From Being A Stylist To Starting Her Own Hairline — Jenny Strebe

Our readers love to read about ambitious women, handling different job roles. Give us a brief description of yourself?

I’m a small-town girl that is self-made. My life has been full of small stepping stones to success that I had made myself through determination and perseverance. I went to hair school but with a lot of people telling me it wasn’t a career when I was 17 years old has always stuck in my head, so I have taken my career as far as I can go from being a stylist behind the chair to 20 years later founding the first crystal infused hair care line AIIR where I self-funded it and now acting CEO and we are evaluated as a multimillion-dollar company after surviving a pandemic. I also have two small children 7 & 9 and run them to school and football practice during all of this, getting dinner on the table and being an attentive wife to my husband.

At what time in your life you realize starting this unconventional business?

5 years ago when I realized the need for wellness in the hair industry, everything was going so superficial and companies were caring more about following count than the actual stylist so that’s when I decided to break the mold of my industry and create something that had more purpose inside that’s where the high vibrational use of crystals came into place since I already used them in my daily practices.

What advice would you give to someone who is struggling with major hair loss? Also, tell us about your hair care routine you follow every day.

I think people need to ask themselves what they are dealing with in the bigger picture. Hair loss can be when your body takes on major changes and that can be from stress, grief, or hormonal. While I would recommend looking into a healthy diet, using good hair products I suggest they try to retrace the steps of their life when these changes of hair loss became. This is the year of self-care, and if it’s stress-related create some downtime rituals for themselves. If it’s hormones they need to seek a professional.

I call my routine a personal hair ritual. Ritual is when you put purpose and meaning behind it. The haircare products I created AIIR are crystal infused for well-being but they have affirmations on them to help give you that extra reminder each day. I start with AIIR sapphire Shampoo & Conditioner I read the affirmation on the bottle, I then towel dry, and follow up with a leave-in conditioner by AIIR. Then depending on my mood, I will either let it air dry if I’m wanting to have a chill mood and day, or if I’m feeling sassy I use volcanic ash-infused Dry Texture Mousse by AIIR professional to tons of volume. When I use it I can go days without having to wash my hair as the volcanic ash soaks up any unwanted grease.

All the time. I don’t even know where to start, but I know in my heart the power of the mind to keep going. I think the biggest time I doubted myself was with my product company AIIR. I had been developing it for 3 years, I’m known in my industry so I thought that at the point I would need an investor that I could easily find one. I pitched it to 7 investors, everyone said no. I was crushed, I doubted everything I had been doing. I then picked myself up and realized there is a solution to each problem. The solution was I needed to figure out a new way to launch my products. a week before Christmas I bought all of my Christmas presents for my family and went ahead and paid for my first order of one of my products I had developed myself leaving myself with 68 dollars in my account. 2 years later we have 14 products and can’t keep up with inventory. I knew if I didn’t do that how could my audience believe in me and my products if I didn’t take that risk. Especially the positivity behind my brand, I needed to prove to my fans I can do it coming from nothing and they can too!

How did you manage to run your business during the covid situation?

Trim the fat. I looked at all of my fiances and trimmed any fat I didn’t need. I also came up with creative ways to market it and create an affiliate program for people since they needed the extra money too. It was a lot of highs and lows but since my product line is all about self-care due to covid people were searching for more of that in their lives so we were able to make it through with that, being positive and creative with all efforts.

Where can our audience get connected with you?

They can connect with me on Instagram @theconfessionsofahairstylist my blog www.theconfessionsofahairstylist.com and my product line aiirprofessional.com