This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
12/14/2022 09:26 AMHair is a sensitive topic for many people from all walks of life, but very much for many women of color. Inadequate training, expertise, and lack of diversity in the hair styling industry have persisted in a segregated industry where tightly coiled, Afro-textured hair has been left uncared for. However, Hair’s Talent Salon owner Gina Rivera has been breaking the mold since opening her business in 1985.
Through her education and work at salons in New Haven and Branford, she worked on all textures of hair but caught an opportunity to pursue her predilection for women’s tightly coiled hairstyles, again dismantling previous conceptions of beauty.
“It wasn’t until 1999, I started doing the Japanese hair-straightening system, and they said it wasn’t recommended on tight coiled hair. And I proved them wrong,” Gina says. “In 2012, the natural hair movement began, and all the women stopped using chemicals. Because I loved the Japanese-straightening chemicals so much and saw what it did to their hair, and it was healthy and shiny and soft, I said, ‘I got to come up with something,’ because these women are going to start looking for an alternative when they start [restyling], They’re going to have natural hair for years, and it’s a lot of work. So I decided to come up with my technique.”
Since then, her namesake ‘GinaCurl’ techniques have been met with a successful and positive reception by women who visit her multiethnic salon from all around the globe, as a different approach to previous harsh relaxers, and curling and straightening expertise that have left many women of color feeling ostracized from healthy hair styling and care, that would allow for them to sport their hair naturally.
“I would say throughout my career, 80 percent of my clientele are women of color. It wasn’t until recently, in 2020, all we do here is the GinaCurl, Gina straight variation, and my Japanese straightening,” she says.
The international impact of Gina’s status quo-shattering styling has brought clients from all around the globe. From South Africa, New Zealand, to the city of Dubai, women have flown to Connecticut for her and the service Hair’s Talent provides. Providing for their comfort and healthful experience, she gives a shout-out to the Holiday Inn hotel serving the New Haven and Branford areas.
“They are wonderful to my clients, and most of my clients go there. And how they fly in sometimes in the morning, or sometimes the night before, they spend two nights here, and then they come right here and get their hair done,” Gina says.
Gina’s impact has made its mark in the hair and beauty genre of social media, as many videos on YouTube and Tiktok feature women of color lauding her techniques and the safety they have provided for their hair. A simple search on TikTok with the words ‘gina curl’ will show a total of nearly 399 million collective views of content with those words attached in some way. For Gina, it’s quite a marvelous and unfathomable abstraction.
“People say to me, ‘Wow, do you realize what you've done, do you realize what you’ve created?’ It’s unreal. It’s something else. YouTube, number one, that’s where most of my people come from. They want to see what I’m doing. The clients that are doing reviews and tutorials, people want to hear from other clients, not just from me.”
Those other clients have the opportunity to learn Gina’s techniques at the online GinaCurl Academy, whose launch could not have been timed more perfectly.
“In 2020 is when I decided to do the Academy. I wanted to do it in person, and I had a business consultant I was working with, and she said, ‘No, do everything online.’ And it’s a good thing I did because it was right before the pandemic. It was a great way for these stylists to come back to work and have a clientele. A lot of salons around here merged, a lot of them closed, so with the GinaCurl, it brought business back into their salons.”
Through education at the international Academy, students from across the United States and around the world are taught the necessary aspects of becoming a successful, trusted stylist. They learn about customer service, which includes educating women on self-care for their hair, how to cut and maintain healthy hair for their clients, “one strand at a time,” as Gina emphasizes, and the critical component of patience, as a session utilizing Gina’s curling and straightening techniques could run from six to eight hours
“I just felt compelled to help these people that really wanted this technique and couldn’t get it because they couldn’t travel here. A lot of the [beauty] schools right now, there’s only one chapter in the book that trains you on how to do textured hair,” Gina lamented. “A lot of clients go into salons to get a haircut, but nobody’s educating you, and that’s really important. That’s what they’re paying for.”
For hair stylists who are looking to shake things up on their own in the industry, courage, attentiveness, and patience are imperative factors. And also an understanding that styling is a sensitive issue and cannot be treated lightly as an easy task.
“You cannot be afraid to work. Even though it’s a glamorous industry, it’s not when you’re behind the chair, it’s hard work. They really need to be prepared for that,” she says. “Customer service is so, so important. Being courteous, being kind, listening to the client, knowing what’s in their hair before you put any chemical in. You have to love every strand and come into this business loving what you do. You have to come in with passion.”