We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Akeiri Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Akeiri, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think it takes patience. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and that applies to being successful. I feel like in todays society we always see the end result with social media being at the forefront of everything that we do but we don’t ever see the struggle and the journey that most businesses had to face/ overcome to be where they are today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Akeiri Taylor and I have always love to create! Like every child growing up my imagination was always so creative. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a hairstylist. I would practice on my Barbie dolls and when that got boring and I wanted real hair to work with my Beepa( grandfather) would literally let me sit and curl his white hair with a curling iron. He is the best, I mean looking back he was absolutely insane to let a 6 year old use a hot curling iron and spray it it down with suave hair spray until I heard it sizzling and smoking! Needless to say I am totally against that method now that I’m a professional lol! But just having that support at such a young age definitely made me fall in love with how fun hair could be!

I was raised by two marines in Upstate, NY so I was definitely raised on if you want it, work hard and go get it mindset. Of course I knew I loved hair but I really wanted to be sure so I tried out another career first and after that fell short I found myself at the age of 24 moving back in with my parents and enrolling into Austin’s Beauty School. It felt like home, aside from graduating high school, graduating beauty school and passing the state board felt like I had complete control over my future and I could literally do anything with hard work and consistency. During my first attempt at college (before beauty school ) I started my natural hair journey back in 2005. I was a broke college kid who couldn’t afford to get my hair relaxed every 6-8 weeks. So I started to embrace my natural hair when I was in beauty school and graduated I was completely natural. I always knew I wanted to work with curly hair but was frustrated because it was hard to find the right path to get me to where I wanted to be. But with consistency I knew the right doors would eventually open when they were supposed to. Fast forward a few years and I moved to South Florida and started working at a salon in Boca Raton, FL and that is where I met my business partner Nadria Brown aka colormecurls. In 2018 Together we started The Curlology Studio in a Salon Suite located in Plantation F,L. A place just catered to curly hair.

Curly hair means freedom to me. Like everything evolution does take place and I can absolutely see a shift in the embrace for curly hair. When I became natural it was more about freedom from breaking down society’s standards of what they passed for “beautiful” or “appropriate” for the “professional working environment”. Now it seems to be more of a shift as to a desired “specific” curl pattern. This has definitely made it more challenging for me when I’m behind the chair. To problem solve these challenges is changing my clients vocabulary when it comes to them dealing with their curls. You really do not realize how negative some of the words people use when dealing with their hair. So I simply change those negatives into positives with each client I see. This makes me happy to see their change in their thinking to their hair.

Every curl is beautiful and I am always so excited and honored that my clients chose me to be apart of their journey with them. It makes me feel like a proud professional to see all my clients living their best curly life and thriving!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Building my reputation in my market comes down to being reliable, consistency and relatable. Like i’ve stated earlier being raised by 2 marines reliable and consistency is a no brainer in my family. I also feel like my jobs growing up have always dealt with some type of customer services in some shape or form so that has helped me to know how to act professionally. And when it comes to being relatable even though I am such an introvert at heart I feel like any clients just want to know you aren’t a robot. Once they feel that you are relatable they will trust and respect you more.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I have two. Instagram and word of mouth will always be top tier! my clients are my walking billboard, they get stopped all the time and curly hair is a conversation starter!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vagaro.com/thecurlologystudio
• Instagram: curls_by_kiki
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecurlologystudio/