There are interviews where you hit record, ask a few questions, and everything stays nicely on the surface. And then there are the ones where you blink… and suddenly you’re talking about bleach chemistry, mental health, and the very real art of putting your “human suit” back on before you greet a client.
That’s what happened when I sat down one-on-one with Allison Webber —Charlotte, North Carolina, vivid + blonding specialist, educator, suite owner, and yes, proudly known online as “the green-haired stylist.” She’s about 13 years into her career and somehow has the energy of someone who’s still curious, still experimenting, and still willing to say the quiet parts out loud.
The part where my jaw hit the floor (early)
Allison didn’t sugarcoat her first salon experience. She described it as “awful… an awful training program,” and then dropped the kind of line that makes every stylist watching go, Wait—WHAT? She told me, “I literally had an educator call me a little bitch on the floor.”
Not only is that brutal… It’s also the spark for why she became so intentional about education later. She “jumped ship,” helped open a salon with a friend, and ended up running their training program for most of seven years. When she talks about education now, it’s not performative. It’s protective. It’s personal.
Allison’s educator brain is… chef’s kiss
One of my favorite threads in our conversation was how deeply she thinks about how people learn — because she’s lived the reality of being thrown into the deep end.
She told me she once aimed to become an Aveda corporate educator, and she still credits that training for drilling learning styles into her brain. And then she shared a detail I’m still thinking about: she’s “still the person who gives out workbooks… in every class,” plus PDFs, because people leave education hyped—but miss half of it in the moment.
Also, her honesty about teaching rooms full of humans? Refreshing. She said she had classes that were so quiet that her running joke became: “Do you guys hate me?”
Going suite-life: the fear, the math, the trust fall
We got into the real-world business side too—especially the leap from salon to suite.
Allison talked about the fear a lot of stylists don’t admit out loud: Will my clients actually follow me? She was worried about losing the ability to double-book without an assistant, and she had to learn overhead from the other side of the counter.
Then she hit me with the stat that made me grin: she said she “only lost two clients” when she left—after hearing you can lose up to 25% with a move. That’s not luck. That’s relationship equity.
And she didn’t romanticize it either. The suite glow-up comes with sweeping, mopping, and suddenly realizing how much the support staff used to quietly carry.
“Human suit” moments (aka: the realest part of the whole convo)
At one point we started talking about introvert recovery—how the chair can be your whole social life, and then you’re absolutely cooked by the end of the day.
Allison said, “You gotta put like your human suit back on.” And when she described the post-work decompression negotiations with her fiancé, I laughed because it was so familiar: they landed on “10 minutes of silence” before she could be a person again.
If you’ve ever sat in your car outside your house like it’s a recovery pod… you’re among friends here.
The nerdy color talk you actually want
And yes—we got into the juicy technical stuff, too.
Allison shared that she deals with bleach sensitivity and prefers products designed with scalp comfort in mind—she mentioned seaweed in a lightener as an anti-inflammatory support. She’s also strict about developer choices: “I don’t use anything over 20 volume with bleach at all.”
My favorite behind-the-scenes gem: when she wants a little extra “movement” in foils, she’ll use towel warmth—dry towel, then hot wet towel—because the humidity helps keep lightener from drying out. It’s one of those practical, in-the-trenches tips you only get from someone who’s done the reps.
You can find Allison at:
https://www.instagram.com/thegreenhairedstylist/?hl=en
Transcript:
Liam Shea (00:01)
Okay, fantastic. So I’m here with Allison Weber. Allison, would you like to just tell us a little, know, a little like 10 to 30 seconds snippet about you?
Allison Webber (00:14)
Yeah, so I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m a vivid and blonding specialist and educator. I have a suite with two stylists and they also assist me. And I’m the green haired stylist on Instagram, if you don’t already know.
Liam Shea (00:30)
I love
it, outstanding. How long have you been doing hair for?
Allison Webber (00:35)
⁓ 13 years, which is crazy. I was just talking to a friend before this and we went to hair school together and I was like, my god, it’s been 13 years. Like it’s so crazy to think about.
Liam Shea (00:37)
Nice.
It, uh, time
makes no sense and it will always do that in your career. I mean, I think I’ve been doing hair. I started in January of 1999. So, you know, 26 years. It’s, um, it’s bananas and I swear I just started sort of. Kind of not quite, but kind of. Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, 13 years ago, did you, did you know you wanted to do hair right away?
Allison Webber (00:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, it feels that way sometimes.
Yeah, I did. ⁓ My parents made me go to college first, which did not last very long. I came home and I was like, no, I’m going to hair school. ⁓ That’s been an uphill battle for a long time, ⁓ now I’m, now I think they’re happy that I do hair and they get good hair out of it. So, but if I didn’t do hair, I wanted to be a journalist. I loved writing and I did, I did like the yearbook, ⁓ a newspaper.
Liam Shea (01:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
There you go. Yep.
Okay.
Allison Webber (01:46)
like design work all through high school so I liked that part of it too which I guess kind of makes sense like designing hair.
Liam Shea (01:49)
awesome.
Yeah. The writing thing’s
unusual though. I don’t find there’s a truckload of people in our industry that ⁓ came from a writing background before doing this. ⁓ Yes, creative. Yeah. ⁓ That’s amazing. So you went to college for a period of time.
Allison Webber (02:05)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it’s definitely far and few between.
Liam Shea (02:16)
however long you felt like you had to before you could say, don’t want to do this anymore. ⁓ And then how did it begin? Was it straight up just going to like the local hair school or?
Allison Webber (02:18)
Yep.
Yeah, I went to an Aveda Institute here in Charlotte and then that was a year and then I worked ⁓ at another Aveda salon in Charlotte for about a year. I went through their training program. I think I made it maybe a year and a half. ⁓
I had been on the floor for a very short period of time and I just I really hated it there. It was awful. It was an awful place. It was an awful training program. I literally had an educator call me a little bitch on the floor. ⁓ Like crazy. And ⁓ so I… No, no, it’s so bad. It’s so bad. Yeah, thankfully. Yeah.
Liam Shea (02:49)
Yeah.
and yet not uncommon. I get that you say crazy, but like it’s less common now. Like it keeps changing. But yeah, yeah.
Allison Webber (03:10)
I, ⁓ so I left there. I had another friend from hair school whose parents were opening a salon, ⁓ in the same like general area. ⁓ and my contract was almost up. So I jumped ship and we opened and I helped them with their like social media and figuring out, you know, training programs and stuff like that. So I was there for seven years and I ran our training program there, ⁓ for most of that time. And then I just decided I,
I love educating, but with, I think COVID changed a lot with education and with like just hair school in general, like there was no hands-on education, there were no clients, you know, so everyone was coming out of hair school less and less experienced. And like, I feel like our job as educators got so much harder, but we were getting paid the same and doing more work. And I was just like, I feel like I could be doing something different that would be a lot more.
Liam Shea (03:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (04:10)
rewarding. So I got a suite, it was so small. And I got an assistant that was working with me part time and she was very temporary. And then I started doing more independent education. And then
Liam Shea (04:14)
Hahaha
Allison Webber (04:25)
That was 2023 that I started it and all of last year I was doing classes all over the place. And now I’m focusing more on like virtual classes just because I feel like it’s more accessible for people and it doesn’t have to cost so much for everyone.
Liam Shea (04:38)
Mm-hmm.
Allison Webber (04:41)
and you can do it on your own time. So it’s a lot more beneficial and you can, you know, if you like don’t hear something you can rewind it and go back to it and not have to like be the person in the class that’s like scared to ask a question and scared to be like, can you say that again? So it’s a lot better. Yeah.
Liam Shea (04:49)
Yes.
Yeah, that was me. Yeah, early on. No,
I mean, you know, mean, early on in my career because
and there wasn’t even social media. So there was no video of anything. The only like video you would ever get would be the occasional like DVD that came with a product line. And really it was just a series of ads about each product. It didn’t really tell you anything helpful. And that was it. And you would have to it would have to be in your area or you or you’d have to travel. ⁓ And even when I did do classes, I found I tended to do
Allison Webber (05:05)
Right.
Yep.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (05:34)
just the look and learns, because I never wanted to do it in front of anyone after it, and I never asked any questions. ⁓ So yeah, I’ve found digital education really helpful. Not that it isn’t nice to do it in person.
Allison Webber (05:38)
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, it’s really funny like all last year I probably did
a class almost every two weeks and it was really nice like meeting so many people and but every class had like a different dynamic and I don’t know if it was just like you know different like regions of the country or whatever but there were always like some classes that were like completely silent and like my running joke is like if it’s so silent I’m talking and like no one’s asked any questions everyone’s just kind of staring at me I’m like do you guys hate me like do you guys hate me are you listening do you care do you want to leave like you’re free to go if you want like but then I would have
Liam Shea (06:16)
Yes.
Right?
Allison Webber (06:23)
classes that would run like an hour and a half over because everyone wanted to talk the whole time and like those were always so nice because it like really makes you feel like you know you’re like actually connecting with people instead of just like talking at people.
Liam Shea (06:33)
Yeah.
I mean it’s not… it’s not…
that different necessarily than doing hair for a guest in a chair. It can be much more difficult to do it if they never say words or tell you anything and you sit in silence the whole time and they leave and you don’t know if they liked it or if it’s what they wanted whereas the feedback person now again that could be too much feedback too but ⁓ both exist.
Allison Webber (06:49)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean the silent appointment is okay as long as you know what you’re signing up for. Yeah, that’s great.
Liam Shea (07:06)
yes if you’ve booked one with me i’m much more comfortable with it sort of
yeah i’m not good at dead air but ⁓ but i i try ⁓ okay so you had so you had that first salon that was less than ideal of an experience and i think that fits in with lots of people’s experiences which is
Allison Webber (07:14)
Yeah.
You
Right.
Liam Shea (07:28)
very few places have good training programs. think education, there’s just a limited amount of people that are good at educating in general across the board. ⁓ And then salons usually have education programs that seems to me set up more as like a pipeline to just get more junior staff that they can take as much money from as possible as opposed to like, I always think of a
Allison Webber (07:36)
Yeah.
Yep.
Liam Shea (07:56)
a new stylist, like if I had somebody working with me or for me, to me, the goal is getting you so you can leave. I mean, it’s like having a kid. I mean, I’m not saying it feels good, but the whole point is to teach this person to do it without you. ⁓ And then, okay. And then you went and you started doing more education. At what point did you realize, I mean, I know you liked education, but at what point did you realize you were
Allison Webber (08:05)
Right. Yeah. To let them grow. Yeah, exactly.
Liam Shea (08:26)
I mean, I want to say good at educating, but that’s a weird question to ask you. What point did you realize it was working as an educator?
Allison Webber (08:33)
⁓
I mean, it was definitely like discouraging at first going out on my own. feel like I had a lot of people that were always because I worked for an Aveda salon, you I was doing mostly Aveda education at the salon. So I was kind of like in a box. And I think it was more like when I started getting bigger on Instagram, doing more with social media that people were like, I would love to watch you. And I’m like, oh, well, you can’t, know, because like I was in an Aveda salon and like it was a big salon and we were busy and I was busy. So once I left, I feel like it was
Liam Shea (08:57)
Yeah.
Allison Webber (09:04)
little discouraging at first trying to like figure out how I was gonna do it. But I was pleasantly surprised with how many people in my area actually wanted to learn from me and I have a few friends that own salons so they were willing to host me and you know just trying to you know see if it worked. And I think the big thing especially in my area is that there’s not a lot of education for vivids but we do have a fairly I would say fairly large like vivid community like I feel like there’s a lot
of clients and obviously like you know everyone’s price point is different but I feel like there’s not a ton of people that do vivids well and people that I mean like I learned as I went you know just thankfully having clients who love me and are willing to let me experiment on them but you know there were times that I messed up people’s hair because I did something that I look back now and I’m like wow I should have known that but ⁓
You know, like one time my friend who still comes to me, it’s almost been 10 years, but I messed up her hair the first time I did it because I gave her like hot pink hot roots when I was trying to make like a deep like orchid color because I lifted her to a 10. You know, it’s like just like simple things like that that like people don’t teach and like that’s such an undervalued like.
specialty but it’s in high demand. So I feel like offering that with like the color theory portion made a big difference. And then I’ve always had a high influx of like people wanting to learn from me I think because I’m fairly approachable. I don’t always look it but I feel like I try really hard to like
Liam Shea (10:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (10:51)
let people know that I’m willing to help where I can. ⁓ So I think that is something that like, I don’t really feel like we have that many educators in our area either. Like lot of them are salon specific. So I think the demand is there. It’s just the specialty is a little less looked at.
Liam Shea (11:11)
Yeah.
And okay, so, so you’ve started doing educate, you started teaching. do you, are you someone that preps more or someone that more goes in and figures it out based on the people in front of you? Both. Okay.
Allison Webber (11:26)
both. So
I went through, was originally, my goal for a long time was to become an Aveda educator for corporate. That did not really work out because I look like this, but you know, like they, back then too, it was like before it changed a lot. They’re probably a lot more open now, but like you couldn’t wear, you couldn’t have long nails. You couldn’t have nail polish. couldn’t have, you were always wearing black, you know, not a lot of like crazy makeup, you know. And, but when I was going through
Liam Shea (11:36)
Yes.
Yes. Yup. Understood.
Allison Webber (11:58)
their training program you would like go through all these classes and then you would go to this last class and after this last class they would teach you basically how to teach and that was one thing that like really was something they did really well was going through like the different learning types and i yeah yeah
Liam Shea (12:13)
Yeah.
It’s what those strict systems are good for. I mean, they’re not good
for everything or everyone, but, but being able to break down how you do a thing.
Allison Webber (12:23)
Yeah.
Yeah. And so they really kind of like drilled that into me and
after that last class, you’re supposed to be invited to audition. And at the time, you were invited to audition. And then it was going to be one of six class curriculums that you had to memorize, but you didn’t know which one they were going to give you. So at that point, I was like, OK, I’m done. Thank you. ⁓ But that was something that I feel like was really valuable to me, figuring out how to work around everyone’s learning style.
Liam Shea (13:00)
Mm-hmm.
Allison Webber (13:01)
I always prep a lot of, like I’m still the person who gives out workbooks, like in every class. And it costs a ton of money to print and half the time it probably goes in the trash, whatever. But I also give like PDFs. ⁓ Just because I feel like, like sometimes you leave a class and you’re like so excited, you’re so into it, but you miss so much. And there’s also things that like, you know, when I’m, I know when I get talking, like sometimes I forget stuff. it kind of makes it so that everybody gets like the whole class to like
Liam Shea (13:07)
Love it.
Mm-hmm.
Allison Webber (13:31)
home ⁓ but yeah it’s like a handbook like a guidebook and it’s like
Liam Shea (13:32)
Yeah. Is it pre-filled out? Like, it like, this isn’t just a book they put? Okay. That’s amazing.
Allison Webber (13:40)
Like from two of my classes to the class types I do, it’s like 25 pages. So yeah, it’s, she’s thick. But, and I started towards like the end of last year instead of automatically printing, every one’s copy. Like I would send out an email and be like, who wants PDF? Who wants, cause they’re like, I those things are like $23 to print. It’s crazy. So, ⁓ a lot of people like having the PDFs. They have it on their phone. They can, you know, share it, whatever. So.
Liam Shea (13:46)
That’s amazing.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (14:10)
⁓ So I always have that and then once class starts I kind of like try to like get everybody at the beginning to like ask any like burning questions they have so that I know for a fact that like I’m gonna answer them because I never want anyone to leave like thinking I had this one question it never got answered.
So that’s kind of where I start and like gauge what people kind of are feeling and doing and where they kind of are as far as like comfortability. And then from there, I really wing the whole class. I really do. I just kind of go with the flow from there because I feel like when you try and be structured, like I keep one of my like workbooks with me so that I don’t get lost. But I feel like when you try and do it too structured, like…
Liam Shea (14:43)
Okay.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (14:57)
It ends up, you just end up losing people. Like I feel like you, and then you kind of lose your own kind of sense of educating because you’re so focused on like staying on this like strict schedule and you know, we’re strict scheduled all the time behind the chair. Like why, why not make it more like free and like custom, I guess. Yeah.
Liam Shea (15:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
mean, I love those workbooks. That sounds amazing. It took me years to figure out because I went to college a little bit. It was more for fun after I was already doing hair. And I was just taking the odd course here or there. And one of the things I couldn’t figure out was ⁓ I couldn’t take notes. I that’s not true. I could take notes. I can either write or I can be present, but I can’t.
Allison Webber (15:31)
you
Yeah.
Liam Shea (15:48)
do, I can’t do both. Now, you know, with an ADHD diagnosis, I’ve started to like, put things together and figure out what was going on there. But like, I can, I can, I can be present and I can listen to you, or I can write down what you’re saying, but I’m not taking it in. I’m just writing down what you’re saying and reading my notes isn’t good enough. ⁓ so the idea being able to follow along or look later, that’s amazing. That’s going to be so helpful for so many different, ⁓ learning types out there.
Allison Webber (16:08)
Right.
Liam Shea (16:18)
I that. Okay, so I want to take just a quick step back. After you left that Aveda salon, the next shop you went to, were you renting a chair there or were you commissioned?
Allison Webber (16:18)
Yeah, for sure. ⁓
I have been commissioned, so every salon I’ve worked at I’ve been commissioned. ⁓
Liam Shea (16:35)
Okay. Okay.
And then you went and rented a booth after that. What was that transition like going to being self-employed? mean, I know you were probably, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Were you fairly booked up at that point?
Allison Webber (16:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
terrifying terrifying
Yeah, so I think I owe, I mean, not to like make it good, but I think I owe COVID a lot of my business because, you know, when we came back, like I was busy before, but I had never seen anything like what it was like when we came back from COVID. And we were only closed for, I want to say eight weeks. And like I had done, like there were a few clients that like I had been doing long enough. I was comfortable like with them. So like I went to their house and stuff, but yeah, I mean, it was so busy. I,
Liam Shea (17:01)
yeah.
Allison Webber (17:22)
I think the scariest part for me leaving was, you know, the owners and a lot of my coworkers became like family to me. So, and not in like the toxic, like, we’re a salon family way, but they were like, like family. And so that was really tough to like, like I felt like I was, you know, just like being mean and leaving, but I was just like, I’m just not happy anymore. And it’s not anything that can be changed. It’s not a you problem. It’s a me problem. And I just want to change the
Liam Shea (17:32)
I don’t know. Yeah.
Allison Webber (17:52)
that things are going and I truly fell out of love with Aveda. Especially through COVID. You have to get Aveda through a Aveda salon. it’s not like I was going to Cosmoprofen buying Aveda color. I was having to figure out other stuff. And that was a big pushing factor because I think that’s what was making me stay a lot too. Because I was like, I love Aveda. It’s the only thing I’ve ever used. My best friend, if she sees this, she’ll shit on me about it. But that was my excuse to her. She was like, you should
just try something else you you can do something else and I’m like no I have to stay with the beta but yeah yeah right
Liam Shea (18:27)
Yeah, well, it’s a safety blanket, right? You know it. You don’t quite
realize at that point that, yeah, there’s absolutely differences, big differences between color lines. But the theory you’ve been using, you just need to figure out where the adjustments are. Is this one a gold or an ash heavy line? What are the reds like in this, that stuff? Once you start sorting that out, it gets a little easier, but it is scary. But it’s also tough because if you’re gonna…
Allison Webber (18:41)
right.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (18:54)
you go out on your own, can’t really do something like Aveda, because they still had, I think they become much more flexible, but they had those like minimum buy-ins where you’re like, I’m one person, I can’t have $10,000 of retail sitting on a shelf. I don’t even have room. Where do want me to put it? ⁓ Whereas I think,
Allison Webber (19:04)
yeah. Well…
my god. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and they
have such a big like color line that like you because you buy, you know, your bases and then you buy the tones and then you buy the developers and you know, it’s not just like pulling a tube and like I think that was the scariest thing for me. And like once I switched to I think my first original color line was Redken and I was like, my God, this color is neutral because Aveda is so warm. It is the warmest freaking color line. And like it’s beautiful. It’s shiny. It’s great. Don’t get me wrong. But I was like,
Liam Shea (19:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, yes, yes.
Allison Webber (19:44)
my god this isn’t orange like I’m like huh
Liam Shea (19:46)
Yeah, you suddenly realize those people are like, can I have something ashier? And you’re like, this
is the ashiest I have. It’s orange. You like it? Yeah.
Allison Webber (19:51)
Like, yeah. Yeah, right. Right.
Yeah. But I think ⁓ I think the scariest part for me was like hoping that my clients liked me enough to follow me and trying to figure out how I was going to double book. I’m a double booking stylist for most services and not having an assistant was a really scary thought. And, you know, I went into it and I was like, OK, like I don’t have to double book right off the bat. I’ll figure it out.
Liam Shea (20:08)
you
Allison Webber (20:19)
not knowing what I could afford because I had never been on that side of the business. You know, like I’ve been handling my books for so long. Like I was a micromanager. I would not let the front desk mess with them. And so like that part, the social media, like all of that, even like buying color and all that, like I knew what to do in that aspect, but I had no idea how much money I could actually like spend on overhead. So I picked like the cheapest suite that I could find that was unreasonably small and
It was just like, was such a big adjustment and I only lost two clients when I left that stayed. Yeah, they stayed at the salon and my old boss, you know, he always says like, every time you move and every year you can expect to lose like up to 25 % of your clientele. And when I left and I only lost two, I was like, holy crap. I was like, these people do really like me. Like, this is great. You know, they love hanging out with me, obviously. ⁓
Liam Shea (20:57)
That’s impressive.
Right?
Allison Webber (21:19)
So yeah, I think that was the scariest part and just knowing if it was gonna work and I mean, thankfully it did. I’ve been gone for three and a half years now. So I’m doing well and I’ve upsized my suite and I’ve got, you know, I have two assistants now that they both work part-time and my best friend is one of my assistants and she is…
Liam Shea (21:30)
Yeah.
Allison Webber (21:43)
growing out of our suite and getting her own in January. So that’s a very like happy, sad thought, you know, like it’s bittersweet, but she’s staying, ⁓ she couldn’t go too far. She’s going right down the hall. she can’t leave me yet, but that to me is like.
Liam Shea (21:47)
rate.
Always bittersweet. Yeah.
nice.
Allison Webber (22:03)
a really nice feeling. mean, as sad as I am to not work with her every day, it’s like knowing that she after only two years is confident that she can like do this on her own.
Liam Shea (22:15)
That speaks
volumes.
Allison Webber (22:16)
Yeah, I mean that’s not something that most people, especially after working for somebody else and especially if you work in a big salon, like that’s not something that’s very common. So most people still are very scared and have doubts and they stay longer because of that and I certainly did. I I didn’t think, I never wanted to own a salon. I never wanted to be
self-employed and I don’t know at some point I just decided that doing independent education was more important than that and I’m glad I did. I really do enjoy working by myself versus being in like a big salon and my clients are a lot happier which is not something that I ever really thought about. Like I I never realized like and I have so many clients now that when I get new clients I don’t take very many but like they’re like I’m so glad that you’re in a sweet
Liam Shea (22:59)
That’s what I found.
Allison Webber (23:09)
And I’m like, huh, that’s interesting. Which as a new client, I would be scared because it’s like, okay, what if I don’t like this person, then I’m stuck here this whole time with one person, you But I get it.
Liam Shea (23:19)
Yeah, I mean that that’s true. I mean, I think
I think there’s a few things that make that easier. You have a social media presence, so there’s going to be a certain amount of people who, whether this is true or not, think they know you beforehand. Again, do they? But they feel like they do. So there’s a level of comfort that comes from being able to see you before they see you. ⁓ I think doing it at the point you did, you said two and a half years?
Allison Webber (23:34)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
⁓
Liam Shea (23:49)
give or take
you’ve been doing it or like you’ve been on your own.
Allison Webber (23:52)
It’s been,
it’s been I think three and a half, yeah.
Liam Shea (23:54)
or three, three and a half years.
So that was early or sort of like peak COVID. I think there was also a comfort level. I mean, I, we were shut down for I think three months here. I’m in Vancouver, I think.
Allison Webber (24:02)
Mm-hmm.
wow.
Liam Shea (24:14)
and I decided, I’d been renting a chair, I’d been self-employed for years, but I’d been at a salon and I decided to go take my friend’s days off in her suite. And I was a little freaked out both about being alone, which is a little funny because you aren’t. mean, like that’s just not how this works. You’re never actually alone. And I think there were a bunch of people, not everybody’s clientele, that were more comfortable at that point in a pandemic to not be around 15 people.
Allison Webber (24:27)
Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Liam Shea (24:45)
Yeah, and I’m like you, there were two like distinct groups of people it feels like to me during COVID. Those that ⁓ either left the business or did or lost money because of it, separate from being shut down. And those that just got busier. Like I got busier, way busier. I started inheriting clients from people who decided to stop doing hair and or wanted to be in a one room space and not. ⁓
Allison Webber (25:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was like… Yeah. Yep.
Mm-hmm
Liam Shea (25:15)
Yeah, so I mean, I feel like there’s a bunch of us actually did really well. Plus the digital education, the platform changes, all that stuff. If you were able to use that either for education or for your business, then that’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Allison Webber (25:22)
Mm-hmm
Yeah,
I think too with COVID, like, I think, you know, we obviously are not essential, like getting your hair done is not essential, but I feel like it does kind of like put it into perspective for a lot of people that were like, oh, I could go six months without getting my hair done. And they’re like, no, I absolutely fucking couldn’t. Like I cannot. And I think that’s, you know, we went, yeah, like people got desperate. Yeah.
Liam Shea (25:38)
Hmm.
Yeah. Right?
Half of them did their own hair. Do know what I mean? Half of people went and did stuff. made,
⁓ I was doing take-home color kits for people, like for the gray coverage crowd. I wouldn’t be doing a Vivids take-home color kit, but I mean, go for it, but yeah, I found people were so excited to be back. Also, I had a certain amount of people and I’m sure you did to a degree.
Allison Webber (25:59)
Yeah. For great coverage. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Liam Shea (26:16)
I was the only person they actually saw outside of the people they lived with for 18 months or something like that, depend again, depending on the sort of community you’re in. ⁓ so I think you’re right. It’s not essential. No one’s going to die not having us around, but, ⁓ they sure were happy to be back at least in my world. Yeah.
Allison Webber (26:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And I think like the mental health part of it too, like, you know, now we talk so much about mental health and ADHD is normalized now. Like we actually get to be like represented and you know, it’s like.
Liam Shea (26:49)
Yeah.
Allison Webber (26:52)
we don’t think about the small things like that. Like for me, it’s my nails. I get my nails done every three weeks, sometimes two. And like I get designs. That’s like the thing that I do for myself. And you know, it’s like for some people that’s hair and like getting out, getting to either go somewhere and just sit in silence or go somewhere and listen to someone else talk about their life or be able to share things that they don’t normally get to share. Like that goes a lot into mental health. And I think that that…
helped our industry a lot because I think that I personally connect a lot more with my clients now than I did before COVID. And I think it’s a lot more personal for all of us. And like, I’m very thankful and very blessed that my clientele, like I don’t have anyone I don’t like. Like I’ve kind of weeded everybody out that like wasn’t necessarily my person. And like, I would call almost every single one of my clients a friend, you know, like I, I could literally like when that trend
Liam Shea (27:31)
Yes.
You and me both.
Allison Webber (27:52)
was
going around on TikTok, like text your hairstylist or text your client saying, we were here until, you know, 10 PM last night, right? My boyfriend’s asking, like, I feel like I could do that with any of my clients. And they’d like, yeah, I was with you, you know, like, you know, like, I feel like that connection became so much stronger for a lot of people.
Liam Shea (28:03)
Yes, obviously. Yeah.
Yeah. My guess is you’re probably also comfortable being personal in the salon. mean, I don’t know what it was like at the first shop you were at, but probably similar to mine in that, you know, there were the rules around you don’t talk about like sex politics or I’m trying to remember what the other thing was. And I’m like, but yeah, like that those are the only things I want to. are the other things? What do you I don’t understand? Just sports like what? Yes.
Allison Webber (28:30)
legend. Yep. Yeah. Like how am I supposed to get to know someone? Like yeah. Yeah.
Liam Shea (28:40)
Those are like three primary things I want to get into. No matter what you’re feeling about any of them are, I would like to openly talk about those things and then some other stuff. ⁓ That’s awesome. I love it.
Allison Webber (28:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, my first
salon was very, ⁓ they wanted to be very high end. And I mean, they were, it was just like an older, a little bit older of a salon. So it was like outdated, but they were still like trying to be like luxury. And it’s just a different brand of luxury than like we have now in luxury salons. But, ⁓
like they were very much like, you don’t talk about your personal life. you, like we weren’t even allowed to bring our phones on the floor. Like if we had our phone in our back pocket, like someone would come take it and put it in the break room. Like it was so bizarre. And so my second salon, the one I was at for seven years, like they wanted very much to focus on like the employee side of things to make it like a better environment for people to work, not just for clients. So I was able to be a lot more personal, but I definitely wouldn’t have
I don’t think as personal as I am now with my clients being in like a bigger salon
Liam Shea (29:48)
Yeah, yeah, there were some strange salons to come up in, weren’t there? Man, I I get it. You know, it happened in multiple industries, that shift, right? Like fine dining disappeared to a degree. It exists, kind of, but it turned into casual fine dining. Nobody wanted to be at the restaurant where you weren’t allowed to speak, where staff couldn’t speak, and you never made eye contact with them. I mean, I can’t do that. Are you kidding me? I can’t.
Allison Webber (29:52)
Yeah. Yup.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It’s so weird.
Liam Shea (30:16)
I’m not supposed to look at you and just let you do things for me? I would rather help and start working with them than I would be in that situation. ⁓ Did you, either early on or further into your career, did you ever have any mentors?
Allison Webber (30:18)
Right.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah, I had…
Liam Shea (30:34)
or anybody you feel like.
don’t mean, it doesn’t have to be official. I don’t mean did you have a coach? can answer that too, but did you have anybody that sort of spoke to you that helped you along, taught you stuff?
Allison Webber (30:40)
You
I
So I had educators at my first salon and there were a couple that like I felt like I could trust a little more than others, but for the most part I didn’t really have Like I feel like it was I mean for lack of a better word like a pretty toxic environment so I felt like it was like you know people that would make you think that you could trust them and then they would turn around and just get you in trouble and I feel like the people that I looked up to the most were people that you know, I saw online and like
Liam Shea (31:03)
Yeah, sure it was.
Allison Webber (31:18)
It’s so crazy, I had a full circle moment last year. ⁓ Pinup Jordan followed me back and she was the first Vivid artist I had ever followed and I looked up to her so much over the years and when I first started doing hair. And so when she followed me back last year I sent her a message, I like, you have no idea what this means to me. So it’s so funny and now I’m going to Rainbow Convention, I went last year and we’re friendly, we don’t talk all the time but she’s so nice to everyone and she’s just one of those people.
Liam Shea (31:23)
Mm-hmm, awesome.
Right?
Allison Webber (31:48)
people
that’s like so passionate about being like good, you know, like she really tries to help the community and help the even outside of the industry, you know, like she does so much and like she’s so talented. And so I think she’s probably one of the biggest people that I looked up to, but I don’t really feel like I had any big like mentors like.
in person like physically because I just don’t really feel like there were many people around me that
wanted me to succeed in the beginning. And I had some pretty good instructors in school. Like I don’t feel like school was a terrible experience for me like it was for a lot of people. Like of course there’s drama, but you know like I feel like the instructors were decent, decent people and like actually like cared about us, which was nice. But that’s not the experience I think that most people have, which sucks. ⁓
Liam Shea (32:46)
That’s great.
No. Did you feel
educated at the end of it? mean, nobody finishes hair school going, I’m confident with everything or anything for that matter. ⁓
Allison Webber (32:56)
Yeah. Yeah. I felt like
I had a good grasp on color and like, formulating and color theory. I don’t feel like cutting was ever my strong suit in school. Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Liam Shea (33:06)
That’s great.
Yeah, it’s probably your brain, right? I mean, you’re probably just like wired, right? Like, for instance, color theory.
⁓ It’s still a work in progress for me. I don’t inherently understand it. I have to do a lot of effort to get from point A to point B. I really have to not just do the, you know, what’s the underlying pigment? What’s the target? But really
Allison Webber (33:22)
you
Yeah.
Liam Shea (33:35)
okay what’s going on here what am i looking at thinking about it i don’t no no whereas i can visualize cutting now not to begin with i think i spent most of the beginning of my i didn’t apprenticeship i didn’t go to school and i think i spent most of my apprenticeship doing the same thing i’ve done through school before that which was masking and giving people the impression they were really good educators so that we could get
Allison Webber (33:38)
You can’t visualize it.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (34:03)
past the part where I don’t know what you’re talking about. Especially the gifted people. The gifted people ⁓ made assumptions about steps. Like the more gifted someone is, a lot of the time they skip a step because it’s intuitive to them. They’re not thinking about it as an actual step. And so they would teach me and there would always be something missing. ⁓ Whereas I remember my aha moments. I had somebody that came in. I did a lot of scissor over comb cutting to begin with.
Allison Webber (34:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s not always like broken down all the way, yeah.
Liam Shea (34:33)
At the salon I came up in, you weren’t even allowed to touch clippers to begin with. You had to be able to do a full clipper cut with scissor over comb before you could do that. And I got this one client, Alec, and he came every two weeks. I did his hair for close to 15 years and that, like it was that repetition that I was like, okay, I just inherent, I started to understand it. I could start to look at it and got growth direction and that stuff made sense to me.
Allison Webber (34:38)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (35:01)
the color theory. Yeah, that’s a work in progress. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yeah.
Allison Webber (35:03)
You see shapes, not colors.
That could be why, yeah. I
can’t really see shapes like that. I don’t dislike cutting, but I don’t love it. I love it when it’s pertaining to my color. I don’t wanna do the color and pass my cut off to somebody else. I could never departmentalize, but I have one, I don’t do men’s cuts, but my family, and I have one male client, his name is Joel,
He has been coming to me every three weeks for 12 years. And he is like, I used the same thing. Like we were taught only scissor over comb, only like fingers and scissors, like no clippers. And I didn’t even really learn to use clippers until maybe like three or four years in to doing his hair. And I had had knee surgery and he had to see a coworker of mine. ⁓
Liam Shea (35:42)
Amazing.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (36:06)
she had used clippers on him and
I did it like one time and I was like, ah, I think I just like the way it looks better with the scissor over comb. Really, I just had no idea what I was doing and it took so much less time. Yeah, like it took so much less time. I was like, I’ve got to figure these out. And so now we use clippers. We do a fade and it always looks it looks the same every time, which is great. It’s just so funny. Like he was literally in two days ago and it’s just so funny. Like I’m like, I’m a vivid stylist. I look like this. I have
Liam Shea (36:19)
Yeah, you like the feeling of knowing. Yeah. Yes.
Yes.
There you go.
Your one fade.
Allison Webber (36:40)
Mostly vivid clients and blonde clients. And then here’s Joel. He will never leave me. Yep. He says he’s my VIP client every time he comes in. He’s like, I’m the VIP. I’m like…
Liam Shea (36:44)
and Joel. I have these people and Joel and he’s attached and that’s it forever.
You did you spend several
years wondering why he comes back? Because you’re like, I’m not, I don’t know how to, I’m not good at this. What are you doing? It’s like literally anyone else could do this better, better than me. Yes.
Allison Webber (36:57)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
He’s
seen so many people too, like he saw Stylist before me at my first salon and then he just somehow landed with me and then he stuck with me and I left and I had given him my phone number and
Like I left that salon only with like four clients. And when I went to my new salon, he lived across the street and he just happened to walk in because he was like, this is a new salon. I’ll check it out. And there I am like standing at the front. So, yeah, it does make me wonder sometimes even still. like, anyone could cut your hair, man. Like, why me? You know, like so funny. But now I think it’s like the highlight of his month, like every three weeks he comes in and he gets to chat with me and my assistants and, you know, gets his like social time.
Liam Shea (37:44)
Yeah. Well, and you build a
relationship and especially when you have assistance, like when you have, when you get to be that person that comes into, you know, cheers and everybody says your name when you walk in the door and you’re, sort of, get a feeling you don’t get in other places. I remember.
Allison Webber (37:56)
Yeah. Yup.
Liam Shea (38:03)
I apprenticed under somebody that was always adamant about never turning your guest away from the mirror while you do their hair. Now, barbering and fades and stuff, there’s a technical purpose to that, to looking in the mirror. he just had this, he was big on customer service, not hoity-toity fake high-end customer service, but guest experience. And he talked a lot about… ⁓
Allison Webber (38:09)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (38:29)
the importance of greeting people right when they walk in the door, because people are inherently, you know, they think we’re super cool, which ⁓ you and I will have a different feeling about where it’s like, okay, I guess. ⁓ And so it’s an intimidating place to walk into. So I have a feeling for someone like Joel, when you get to walk into what feels like a really cool space and be part of it, which we just, most of us don’t get to do in the
Allison Webber (38:38)
Obviously.
Yeah.
Liam Shea (38:58)
bulk of our life. It can be such a good feeling. That guest experience thing. I’m so adamant. I remember when I first went to, have you ever been to an izakaya restaurant? Like a Japanese izakaya restaurant? ⁓ Sort of. ⁓ It was a type of, I might get this wrong, but it was almost like a Western North American style bar in Japan. It’s like pub food. And when you walk in the door,
Allison Webber (38:59)
Yeah.
Like a hibachi place?
Okay. Okay.
Liam Shea (39:27)
all staff are turn and greet you. Everyone in the whole restaurant shouts out a greeting to you. So every person there’s just a huge you just hear it from across the place and look the first time you do it when you don’t expect it it’s a touch on the off-putting side. You’re like my god I’m gonna leave. Yeah why is everybody looking at me? Okay but there was a sense of you knew you were supposed to be there.
Allison Webber (39:34)
my gosh.
You’re like, whoa. It’s kind of like welcome to Cece’s like when Cece’s was a thing. ⁓
Liam Shea (39:53)
You weren’t standing wondering, I supposed to wait here or does no one want me here? Like what’s going on? Yeah.
Allison Webber (39:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm That is the worst feeling when you like walk in like
we we had a receptionist at ⁓ my last salon who All my clients still bring her up to this day, but she was so nice to us like we loved her She was great. But like she was one of those people that like Just kind of had like a hard
Liam Shea (40:09)
Yeah.
Allison Webber (40:18)
shell on the outside. Like she was always wearing a hat. Her head was always down, you know, looking at the computer, not really looking at the client. She’d just be like, hey, you know, like, and like clients would be like, what do I do? You know, like new clients, especially it’d be like, do I go sit over there? Like what, you know, where’s the bathroom? So it is, it is true. Like that does make people feel. And I think like the guest experience, like, like you were saying, like hoity toity, like it doesn’t, that’s not everyone’s desired experience. Like it, it’s personal, ⁓
Liam Shea (40:19)
Yeah.
No.
Allison Webber (40:48)
especially with hair salons, I feel like, it’s nice when you wanna go to the spa and they’re treating you like a princess. But when you go get your hair done and you have the same person, you want it to feel friendly, you want it to feel low-key, you don’t want it to feel like you don’t belong there or they’re treating you so fake.
Liam Shea (40:54)
Sure.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I love the relations. It is my social life, for better or worse, right? I mean, it’s what I, I don’t do much outside of that because that fills my social cup and then, you know, the introvert that I am, I need to go recharge alone, silently. It’s not silent. I have two kids, so there’s nothing silent about it, but…
Allison Webber (41:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep.
Yes. Yeah, it’s like
the silent, like, sit in the car for half an hour before you even, like, turn it on. Before you leave the salon.
Liam Shea (41:33)
I do it all the time and I was just talking about
it yesterday. They’re like, what do you do for personal care? I’m like, well, I drive home and I sit in the car for 15 to 20 minutes. Maybe in silence. I might look at my phone, but mostly I just sort of stare and hope that my neighbors see me and want to interact. And then I’m like…
Allison Webber (41:43)
In silence. Yeah.
It’s like sometimes when
you leave and you make it home and you’re like pulling in your driveway and then you’re like, wow, I didn’t even put any music on. how did I get here? Like what happened? I used to have… Oh my God, yeah, that makes sense.
Liam Shea (42:01)
Yeah, right? Yeah. I come to work 90 minutes early now because I need like transition time. have to. I
can’t just start. I need to remember how to be the way they need me to be.
Allison Webber (42:13)
Yeah.
You gotta put like your human suit back on. Yeah, that’s like when I first left my salon I You know
Liam Shea (42:19)
Yes, exactly.
Allison Webber (42:27)
You underappreciate your assistants and your support staff so much when you’re in a salon. You can say thank you as much as you want, but you do not truly appreciate them until you leave and you have to sweep and you have to mop and you have to make sure you have color for the next day. so I would like, it is our social time, but I was also stressed because I would be there half an hour later than usual trying to clean up and make sure, like it’s either like I do it now or I do it in the morning. And that’s like when you leave and
you get home and you’re like, shit I forgot to get gas, I’ll do it in the morning, that’s tomorrow me’s problem and tomorrow me is never happy. Ever. And you know what? Tomorrow me will be mad. And I have an electric car for that reason because tomorrow me is never unhappy. ⁓ Except for yesterday when I forgot to charge my car. But…
Liam Shea (43:04)
Tomorrow, may also avoid it the same way today me did. Yeah.
Yes, that’s great. Well,
it turns out you can do the same thing.
Allison Webber (43:21)
Joke’s
on me, joke’s on me. But ⁓ when I used to come home and my fiance was working at home for a short period of time and he hated his job and it was just like, he, it was kind of like a bait and switch. Like he thought he was taking this job as like a stepping stone into like the career he has now and that was not really it. It was, it ended up being like a customer service position. So he’s like dealing with like,
customer service with like old people that like can’t figure out how to use their computers and they’re trying to manage their finances and that’s what he does but he’s like I like I can’t tell you how to reset your password eight more times like so he I get home from work and he wouldn’t have talked to anyone normal all day and he wants to talk and I’m like we would get into so many arguments and finally we just decided like 10 minutes of silence for me to be on my phone catch up on my shit and then we can talk all you want now we don’t have to do that anymore, but ⁓
Liam Shea (44:05)
Mm-hmm. Stop.
Yes.
Allison Webber (44:17)
That really like was like the adjustment period of like, okay, 10 minutes of silence, then we can talk. Then I can be a person for you. Yes, yeah. Yep. Yep. And now we’re both kind of…
Liam Shea (44:24)
Exactly. We have the opposite problem at the end of the day. I’m done and you want to start. Yeah. Yeah, I can feel that.
Allison Webber (44:36)
in the same page. mean, he still deals with a lot of old people all day long, but he actually does what he wants to do now. So we get home and we’re both tired. We’re both like, let’s watch TV and not talk.
Liam Shea (44:42)
great there you go yep yep yep I go yeah I go
home and it’s the witching hour in the house with the kids so it’s just like help my partner out she’s been in the weeds for an extended period of time and just get to 9 p.m. when everybody’s in their bed make dinner watch a show maybe we talk I guess kind of like a bit yeah yeah I love it yeah
Allison Webber (44:52)
I bet.
You
Yep.
Zone out. Watch some trash TV.
Liam Shea (45:12)
⁓ You mentioned that when you went to your suite at first you didn’t have an assistant ⁓ and you were going to not double book, you were just going to do your appointments. ⁓ How long did that last for? No? Right.
Allison Webber (45:27)
Not long, like a couple months maybe.
I was double booking like people that I knew I had double booked before at the salon. had stations, like I had one station that was like mine and then I would like take everybody else’s stations. So like if they weren’t there, I would put my clients there and. ⁓
So like clients that I knew had like interacted before, I would kind of double book them or like root retouches, things that I could do. You it doesn’t matter if they sit for 45 minutes instead of 30 kind of thing. Or people that I knew sat for a full, you know, however long, but yeah, it did not last long. I found an assistant, what I thought was luckily after maybe…
a month and a half. ⁓ She did not last very long. had some, she was really young. I think she turned 21 when she was working for me. And she was working for another salon at the time that she had very obviously decided she was gonna work for them, which was fine, but long term. But she could only work certain days, which was okay. I’m used to working my schedule around that. But…
We just had a lot of issues with like…
professionalism and attendance. And it got to the point where like, it just wasn’t reliable for me. And thankfully like, was kind of like, it kind of like diffused on its own because she was like moving into, she graduated school, was moving into a position where she could booth rent at this place. They were gonna like let her assist them so that she could get the room for free or whatever. So I was like, cool, we’re good.
Liam Shea (47:14)
That’s a better system for that
person. That stuff’s really hard to teach. A lot of that, and this is not a, I’m not trying to blame parents, but a lot of that is just, it was either mirrored to you or you were around it or you weren’t. Like if you were around, you know, you have two white collar parents that have never dealt with the public and you were never expected to do anything and you don’t know, you know, you never did your own laundry or wash dishes or did anything. ⁓
Allison Webber (47:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (47:43)
you can just have this gap where you just don’t get it. And then I think there’s the other side where it doesn’t actually matter how old they are, you just know they understand how to see their surroundings and do, yeah, well, good, you dodged a bullet there.
Allison Webber (47:47)
Yeah, it’s a big disconnect.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I ended up in the process of phasing her out. My now best friend Sloan, she was a client at my old salon. She was a family friend of the owners as well. And so I had seen her in passing, you know, over the last, you know, seven, eight years. And she told me at
one of their daughter’s weddings that she was gonna go to hair school. And I was like, that was in, I don’t was probably only like a month and a half after I left. And I was like, well, if you go, let me know. Like I’m gonna need an assistant. And it was like a month later that she started working for me like two days a week. And then she was working for them one day a week with school. And then it got to the point where we both kind of knew we had clicked and that she wanted to stay with me. And right around that same time, my old boss
called her and was like, look, like we’ve been doing this, but we know that like, you’re probably gonna wanna stay with Allison, so we need you to decide now. So she switched to me full time and she’s been with me since and I’ve never, I mean, I’ve never had such a good assistant. She’s, we’re very lucky, like she…
Liam Shea (49:06)
amazing.
And that’s.
Allison Webber (49:14)
We’re on the same wavelength. Our birthdays are only like 15 days apart. We’re very much like, we can read each other’s minds. She knows exactly what I need. It’s been very difficult to imagine not having her as my assistant, but I have another assistant that has since moved in and that’s helped. But ⁓ I got very, very, very lucky with her, for sure. Yeah.
Liam Shea (49:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, well the stars align. You don’t always have
a bunch of restaurateur clients, but one in particular I’ve talked to him a lot about how you usually only hit this moment once. He’s had a few restaurants, but one in particular where everyone that worked for him in the kitchen is a superstar now. The stars aligned, he’s a good educator, and he just happened to be surrounded with like seven or eight.
Allison Webber (50:01)
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (50:04)
people that all could run kitchens on their own eventually. And it’s hard to know in that moment that… ⁓
Allison Webber (50:07)
Yeah.
Liam Shea (50:14)
how lucky you are and how difficult it is to replace that kind of a thing. Just plugging in my phone. ⁓
Allison Webber (50:22)
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (50:27)
Yeah, I mean you’ll have more good people. Will you ever have somebody like that again? It’s hard to say, right? You’ll find out, but… but yeah.
Allison Webber (50:33)
Yeah, yeah. It’s definitely
gonna be an adjustment, but my other assistant is really great. She’s really, really good with my clients and we’ve become friends too, but I think Sloan was the first assistant of mine that I’ve ever become like actual real life friends with and not just like working friends. I mean, obviously like, you know, you spend, I spend more time with her than I do at home. So we don’t, it’s not like we do stuff outside of work that often anymore, but ⁓ you know, it’s like,
Liam Shea (50:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (51:02)
interesting seeing that dynamic and like you know obviously like I when she told me that she was this was always the plan so like she was always going to get her own suite but you know when she told me it was so much sooner than I had anticipated and I was like I was like I feel like you just broke up with me you know like I was like damn man like I was like I’m so proud of you but like my feelings are sad you know but I’m
Liam Shea (51:21)
I know.
Allison Webber (51:30)
really excited to see what she does because I don’t know like what I don’t know if her only goal is to do hair or if she wants to do more down the road with you know other people or if she just wants to stay solo so I’m interested to see how that like unfolds for her too and if she’ll eventually have an assistant or if she’ll just keep doing her own thing.
Liam Shea (51:47)
Yeah.
you were part of that, get to see it and it sounds like they were exactly the right person for that time. Like getting you through that being out on your own for a period of time, you’re probably vastly more confident as a business owner than you were when started with you. So that’s great.
Allison Webber (52:01)
Yeah, for sure.
yeah.
yeah. And that’s
what I’ve said to her. like, you know, I want to help you because I want, you know, like, I mean, owning a business, regardless of how long you’ve been doing it, like you can know it like the back of your hand, but you still learn something every day. So like, I’m like, I just want to make sure you’re set up better than I was because I went into this knowing nothing. I mean, if my other friend ⁓ helped me, she had left the salon like…
six, five or six years before me. So she had been on her own and she helped me get everything started and I still felt like I didn’t know anything, you know? Like I’m like, still, even today, like we were out of something the other day and I was just like, my God, I feel so dull. Like it was like a five N or something. Like I was like something so, you know, necessary to have on hand all the time and like there it went, you know? Like it’s just stupid stuff.
Liam Shea (53:07)
Cognizant, it does, every now and then it does that. It’s like your hand goes by it and it started focusing on really up close and then if you cover it completely and take your hand off it, it might do it.
Allison Webber (53:10)
Yeah. Maybe if I back up.
I guess I’m just gonna be blurry.
Liam Shea (53:20)
Hmm
is it on your phone or tablet or computer? Is it a Mac or Windows? There’s a little green glowing button up top with the camera on it. Do you see it? ⁓ And does it have center stage on or off? Is that highlighted?
Allison Webber (53:23)
It’s on a camera on my computer.
Okay, I see it. Yeah.
⁓ well I’m using a webcam thing, so maybe that’s why.
Liam Shea (53:44)
It still might have that
if you click on that green camera, is there a drop down with a picture of you and if you hover over the picture, do you see the recenter button?
Allison Webber (53:51)
Yeah.
Nope. I have like this like portrait mode thing that I can do but…
Liam Shea (54:04)
Try the Portrait Mode
and then turn it back off. So above the portrait mode it doesn’t say center stage? Okay.
Allison Webber (54:10)
Mm-mm.
weird.
Liam Shea (54:16)
you can
always turn the camera off and then back on. We’ll wrap up pretty quick here too.
Allison Webber (54:20)
Thank
Okay. Nope, it’s pissed, huh? I guess we’re stuck like this. That’s so weird.
Liam Shea (54:36)
then we’ll just live with it.
Allison Webber (54:40)
It’s a little better. There we go.
Liam Shea (54:41)
there you go.
⁓ And then that green camera button, if you click on that, select the portrait one again. there we go. I just figured let’s have the same light as before. Beautiful. ⁓ Well, only a couple more things I wanted to ask you about. ⁓ I saw, I mean, a thousand things, but obviously we don’t need to talk for seven days. ⁓ It looks so I see Danger Jones creative in your bio.
Allison Webber (54:51)
Yeah, I don’t know what it was doing. There we go.
you
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (55:11)
How long have you been working with them or being a certified? I don’t know if you work with them. Is that like a certification process?
Allison Webber (55:21)
Both. So they just launched their certification program maybe like a month and a half ago. So you can go online and like learn about all of their products and take a test and then you get the certification. They have like different like, they like different tiers of like social media kind of certifications for people that like, cause they’re all about like building the community. So like the more you tag them and post about them, the more that
you can get different certificates basically. ⁓ But I’ve been working with them for two years now, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Liam Shea (55:53)
Yeah. Do you use?
love it. Loving those products. I mean,
it must be nice. mean, it’s been a while. Do you like now that you’ve left a salon using a specific brand that you get to do whatever you want, use anything you want?
Allison Webber (56:15)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will say I am mostly Danger Jones. I use their bleach, their toners, their vivids. ⁓ The permanent color comes out next year, so I’m excited to see that. ⁓
Liam Shea (56:21)
Yeah.
Cool.
Allison Webber (56:31)
But yeah, mean, it’s been really nice being able to experiment with different product lines. for the most part, I’ve stuck with the same things, but I do really like, the thing that sucks about working at a branded salon is if there’s one product that you really like from something else, you don’t have it. But also, like, so we use, we do mostly virtual retail, but ⁓
Liam Shea (56:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (57:00)
We use Amica, Unite, ⁓ Moroccanoil, Kenra. There’s certain products that if they work great and they’re from different brands, I’m just gonna get them. So we have so many different things. Yeah.
Liam Shea (57:12)
Yeah.
Some brands just make the best version of a thing and I don’t
want the third best. I want the best version of the thing. I don’t need the knockoff of it. want the thing. Yeah, no, I remember when I wasn’t able to use like shades EQ at a place where I couldn’t use Redken. Now, I don’t really use it that much at this point, but I loved getting the chance to and I love choosing individual things. That is awesome. The bleach, they do? Is it on scalp bleach?
Allison Webber (57:25)
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Liam Shea (57:45)
Or both?
Allison Webber (57:45)
Yeah,
so you can do on scalp or in a foil. ⁓ They have a cream lightener that just came out. That one’s really nice. They…
Liam Shea (57:52)
Nice.
Allison Webber (57:56)
focus a lot on like scalp comfort. everything, mean, especially cause they started with making Vivids first. So, ⁓ you know, we’re using a ton of bleach on the scalp and I have a bleach sensitivity and there is seaweed in the powder lightener and in the cream. And that is a big like anti-inflammatory product. So that helps a lot with like soothing everything. ⁓ And I don’t have nearly the only time
Liam Shea (58:06)
Yeah.
Yes.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Allison Webber (58:26)
really have reactions now.
if we’re doing it really fast and rough, ⁓ know like stimulating the scalp a little too much or if I’ve washed like too recently. ⁓ We just did my color on Sunday and my other assistant did it and she’s so gentle that like I didn’t have any issues but I hadn’t washed my hair in over a week so I was like we didn’t we weren’t sure what day we were gonna do it so then I kept not washing it so I was like sorry but it’s yep.
Liam Shea (58:33)
Yes, but I mean…
Right. You’ve done a scalp oil treatment beforehand,
essentially. Yeah. I mean, that’s great. I mean, that’s, that’s awesome. Are you a, okay. So on scalp bleach, are you somebody that follows those rules that are always like, you never use above 20 volume on the scalp?
Allison Webber (58:59)
Yep, exactly. Yep.
Yes, I
that is one time I do follow rules. I actually so I don’t use anything over 20 volume with bleach at all I am not we don’t even own 30 or 40 volume not this long the only one
Liam Shea (59:25)
Okay.
Interesting. So is it just about time?
it’s just waiting longer for it to process? Or are you using heat? Are you putting caps on things? Are you…
Allison Webber (59:38)
I’m not using heat.
So the only time that I use 40 volume is with a high lift color. I do have a couple clients that I do like, like.
Liam Shea (59:48)
Right.
Allison Webber (59:51)
just like very natural highlights on for blending gray. yeah, I so with Aveda, we were not supposed to use heat because we were told that because it has so many like essential oils in it to protect the hair. If you use heat, those evaporate and then it just turns into a regular powder bleach. So that was always kind of something that like resonated enough with me that like it made sense. And now we have, you know, there’s bond builders in all of our lighteners now. There’s all kinds of stuff that
Liam Shea (1:00:10)
Right.
Allison Webber (1:00:21)
you know is supposed to help protect the hair and a lot of manufacturers are putting in their packaging like don’t use heat so I use I find that the better the powder the lower the developer so this is nine levels up to nine levels I was using blonde me before from sports cough same thing ⁓
Liam Shea (1:00:42)
Yep.
Allison Webber (1:00:44)
And because the powder’s so powerful, I don’t really need a lot. like even today, I didn’t use 20 volume on anybody. I used five and 10. ⁓ So for on the scalp, I will use 20 always because obviously it’s open air processing. And I have some people that like to go a little longer between their retouches than they should. ⁓ So they’re always, yeah, yeah.
Liam Shea (1:01:06)
Yes, all of mine do is the problem I run into where I’m like,
what am I supposed to do with that? And you want to be out when? I’m not sure I can make chemistry be different.
Allison Webber (1:01:13)
Yep, I’m like, cool. Yeah.
Right, right. I’m like, can your head be any hotter? ⁓ So I’ll use a processing cap for on the scalp. But when it comes to foiling, the only thing that I will do for heat is I will do a dry towel over the foils and then I’ll do a hot wet towel.
Liam Shea (1:01:22)
Yeah.
Allison Webber (1:01:37)
and I have like a towel warmer and then I’ll put a dry towel on top and that like was something that I learned from a coworker at my old salon but it you know the wet heat doesn’t make the oils evaporate as much keeps it moving so the lightener is not drying out and yeah so it’s a lot safer and you don’t get over processed as much because it’s not drying the lightener out so that is how I do it and I have never really had any challenges with it anytime I’ve used
Liam Shea (1:01:39)
Yeah, love it.
Yeah, that’s humidity, I mean.
Allison Webber (1:02:06)
30 or 40 volume, it’s always so much warmer and so much drier. So I’ve just never really, maybe with a clay lightener if I did that, but honestly, I hate clay lightener. I hate it so much. ⁓
Liam Shea (1:02:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I didn’t. never I
would love to say I was somebody that really got into hand painting. I when when foliage started to become a thing was like that that one that one I I want it in a foil. I don’t I had too many clients at dark bases. I’m like, I just they didn’t say carrot. That’s not a color they described when they wanted.
Allison Webber (1:02:23)
Yeah.
Like, yes, here we are. Yep. Yeah.
No.
Liam Shea (1:02:40)
And I’m like, I
don’t, get it, but all the videos you’re watching are on like natural level seven, eight clients. Yeah, right. It gets to almost 10 for sure, but I can’t do that with your level three. ⁓ yeah.
Allison Webber (1:02:45)
Yes, exactly, exactly.
Yeah. Well then you have
the people that are like so good at doing that that’s like their specialty and they’re mixing like they’re mixing regular lightener in with the clay lightener so like and then they’re using the saran wrap and then they’re and I’m just like I’m just gonna stick in a foil. I’m just gonna tease it.
Liam Shea (1:03:04)
Yeah, I can’t. No, no, No, like when
I was coming up, Highlights had only been around for so long when I started. Like when the people around me, there were cap experts around me, right? You would watch this person put a cap on someone’s head and do a full head of highlights. took 10 minutes for them to do it. And then they were just like, their assistant would take over and that’d be $150 back in 1990, whatever. We were toning. In fact, the greatest toner that I’ve ever used.
Allison Webber (1:03:11)
Yeah, I’m sure you weren’t toning. Yeah.
So crazy. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shea (1:03:33)
was in the late 90s, early 2000s and then disappeared. I’m trying to remember what it was. It was a Wella product. It was a true semi.
because then they came out with their Color Touch Demi, but before that there was, I’m drawing a blank on the name, but it was like, it’s the greatest toner that I’d ever used and I’ve never used one that good since, yeah. Well, I’m cognizant of time. I really appreciate you coming and doing this. I would love to do it again at some point. I also think I’m gonna have to go and find one of your classes because I would like to do more. ⁓
Allison Webber (1:03:47)
Yeah.
You
Yeah.
Liam Shea (1:04:09)
in the world of vivids and just bleaching. Just get better at that in general. ⁓ Where can folks find you on the internet? I know you said your Instagram handle, but let’s hear it again. ⁓
Allison Webber (1:04:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, I get that.
Yeah, I’m
mostly on Instagram. I’m at the green haired stylist and my TikTok is the green haired stylist, but there’s not much going on over there. There’s really not. I like to scroll. I don’t like to post on TikTok. TikTok’s for fun.
Liam Shea (1:04:26)
Yep.
It’s interesting. Yes, I spend more time on
it and I did create a work account, but nobody’s doing that. They’ve tried and I see people. Yeah, exactly. Yep. All right. Fair enough. You and me both. Well, thanks so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. And we’ll do it again one day. Okay. Take care.
Allison Webber (1:04:40)
Yep. I just want to watch funny videos. I really do. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Sounds good.
Cool. Thanks.