Meet Megan Griffin of Hair by Meg Griffin in Canton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Griffin.

Megan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in a small southern California beach town and fell in love with doing hair in my teenage years. I was a troubled youth and I took refuge in the LA punk scene. We couldn’t afford to get our hair done so we would all practice on each other and that’s pretty much how it happened I was in love, just like bam, oh this is what I was meant to do. At this point in my life, I was 17 years old and let’s just say I wasn’t an honor student. I went back to school and I got my diploma. I enrolled in a cosmetology school in 2008.

In 2009, I graduated from beauty school and I got my first salon job. I also met my first mentor who instilled in me the values of a hardcore work ethic. Unfortunately, because of the recession of 2008, my salon owner had to close the doors and I was left to find another salon. I made myself a resume and I started looking for a new salon. I felt pretty strong in my skills but the kind of work that I was doing was not what was popular in 2009. I was doing more fantasy colors back then I was doing the unicorn and rainbow hair, from the punk rock influence that I had from my teenage years. This is what turned a lot of salon owners off. A lot of them didn’t want to hire me and said that my work was too avant-garde. so I ended up taking the only job that I could at the time and I was working for a small franchise salon in the area and I ended up staying there for about four or five years.

During this time I met my husband and we dated for about four years. When he told me that he was taking a job in Georgia, I was looking for something different so we packed up our things and headed for Atlanta. I always wanted to break into the education aspect of the hair world. And haven’t been feeling fulfilled in the line of work that I was doing before. So when I moved to Atlanta that was my primary focus was in the next five years to try to get myself out on a path to becoming an educator.

For the first few years that I was in Atlanta, I moved a few salons just trying to find the right fit. Eventually, I ended up at Clark Salon and Spa, in Canton Georgia. For once I feel like I’m at a place I can call my salon home it took me a long time to find it and moving across the country but I found it. Our salon owner Keenan Clark nominated me this past November to go to educator certification classes and I’m officially now a Schwarzkopf Professional educator.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Most of the struggles I had more personal struggles, not believing in myself. Thinking that since I ended up at a chain salon I would never be the kind of hairstylist I wanted to be. I was also extremely shy. It took me many years to feel comfortable talking one-on-one to a person. I think one of the worst things we can do when you work in the customer service industry is not taking care of yourself. This is something that I’ve been recently coming to terms with. We deal with a lot as a hairstylist. We take on a lot of our client’s personal lives and they become like our family and we go through the good times and the bad times and we take a lot of that to heart. that takes a lot out of us and I don’t think we realize how much it might burn us out.

Please tell us about your work.
I’m a hairstylist and have been doing hair for 10 years now. I love every day of it. I think of myself as a well rounded hairstylist, but I think I’m known for my Lived in Color “balayage”, Blonding services, Vibrant Colors and HAND-TIED Extensions. I take education super seriously. I’m always attending classes multiple times a year. I like to try to stay ahead of the trends so that I can recommend things for my clients that might make them a little fashionista of their group. I can’t stop I have a problem and I’m addicted to education.

I believe something that sets me apart from other hair stylists is that I believe in self care for my clients as well. I like to spend a few minutes during each service giving my clients a moment of wellness. a moment of wellness is where I have my clients be quiet and relax while I give them a nice essential oil scalp massage. I think that we get so busy in our digital world that we have today, it’s nice to have someone remind you to be quiet relax and have a moment of peace.

Clark salon also offers many services that go along with my self-care philosophy. We offer many different ways to relax in our spa including flotation therapy. I try to always encourage all my clients to treat themselves to flotation therapy wants you will have the best sleep for a week afterwards. Plus many more medical benefits as well if you’ve never heard of it I highly encourage you looking into it, it’s very relaxing.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I could go back ten years and tell myself to stop letting fear rule my life. How many times I told myself I wasn’t good enough because I was afraid of other people’s rejections so I rejected myself before they could. It’s amazing how many people do let fear control their lives.

Contact Info:

• Address: 10511 Bells Ferry Road
  Canton, Ga 30114
• Website: www.clarksalon.com
• Phone: (770)479-0052
• Email: frontdesk@clarksalon.com
• Instagram: @hairby_meg_skp

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