“I’ve been a hair stylist for over 35 years. My mother was a hair stylist, so I grew up in the salons. When I started, we worked together for a long period of time. Then I decided to move on and do my own thing. I opened my first salon back in 1996. Now I have two.

“Through the years, we’ve seen our share of ups and downs with the economy. We’ve always had slowdowns, but not a complete stop like this. I’ve been working one job or another since I was 12 years old. I’m 52 now, and this is the first time in all those years that I’m not working. Some of me says, you know what, this is pretty great. If I could do this and still make money, it would be pretty nice. But that’s not realistic right now. It’s scary. I don’t know what the future’s going to hold.

“A lot of hair stylists are in the same boat. Lots of people in the service industry are getting hit hard. Some people in corporate America are still able to work from home and continue to collect a paycheck. But if this goes on for a couple more months, fewer companies are going to be able to continue supporting their employees.

“I try to look on the bright side, though. When all this is over, which I’m hoping will be fairly soon, I think our industry will do well. People will want to come back in the salons. They’ll want to get their hair cut, their color done, their highlights, and feel good about themselves again.

“I was watching a friend try to buzz his head with a pair of clippers, and I was like, oh my gosh. Seriously, people are really going to appreciate us when this thing is over. For many years, some people dogged the beauty industry. They were like, oh, you’re just a bunch of flunky hairdressers. But without hair stylists, makeup artists and nail technicians, could you imagine what you would look like today?

“We’re a vital part of society. We help make people look good and feel good. And we can’t wait to get back to doing that again.”

— Anthony Skoog

Anthony owns the Green Apple Salons in Baytown and Montrose. During this time of social distancing, he says, “I’m just letting my hair grow.”

The post Hair salons impacted by coronavirus appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“When you’re a hairdresser, you talk about everything with them. You help solve their problems, and sometimes they help you. But I tell you what, the men were bigger talkers than the women. Boy howdy. You get a man in there and get him talking about something, and he’ll go on and on and on about it. If there’s not really anyone in the shop but maybe one lady under the dryer and you’re doing the man’s hair and he’s had a bad day, he’ll tell you all about it.

“After my divorce I moved to Coldspring, where I had an antique shop and a beauty shop. I would do men’s haircuts there, too. I like to talk and I’ve always been very friendly, so I guess some of the guys took it the wrong way. While their wife was outside walking around in the little town square, the men would ask me out. That happened several times. And I would say, ‘Just a minute. As soon as your wife gets back in here, I’ll ask her if it’s OK if we can go out.’ And they’d go, ‘No, no, don’t do that.’ Of course, I never did. But I thought that was pretty interesting.”

— Betty Arabie

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• She’s never let hearing loss slow her down
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The post For her, it was about more than just cutting hair appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“So this month is Alopecia Awareness Month. It’s been four years since my lovely dirty blonde hair decided to say ‘sayonara’ to my scalp. I cried and cried when it happened. For a year and a half I wore wigs to hide it. Especially when I had to give presentations at work or facilitate and attend meetings. It was fun for a while because I had different hair styles and even hair colors. But I wasn’t doing it for fun. I was ashamed of my appearance. I also have a child-sized cranium, and children’s wigs do not translate well for a grown woman. Seriously.

“Then, for another year I gave up the wigs and wore head wraps every time I was in public. I’ve gotten pretty good at tying those. I still like to wear them and beanies, hats, etc., because they’re fun. Also, my head gets cold all the time. But now, I don’t feel the need to hide under them because I’m ashamed.

“The game changer for me was when I went on a trip to Australia nearly a year ago. I had nothing to lose. I was among strangers, so I wasn’t afraid to show my bald head. I still wore head wraps and a hat when I was on adventures because, well, sun and sweat. It’s hot in Oz, y’all. But I met some awesome people and a group of women who were badasses. I got to be my own brand of badass with my baldie self.

“When I got home I thought, ‘If you can do that with strangers on the other side of the damn world, you can do it here at home.’ Now, I’m rocking my noggin all the time. With lots of sun screen, because my skin is a nice lily-white to transparent complexion. Yes, I’ve been called Powder. If you’ve seen that movie, you know how special Powder was. So, yeah, go ahead and call me Powder!

“I think it’s important to talk about alopecia and hair loss. It’s a very emotional thing to go through for anyone, male or female. Kids, too. I still get people stopping me all the time to talk to me about cancer. Many times I tell them that I am a kidney cancer survivor. Almost 10 years now! But this is from my autoimmune illness that caused the hair loss. Many times that throws people for a loop. But I’m no longer afraid to talk about it, and I get a chance to briefly share my story.

“Just remember that when you see someone with no hair, don’t assume it’s from chemo or treatment.

“And I guess when I sang ‘I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair,’ I took it to the extreme. To that I say, hell, yeah, I did!”

— Cynthia Dawn Clevenger

(Note: Cynthia Dawn Clevenger passed away on Jan. 26, 2022.)

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• Battling illness, she’s in charge of her own story
• With autoimmune illness, she lives in the moment

The post She’s bald, beautiful and no longer ashamed appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I have this weird autoimmune illness that the doctors have never really been able to figure out. My case has been written up in several medical journals because it’s so strange.

“Years of medication and what have you affected my kidneys, and I had another kidney surgery a couple of years ago. That kicked my autoimmune illness into overdrive, and one of the things that happened is my hair fell out. A lot of people see me and think that I’m going through chemotherapy.

“I’m pretty private when it comes to all of that. At work, you don’t want to be seen as the sickly person. But when you start having to take off weeks at a time and you’re always in the hospital, at some point you have to let people know what’s going on.

“When this thing happened with my hair, I couldn’t hide it. It was very devastating at first. That’s when I panicked and started thinking, people are going to know that something’s wrong and I’m going to have to tell them.

“Because I’m a communications person, I wanted to be in charge of my own story. So I’ve come up with a quick and easy thing to say about it all. Sometimes I feel like I’m putting out my own little press release.”

— Cynthia Dawn Clevenger

(Note: Cynthia Dawn Clevenger passed away on Jan. 26, 2022.)

Related:

• With autoimmune illness, she lives in the moment
• She’s bald, beautiful and no longer ashamed

The post Battling illness, she’s in charge of her own story appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“These are synthetic dreads. It took me about four weeks to make them. It’s a long process. You’ve got to have some patience. I’m into cosmetology, so I like to do makeup and hair stuff. It’s just something that brings me joy.”

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• She dances her way past stage fright

The post Doing makeup and hair brings her joy appeared first on The Baytown Project.