Holly Dear of House of Dear Hair Salon: Five Things Anyone Can Do To Have Fabulous Hair
An Interview With Jilea Hemmings
Treat your scalp. Fabulous hair starts with a fabulous scalp. Use clean beauty hair care products with active ingredients that perform. Think of your scalp as your skin. Most of us would not wash our face without replenishing it with a moisturizer or hydrator afterwards. House of Dear has aloe gel as one of the active ingredients that is a natural exfoliator and has thousands of antioxidants that helps create blood flow to the scalp.
As a part of our series about “Five Things Anyone Can Do To Have Fabulous Hair”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Holly Dear.
Holly Dear, is a veteran hair artist of over 25 years. She owns the House of Dear hair salon as well as the newly launched House of Dear Clean Hair Care Product line. With an extensive background in product development, Holly is a wealth of information in all that is hair and scalp health and created her Rose of Jericho enriched haircare collection to enable her customers to experience a healthy, clean and nourishing hair care collection. Holly has always been inspired by hair techniques, trends, styles, and haircare.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
My name is Holly Dear and I’ve been in the industry 25 years. I have always had a passion for hair and fashion and my love for clean beauty grew as I was educated in the importance of good clean ingredients in products. I’ve worked in product development for 20 years and find a passion in creating a clean beauty product line that gives you real results. I love interacting with clients, giving them updated styles that work with each individual’s lifestyle and developing a clean product line that clients can feel good about their choices and achieve the look they desire.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I started noticing after years of being in the industry that some of my male adolescent clients going through hormone changes started developing really dry scalp to the point some mothers felt like it was psoriasis. I really started studying this and in my studies, I found that this could possibly be a reaction due to certain PEG’s found in products that are known as hormone disruptors. The answer to this problem was a medicated shampoo that really dehydrated my client’s hair and scalp. I started researching clean alternative ingredients that could help work with these issues and why these issues were happening in the first place which led me to a more in depth understanding of PEGs and the way they mimic or interfere with the body’s hormones known as the endocrine system. These chemicals are linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, and other problems. We have been taught to cleanse our scalp and condition our ends and studies prove that our scalp is aging 20 times faster than our skin and the chemicals we have been using to cleanse our scalp are essentially disruptive to our overall health. This led me to the development of a clean beauty hair care line that treats and cleanse the scalp with active ingredients that work and nourish the scalp at the same time.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
My passion for hairdressing always set me apart. I studied hair textures and face shapes obsessively but when I found that there was a missing ingredient, clean beauty hair care, I achieved my tipping point because I was able to use my talents as a stylist as well as my platform to educate clients on the importance of the products you use especially in the shower, under hot water with your pores wide open to absorb into your body. I was then able to back my skills with products I felt safe selling to my clients and gave the clients the desired results they were looking for.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Kathy Mason has been my right-hand person through the transition of Covid, rebranding and rebuilding. We balance each other out as far as perspective and the way we see the industry. She helps keep my artistic mind from wondering and helps me to stay on task at hand. Her taste is impeccable, and we have the same vision with different personalities so it adds a unique variety to the brand. She is educated in areas that aren’t my strong points and challenges me to see things through different lenses and this helps me to understand a broader reach of client’s needs and desires when it comes to salon experience and product development. I respect her opinion which helps me grow to be a more rounded leader.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
When I was still doing color my client comes in and wanted “red” hair. When you first get on the floor, you go through a phase where basically you feel like you know what’s best. You have been educated and you are pretty confident that you are invincible. I talked to the client about tones etc. and then continued to apply the color. When we were finished the client expressed to me that she felt like she represented Christmas and since it was December there was no way that she could leave with this hair color. My take-away was that everyone’s perception is different and trust matters. I might of known what shade and tone looked best on the client but that didn’t mean that the client trusted me. Since it was our first time together, the trust was not established. People have had hair trauma in their life and some with many bad experiences. It is important to clearly communicate, especially with first time clients, so they know that you can achieve the results they desire. My philosophy when it comes to building trust with clients is the first appointment it is the clients, the second appointment you share, and the third appointment is when you get to take control of the appointment.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
Thank you. It was a 20-year overnight success… Yes! Allow your perceived mistakes, missteps, and bad judgments to teach and strengthen you. They are NOT fatal! Push through fear, feel the pain, practice radical self-care (see your hair stylist, put on fresh, clean make-up) and get back in the game! Surround yourself with two or three trusted advisors. Acknowledge that you DO NOT have all the answers but in multiple wise voices, you can hear the truth about your blind spots and learn from them. Ask many open-ended questions and listen well You will learn more than you can possibly imagine.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you please share “Five Things Anyone Can Do To Have Fabulous Hair”. Please share a story or an example, for each.
1. Treat your scalp. Fabulous hair starts with a fabulous scalp. Use clean beauty hair care products with active ingredients that perform. Think of your scalp as your skin. Most of us would not wash our face without replenishing it with a moisturizer or hydrator afterwards. House of Dear has aloe gel as one of the active ingredients that is a natural exfoliator and has thousands of antioxidants that helps create blood flow to the scalp.
2. Keep your cortex strong by replenishing it with active ingredients that helps build back the hair shaft and keep it strong and healthy.
3. Keep a neutral ph balance. If your ph balance is off your hair can become frail and cause it to break and frizz more easily. The House of Dear Wash, Rinse and Resurrecting Balm can help Balance out your ph. If your ph is balanced, then the Wash and Rinse can help you maintain it.
4. Use a thermal protector when using direct heat to help keep the hair shaft strong and keep it from burning your hair when direct heat is applied.
5. Use a product with an SPF that helps protect from the sun and free radicals that can be damaging to the hair shaft. The House of Dear product line has active ingredients that help hydrate your scalp, strengthen your hair and protect against thermal heat and has an active spf that protects and fights against free radicals.
Can you share 3 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. Work out! This helps gets your endorphins up which helps your mind stay positive and your body starts to decrease the fat in your cells which helps make you look and feel better.
2. Meditate and Stay positive! Mentor of mine once told me that if you stay positive everything will end up positive. With meditation you are able the eliminate a lot of stress in your life and this helps keep your mind in positive space and see the beauty in yourself and in life
3. Get a hairstyle and products to support the stye that you love and suites your lifestyle. When you look good you feel good!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Make Clean choices. After what we have all been through with the uncertainties of this pandemic and the overall unknown, it is more important than ever to make choices to support your overall health and well-being. There are so many choices that we face every day on what we put in and on our body. The philosophy toward a greener healthier life is to make one choice at a time to take care of yourself and mother earth. My part in this overall movement is to create a platform that calls attention to PEGs that are found in a lot of beauty products and why this is harmful to our overall health. People have been taught for decades to clean your scalp and condition your ends. This is because of the heavy loaded silicone ingredients, known as PEGs, found in most hair care lines that camouflage what is really going on to your hair with a synthetic slip and shine, Silicones can clog your pores when put directly on your scalp. These silicones are one molecular make up of estrogen. When your body gets a huge influx of these ingredients, and your body starts to recognize these hormone disruptors as estrogen. When this happens, it is almost like an autoimmune response and your body starts recognizing the synthetic ingredients as estrogen. Then taking these synthetic ingredients through your body which are full of carcinogens. The hair industry is so far behind the skin industry when it comes to natural ingredients. They are not only absorbed into your body, but they also affect your outward appearance.
Research shows that this neglect on your scalp is causing it to age 20 times faster than your skin. This causes scalp imbalance that can clog pores which can lead to hair loss, thinning or brittle texture, hormone and scalp imbalances, greying, and overall risk of cancer. We need ingredients that are natural and effective for strengthening and hydrating without weighing your hair down and creating undesired side effects, your scalp acts the same way as your skin. When your skin is trying to tell you that the balance is off it will over create oil to push out unwanted ingredients or it will become dry and itchy. Knowing why your scalp is reacting the way it does helps you know how to treat it. With the House Of Dear Clean Beauty product line you can get your hair and your scalp in the best position to get your desired results.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Be positive and things will end up positive. This was told to me by one of my mentors when I was working in Italy and under a lot of stress on making big decisions for a company. Living with this philosophy has helped me in so many ways when it comes to alleviating stress. This also helps me with my drive and eliminates fear-based decisions to get in the way that can muddy up my vision. Staying in tuned with yourself is important to your brand and overall message.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)
Harlem Capitol Partners is someone I would love to chat with. I am a startup, female owned business and think that our visions align. I would also like to have breakfast with Ellen DeGeneres. I feel like we would have great conversation and she would love the product line and the way I cut her hair.
How can our readers follow you online?
www.Houseofdear.com and https://houseofdearhairsalon.com/ as well as @houseofdearhairsalon and @houseofdear
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
