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

Margaret, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

It is such a pleasure—thank you for having me! My personal mission has been to enhance the beauty industry. I worked as a cosmetologist for ten years and fell in love with the industry. When I was in high school, I suffered a severe trauma that greatly impacted my grades. Doing my hair and makeup became a way for me to reclaim my autonomy, so I was thrilled to learn that beauty school was an option for someone like me who struggled in the latter half of my education. Beauty truly reignited my passion for learning and made me realize how important beauty is to our communities. I fell in love with being a hairdresser and, most of all, learning about all things beauty. However, once I experienced life-altering health issues, my career was cut short.

This opened my eyes to the lack of career options and mobility in the beauty labor industry, which was a complete disservice to those within it. So, I had to start all over because there was no support for people like me then. Returning to college was scary, but the proper support made all the difference, and scholarships radically improved my situation. From this experience, I knew that I wanted to give back to my community and focus on improving the conditions for my fellow beauty and grooming professionals.

In May of 2024, I founded Beyond the Chair Co., a volunteer nonprofit and feminist group that focuses on addressing the issues faced by beauty and grooming professionals who have long been undervalued and have had poor education and working conditions. Our mission is to aid in enhancing beauty education and addressing labor discrepancies for beauty and grooming professionals, such as cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians, nail technicians, and makeup artists, along with researching this understudied industry. We are dedicated to enhancing career mobility and advocating for change.

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

Sure—a little more about me is that I studied philosophy when I went to college and ended up double majoring, creating my own degree, too. I know making your own degree sounds wild, but Indiana University has an Individualized Major Program where high-achieving students can create their own degrees. The most famous graduate from our program is Will Shortz, who created The New York Times crossword. So, being in the same program as someone so innovative and influential was cool. I crafted my degree in Applied Aesthetics to focus on our social and cultural constructions of beauty. It enabled me to explore so many different departments on IU’s campus—from religious studies, gender studies, psychology, media, fashion, and more. It was very cool to blend that with my philosophy degree. Philosophy is a huge component of my work, as I am influenced by French existentialism and American Pragmatism. The philosopher John Dewey is an enormous inspiration for Beyond the Chair and is in the background of our ethos.

Beyond the Chair sincerely wants to empower workers by fixing some of the issues John Dewey saw in vocational education, primarily around the issue of only preparing an individual strictly for labor. Our federally recognized 501 (c) 3 attempts to bridge the gap between vocational and higher education. We have four main goals:

1) We advocate for cosmetology certificates to be recognized as transferable college credits to state colleges to help expand the field of cosmetology into the humanities, creating higher education pathways beyond entrepreneurship and business.

2) Our vision is to establish the Beyond the Chair scholarship fund, a crucial resource that will assist cosmetologists returning to college who need to transition away from the physical demands of manual beauty labor

3) We aim to facilitate discussions around a National Allied Industries Union, a platform that will unite all beauty and grooming professionals within the beauty labor professions and give them a stronger voice in the industry.

4) We host independent research, surveys, and studies on the industry and provide educational resources to beauty and grooming communities, ensuring beauty workers have the knowledge to navigate the changing industry.

As a grassroots nonprofit, we are still working to achieve these goals. Our community financially supports our endeavors as we are not industry-funded. Therefore, to help build community support, we utilize social media, making videos on our mission, beauty education topics, and beauty industry-related content.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Our co-founder, Leah Miller, used to be my boss. Whenever I first got ill, I went through an employment nightmare, which is what opened my eyes to the injustices within the beauty labor industry. So, when I returned to work, I had to find a new salon. Leah’s salon, Rust and Ruby, was a haven for me. I have always admired her vision for her salon culture- to be environmentally conscious—and by the environment, I mean the salon environment! She considered workers’ rights, sustainability, recycling, PTO—you name it, it was on her radar. Sadly, I was only able to work for her briefly before I finally got my diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which would change my life. I was really disappointed whenever I had to leave her salon due to my health. That little Southern Indiana salon was REALLY ahead of the curve, and unfortunately, COVID-19 impacted her business.

However, I approached her a few years later when looking for partners in a research project. I had just won an undergraduate research scholarship with Indiana University, and due to the effects of COVID-19 on her business, Leah returned to school to get her master’s in data science. I ended up messaging her, pitching her my idea, and asking if she would be interested in helping me construct a research survey. But then we also began discussing the other issues and frustrations only experienced by beauty and grooming professionals. We realized quickly that we could instill real change if we worked at it. That’s when Beyond the Chair was born, and we hosted our first research survey that summer. We found 44 participants in less than a month (since it was for my school project, we had limited time). From our survey, we understood that for many of our participants, a cosmetology certification was their highest form of education. We are trying to change this. Currently, Leah has been building our research study on the attrition rate for the industry. However, things take time as Leah is a mom of three, works full-time, and will graduate this spring with her master’s. She is truly a force of nature, and I am glad to have her on our team.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I feel like my whole life has been about adversity and adaptability. However, that is the beauty of the human experience—you know? And I feel like the beauty industry captures this sense of overcoming as it gave me a master’s class in adaptability. As trend cycles constantly change and people’s tastes vary, you must be flexible as a beauty or grooming professional. This mental elasticity helped me pivot when I got my diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos, as I knew doing hair full-time was unrealistic.

Furthermore, I never imagined I would go to college, let alone for a philosophy degree. Talk about a pivot! But I found myself as a first-time college student at the age of 29, and while it was unnerving, I had a goal and a vision. I knew I wanted to better the beauty industry. It has been a lot of hard work, and it will still take a lot more to make this dream a reality. Nevertheless, we are building some really great, and our newfound community has been wonderful. We are very excited to see what cosmetologists can do beyond the chair.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.beyondthechair.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondthechairco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559552436057
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyondthechairco
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthechairco