We were lucky to catch up with Kara Hengle recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kara, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

The name “Taking Kara You” came about during a time when I was burnt out in almost every area of my life. It was at the beginning of the Covid times. I was a wife, mother, and a full-time hairstylist and manager of a salon that I didn’t feel fully accepted in. On a day off, I was cleaning up my home realizing I was taking care of everything else in my life besides myself. I started to wonder what that even meant or looked like to take care of yourself first. This started a journey to figure that out for myself. I was watching people on the news during the pandemic, feeling vulnerable + showing their “imperfections” as salons were shut down and grays started to show up. They asked hairstylists to come back to work to address their grey hair with no regard to our health. Something about this made me sad for myself, my own vanity and what I and the beauty industry is teaching women and young girls about how they need to look. I started realizing that none of that matters, that I didn’t need to look like what a trend was to be beautiful or acceptable. I realized I no longer needed the two hours of make up and hair every day. I thought that was self care. I thought I was taking care of myself, but really I was just putting on a mask to hide my insecurities.

I was blessed enough to meet some incredible people who accept me completely as I am and taught me self love practices, started therapy, got more into yoga, spirituality, and began addressing some really deep insecurities. Now, I wear makeup when I feel like it, not because I feel I need it and only style my hair on special occasions. I learned to love my naturally wavy hair. I’ve also been known to help women embrace their own natural hair texture and those “sparkles,” or grey hairs as most people call them, and I really do love doing hair color. My goal is to encourage other people, not just women, to stop listening to those Outside voices. Take what you like. Leave what you don’t. Don’t worry about what other people think about it because someone’s judging no matter which way you go. And just take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is the best way you can have space to also take care of others, which is something that’s very important to me. Looking at the state of the world, I can see that we all really can use a little extra self-care, so that we can all better take care of one another.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been interested in Art and beauty for as long as I can remember. You could say I always knew what I wanted to do considering I took my first client at the around the age of five. My younger sister has always been a great sport and was the catalyst to me working in my first salon in southern Ohio at the age of 15. Her best friend’s mom was a stylist there.

After graduating hair school at the age of 17 already working in the salon and raising a baby as a teen mom, I was more determined than ever to make a career out of doing what I love and supporting my little family that way. I was scared in the beginning and started off doing nails while assisting the owner of the salon as a hairstylist. That was the deal she made me when I came back to work after maternity leave with a license. She really believed in me and I honestly don’t know if I would be styling hair now, if it wasn’t for her pushing me the way that she did. Now I couldn’t imagine not doing hair. I love doing custom haircuts, paying special attention to individuals cowlicks, specific style requests and lifestyle. I’m also very passionate about hair color and love the challenge to color match new clients. I also love to do rainbow prisms in hair color!

My goal is for every client that sits in my chair to feel seen, heard and leave feeling their best in their expression of themselves whatever that means for them. Just a simple change of getting bangs or a full color transformation where I’m adding rainbow panels to their hair for the first time. Both can be major.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I was 25 years old, my ex- husband, my seven-year-old, our cat Buddha and myself made the move from little Ohio to big town LA. We moved out here after falling in love with it on a quick visit a year prior. I have been working in a salon for 10 years in Milford, Ohio. I didn’t really know much else. I was thrilled and terrified. Really unsure of if I could make it out here in such a big city with so many other hairstylists.

One of the stylists I had worked with in Ohio moved into a neighboring city, and we both decided to interview for the same salon. We both got the job! We were very excited to work together again, but that quickly faded when we realize the environment we were in. In the beginning it was supposed to be the best opportunity of my life. I had never even seen a 30 chair salon and now I was a part of a team of that many. Owned by a celebrity hairstylist I felt so lucky to be chosen as a part of the team. It didn’t seem, though that they felt the same way. I began to doubt my ability and whether or not I even wanted to be a part of the industry out here if this is what it was, I believed I was a good hairstylist (or they wouldn’t have hired me right?) and didn’t understand why I wasn’t being given an opportunity to show it in that space.

I had previously met a woman working in another salon that I had chosen to interview for, but did not decide to work in. She greeted me with such warmth and we became quick friends. After being in the first salon for 6 months I ran into her at the grocery store. At that point I had considered quitting hair all together and becoming a realtor. I was feeling defeated and uninspired. When I saw her, she asked me how things were going at the salon and I told her honestly not well. She then reminded me that she had opened up her own salon and she had a chair waiting for me there. The following week I went in to interview. As we were in the interview scheduling a trial day for her to see my work, a client called requesting to get in immediately. she put them on hold and said “do you want to take it?” I said “let’s do it.”
I’m still doing this clients hair 8 years later.

I build an incredible career there with that team for three years and then moved to San Diego for three years. While I was in San Diego, my partner and I decided to divorce. The ladies at Vanity handed over clients and did everything they could to make sure I was back in that salon. Because of this I was able to move back up to LA very quickly to be with my family at the salon and support my little family. I’m incredibly lucky to be a part of this beautiful team that I’m with today and very grateful for another owner to find me and believe in me. I love them all with all of my heart.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are many rewarding aspects of being an artist and one is simply and selfishly getting to love what you’re doing every day. Sometimes I get to instantly see the impact of my work on somebody’s life. Sometimes it’s an evolution and learning, giving me a challenge and I love this aspects as well. It’s both instant and deliciously delayed (sometimes painfully delayed) gratification in creative work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @takingkarayoubeauty
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/taking-kara-you-beauty-burbank-2?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
• Other: https://g.co/kgs/AR731Jk

Image Credits

Katie Cole