I mean I’m sure if people paid you you’d be open to traveling to salons literally anywhere yes that’s right yes I accept trips to warm places in the colder months I’m even willing to discount my cost if you pay for my flight and hotel ⁓ yeah okay great I love it well thanks a lot for doing this I really appreciate it yeah I will probably check in with you down the road to see
Sarah Cabral (52:02)
Yeah, I know. ⁓ please invite me to Florida.
Exactly, in the winter. There you go.
Thanks for having me.
Liam Shea (52:28)
If classes have expanded, I’m hoping that I look this time next year and you’re teaching a class every month. yeah, ⁓ yeah, this is really fun. If there’s, is there anything else you wanna tell folks or ask folks or throw out there or are we good?
Sarah Cabral (52:35)
Thank you, Anna.
Yeah, thanks for having me. I hope I encourage some new hairstyles out there. You can start from your trade school and really do anything with this career. So just don’t give up and just be passionate about what you do because it really makes a big difference. That’s it. You’re welcome. Thank you.
Liam Shea (52:56)
Yeah.
love it yeah thank you appreciate it all right take care