We recently connected with Laurelle Glover and have shared our conversation below.

Laurelle , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea of creating protective styles for black men and especially black women so they could enjoy the beauty of braids and still feel beautiful every day and most importantly in a professional setting. Over time black women have rose to being CEOs, business owners or just women wanting to feel good in their natural hair, but most often the idea of going to a salon and getting braids will be a dreadful experience from waiting for hours to get serviced to sitting in the chair for 6-12 hours and the braids will not be the best quality but will be so tight that it will cause long term hair loose. I have known a lot of women that went through that so I decided to change the narrative by not only creating a safe space for these women but most importantly provide a fast and efficient service that will focus on hair growth with tension free braiding techniques and ensuring the best quality braids on the market.

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

SEATTLEAFRICANBRAIDS was founded by LAURELLE GLOVER in 2017. It all started with the idea of opening a braid salon that will not only be a safe space for women but also a space that I could creat a variety of protective styles that will promote hair growth and show that braids can be warn not only on vacation but on everyday activities. My discipline comes from the believe that when you wanna do something be the best at it and give it your all and that energy will transfer to the people you service. At the early prime time of braids they were viewed as not healthy for your hair and I wanted to change that, I started working on a tension free technique that will allow you to enjoy braids in different styles, colors, lengths to name a few. What will set me apart from other braid salons is that I not only provide the top quality braid service I also perfected my tension free braiding technique and was able to transform my braid salon into a luxury braiding experience with providing hair care prior to braids install, cozy and clean environments and I guarantee no more than 5 hours visits to the salon. I am proud to say that I was awarded best braider in Washington in 2023 and 2024 and I intent to keep that statue, this brings me a lot of pride because I now see that my hard work is being recognized. To all the potential clients 100% is guarantee when you book a braid service you will leave the salon feeling like a million dollar.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

What was a huge addition in building my reputation within my industry was my consistency and being the best at providing top quality braid services. I will start off by pointing out my punctuality not only for the start of the appointment but for the finish time. Consistency in the styles and my availability. I have serviced well over 2000 women and over half are consistently booking with me 7 years later. Consistency in marketing on social media by showing my work and client experience.

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

I started off by providing braid services at clients residence without me having a reliable mode of transportation I would catch the bus and travel from one city to the other and I still manage to show up on time. I started building a solid reoccurring clientele then travelling became harder to fill in all my clients I shifted my services to my residence my clients were able to adapte quickly then the foot traffic increase so I decided to embarque in finding a salon and 5 years later I run a braid salon with 1 employee that I had to train from ground zero.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.seattleafricanbraids.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seattleafricanbraids?igsh=MWgyeHphOXhyN2RrZA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/r2j77xggR8qyDx9r/?mibextid=kFxxJD
• Yelp: https://yelp.to/wnLY_E2b7R

Image Credits

Merissa Huumes photo
Laurelle Glover