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

Marcela, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Lucky vision is a space of self expression and creativity, hair being the chosen medium. The mission behind Lucky vision is to create a safe space for people to be their most authentic self. I believe self expression is the most important part of being yourself. With that, I wish for people to carry that feeling with them wherever they go after our encounter. I have found a real passion in being a part of others’ self discovery journey, I often look at it as our creative collaboration. I have made this a core value in my business and myself, to be what I wish I had earlier on in my life. I have always been one to practice performance art, since a young age. However, I never felt like I belonged amongst others. Back then, I was my authentic self, but I was outcasted by my family and peers. Over time, this took me to a darker place in life, I struggled with depression and severe anxiety. I was going against myself, for the sake of fitting in and ended up losing my sense of self. I did this, until I couldn’t handle it anymore. There was a turning point at the beginning of this year. I had to let go and show up as my raw, authentic self. I had to learn to love myself along the way. It was very uncomfortable, but I knew If I chased what made me feel most alive, it would get less scary. With this, I left my small town commission salon, and with little to no extra funds, went independent in Portland, Oregon. Finding a support system, and being around other like minded creatives aided in my journey of rebuilding my sense of self. I was able to birth and carry on my lucky vision mission. My mission is one of the most precious things to me because I fully believe it can change lives. To be who you are at your core, visually decorate yourself with it, and be celebrated can stay with someone forever. And we all get to look cool doing it.

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

My name is Marcela Menera, I am a 25 year old hair artist in Portland, Oregon. I specialize in creative color and color corrections. I have been behind the chair professionally for three years. I am an Oregon native with two chihuahuas and enjoy dancing, astrology, and watching studio ghibli movies.

When choosing which career path I wanted to take, I never considered hairdressing. I was caught between pursuing law school or fashion school. In preparation, I spent my high school years enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program. The turning point was when I realized I couldn’t handle continuing the standard education system. A friend of mine at the time announced they were going to cosmetology school and I loved makeup so I considered becoming a makeup artist. However, during my beauty school experience, I realized I did not like doing makeup, but I loved doing hair.

After getting licensed, I knew I wanted to specialize in vivid color. I also wanted to be very knowledgeable in my profession, so I tried every corner in my industry. In this stage of my career, I have been able to niche down and focus on the specialty services I offer. My focus is creative color, and color corrections. I genuinely enjoy problem solving, which works perfectly with color corrections. Ive been able to educate myself to help my clients achieve their hair goals, when they feel it is not a possibility. I definitely think outside of the box, I would say my approach and perspective of hair can be different than others. I look at hair holistically. To not only consider what I see, but the outside and internal factors of the person as well. This plays into how I run my business, I charge by the hour and do not accept tips. This allows me to do everything that the hair needs to achieve the goal. As well as create transparent communication about pricing and process with my client.

The thing I am most proud of is the ability to believe in myself. Being able to believe in myself and capabilities has opened doors I never knew existed. I’ve been able to meet my role models in the industry, advance in my career, and achieve my goal of working at New York Fashion Week. I tie this as a huge part of my brand, and I am very passionate about helping others find their belief in themselves. Anything is possible.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

For me, getting my hair design license was not a straight forward process. The beauty school I attended was through my local community college. They required to enroll in full cosmetology, and in order to test at state board you had to complete an associates degree. If everything goes according to plan, you can graduate in two years. However, I took an extra year to complete everything. I grew up low income, and decided to move out of my family house at 18, when I started beauty school. I went to school year round full time, and in order to provide for myself and pay for school I worked two part time jobs. I vividly remember waking up every morning, taking public transportation to get to class, being there from 9-3pm, getting on the bus again and working 4pm-10pm on the week days. On the weekends, I would work 10 hour shifts at a grocery store. During the two years, I enrolled in an online class here and there to attempt to get my general education out of the way. It was a lot to juggle, so after completing my beauty school hours, I spent the 3rd year finishing up my general education. I can definitely see that without the drive to pursue this career, I wouldn’t have made it, There were many moments I felt burnt out. It didnt stop there, once I was licensed and two weeks into a salon, the covid pandemic started. That pushed me back 6 more months. I remember celebrating the fact that I only needed to work one part time job alongside doing hair. The process was very hard, but I am glad at where I am now.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The salons I started out at were employee based salons. My first was an hourly position, and my second was commission. However, in May of this year, 2023, I left my commission salon to go independent. I did this with no back up plan, and very little funds to do so. Over the years, I’ve collect some equipment, and the new salon I went to provided some products and tools. This year I felt overwhelming stuck where I was. I felt like if I didnt take the jump then I would continue to push it off further, and this icky feeling would grow. Despite my multiple job history, I was only at the salon and living paycheck to paycheck, I used the last paycheck I got from my old salon to pay for my first months rent at my new salon, which was practically equal amounts. Anything I had left over went into buying the color I needed for that week. I remember taking my personal blow dryer, and heat tools to use in the salon. I moved from the suburbs into the city, and not a lot of people followed. I was starting from what felt like scratch. Luckily, I am very active on social media which I believed aided in my growth. I told myself I would make it work, and within time it started too. This is not something I recommend, it was tough. Whenever you feel the first pull to leave somewhere, I would start saving up.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luckyvision.mm/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoHLQlZMo4JPmgeyU-yJL1g
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luckyvision.mm?_t=8gcqJiPs382&_r=1

Image Credits
Cortney Chummoungpak