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

Allison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Here I want to share the story of how I came up with the name of my salon. It’s important to me, and I think it story should be shared. Since the day I started hair school in 2009, through to my first few years of being a hairstylist I always felt that I needed to be put into a box. Whether that was with my skills or anything that I was learning, it felt that there was truly only one way of doing things, and if you did not do it that way it was wrong. The issue was so many of these in the box ways of doing things simply did not work for me. It honestly made me question even wanting to do hair. It wasn’t until I was in a better environment in my salon and started to really focus on my skills by taking classes and further educating myself, that I learned I didn’t have to be in a box. I wanted to do things differently. I actually never even thought I would be able to open my own salon, so it started as a brand. I had started being asked to teach stylists what I knew, and hold classes. When I was putting together the tools for my class I realized I didn’t like using other brand tools for my own class, I wanted my own. I was able to create my own extension tools with my own branding, and when I was asked what name I wanted to put on the tools I came up with Unorthodox. I felt this was very fitting as I had taken so many different things that I had learned and created my own unorthodox way of how I wanted to be and create as a stylist. Not long after coming out with my own tools, I had an opportunity to open a small two station salon. Within nine months I had outgrew the space and had an opportunity to expand. I took the risk and opened my current salon almost a year ago.

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

When I was a sophomore in high school I had the opportunity to attend a trade school. Although my parents wanted me to go to college thought that I could become a stylist and use this opportunity so I would have a job throughout college or even as a back up. I passed my boards and got my cosmetology license when I was a mere 17 years old. Doing hair was something that came easy to me from the start. Not to say that I didn’t need to continue to educate myself and grow daily, but it has never felt like work to me.

I love being able to give clients the hair of their dreams. To be able to correct and have understanding of everything from color theory to proper placement, seeing the result is a truly beautiful thing.

I take hair integrity seriously, I am honest and am not afraid to say no, I remind that I am not a magician, I stand up for my time and experience; all of which I feel makes me stand out as a stylist and business owner.

I’m so proud of everything I’ve built and cannot wait to push forward, and move even more into educating and sharing all I have so others can grow too.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I actually had one of the biggest pivots I think someone could have in my career. I had actually gotten my masters degree to be a school counselor and I worked in the schools for about five years until I ultimately quit and focus on being a stylist only. It was a really hard decision because I had a steady paycheck and was nervous about only being a stylist when our income is so reliant on clientele. That was one of the riskiest decisions I’ve made, but I’m so happy I did.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

A huge part of being able to afford my first small salon, which I call my baby salon, actually happened during Covid. I knew I needed to get creative in how I could make money. Since we were shut down I didn’t have many options. I had the idea to start doing curated hair boxes. A customer would fill out a Google form that would tell me what their hair needs were and what they were missing from their regimen. I didn’t went to the hair store I would create boxes based on each individual customer. I shipped everywhere from California to New York and did lots of porch pick ups locally. I even made the news doing this which was really exciting. Ultimately I was able to save enough to open my baby salon!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.unorthodoxsalon.com
• Instagram: @theunorthodoxstylist