Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Madison Dennis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Madison, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

I had just come off of competing for the title of Miss Tennessee – a pageant that requires its’ contestants to provide their own hair & makeup for the competition. Many people wanted to know how I learned stage hair & makeup, and I explained that I had spent my entire life on stage so I had to learn it on my own. Once people learned that I was interested in doing hair & makeup for others, not just myself, the referrals started pouring in, and I began providing those services at other pageants, for photo shoots, and for a couple of brides that first year.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Madison Hardy Dennis, and I am a full time professional hair & makeup artist, salon owner, and CEO of my company MHD Beauty, which was founded in 2014. I started as a freelance artist, but today, my company has grown to include 6 employees, and a freelance team of 14. My business has 3 main operations: MHD Beauty Parlor, Nashville Wedding Stylist, and MHD Cosmetics. MHD Beauty Parlor is a full service hair & makeup salon concept that opened in March 2023, located in the Berry Hill neighborhood of Nashville, TN. There, we provide services that serve as a one-stop-shop for those seeking to aesthetically prepare for the important events in their lives, such as weddings, pageants, photo/video shoots, etc. Myself and our staff provide facial & waxing services, spray tanning services, makeup & hairstyling services, makeup lessons, and my staff also provide full hair services as well, including extensions. Nashville Wedding Stylist is our wedding team, who provides services on location for (on average) 200+ weddings throughout Middle TN each year. Finally, MHD Cosmetics is our full cosmetics line that I created in 2015. Our products are paraben-free, hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic, and fragrance free, yet are highly pigmented and high performing. We offer our products for sale both in person at our salon, and online. The key tenant of everything we do at MHD Beauty is to provide consistently memorable hair & makeup services that empower each & every person who sits in our chairs.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes it did! Makeup & hairstyling for events and the stage was always something that I had a knack for as early as high school. Through college, I continued doing it for friends & family on the side, and then I gained attention for those skills when I competed for Miss Tennessee in 2013. I was in the dressing room helping my fellow competitors with their hair & makeup, and even did an updo for one of them for the evening gown competition. I got married in 2014, and became “jealous” of my husband’s schedule flexibility being an entrepreneur himself, so he & I worked to try and figure out how I could quit my corporate job to go into business for myself. At that time, I was singing regularly with a well-established wedding & corporate events band, and starting to do more paid hair & makeup work on the side. There were MANY weeks that I did not have a day off. I saved as much money as I could, and would ask just about everyone I knew if they would let me do their hair & makeup for free so that I could practice and also build my portfolio. After doing that for about 6 months, I was able to quit my corporate job for full time entrepreneurship. I started mainly providing services at my clients’ locations, then rented a small styling station in a local pageant coach’s studio. After about 2 years of doing that, I started renting a small studio on my own, and 6 years after that, I opened the MHD Beauty Parlor.

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

I have always strived to conduct myself with a high level of professionalism during each and every client interaction. For me, that means showing up when I say I will, keeping to a schedule and not making anyone wait for their appointment, being sanitary, having a high level of skill with all skin tones & ages, listening to to the clients & executing their vision well, and carrying on pleasant & polite conversation.

Contact Info:

• Website: mhdbeauty.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/madisonhdennis
• Facebook: facebook.com/mhdbeauty
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MHDBeautyChannel
• Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/mhd-beauty-parlor-nashville
• Other: mhdcosmetics.com instagram.com/mhdcosmetics nashvilleweddingstylist.com instagram.com/nashvilleweddingstylist

Image Credits
Angel Patricia Photography, Amy Allmand Photography, Goodwin Photography, Daria Lorman Photography, Jason Davis Photography