Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Twite.
Hi Taylor, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve always been interested in hair, so I suppose my real story starts in my friends’ bathrooms with box color! After several years of home hair experiments, I started my formal education at the Aveda Institute Minneapolis, where I really grew a love for color specifically. From there, I was recruited by Van Michael Salons of Atlanta, where I received advanced training to become a color specialist and worked in that position for several years before moving back home to Minnesota. Upon moving back to Minnesota, I was hired by Juut Salonspa of Minneapolis, where I worked as a Chemical Specialist & began to teach in their advanced educational color program and mentor new artists. This is really what I found out I loved most — educating and mentoring. This is how I came to owning my own salon a decade after getting my cosmetology license. It’s a chance for me to get to mentor new artists and watch them succeed!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, it’s never a smooth road. As a stylist, it can be hard to find the salon that feels like the right fit, and so many of them are steeped in competition. It was my love of mentoring, education and the lack of ability to find what felt like my salon “home” that eventually led to Hiraya Hair Collective — and nothing about Hiraya has been “smooth.” I searched Minneapolis high and low for the right space fora good 6+ months before deciding to check the Atlanta area, and even though we found a space here pretty quickly our buildout took absolutely forever and hit snag after snag. It certainly wasn’t helpful that we were also in the middle of a pandemic, and the landscape of what it looks like to be a hairstylist changed dramatically with that!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Hiraya Hair Collective?
Good Hair, Clear Conscience.
That’s our motto here. We’re designed to be a salon that’s “people first,” which means we prioritize caring for both our clients and our stylists. We want our stylists to feel at home, comfortable and supported when they walk in the door and for our clients to feel like they’re getting more than a haircut, color service or treatment.
We’ve meticulously crafted a genuine, enjoyable atmosphere within the salon space and strive to deliver an experience for the clients that feels however they need it to feel that day (restful, calming, energizing, uplifting, pampering, etc.), which results in beautiful, healthy hair that feels authentically “them.” We also do everything we can to contribute to our local community and the global environment by partnering with Certified B Corporations as much as possible. This is why we work so heavily Davines products!
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
There’s so much to love here! Growing up in a small town in Northern Minnesota, we always had to drive a good distance if we wanted to do anything. Here, there’s always something going on and it’s easily accessible! That does tend to result in some traffic, though, and that’s probably what I like the least.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hirayahaircollective.com
- Instagram: @hirayahaircollective
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/hirayahaircollective
Image Credits
Lauren Twite @lauren_twite
