We recently connected with Misty Woody and have shared our conversation below.

Misty, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Good Hair Boutique LLC is a supplier of natural hair care and protective products for ethnic hair; an incubator salon for at-home hair stylists to expand their hair braiding and wig install businesses and skills, and a learning lab for those who desire to learn how to care for ethnic hair. Good Hair Boutique is a solution to bring products and training for learning about ethnic hair in a majority white community with little access to public transportation and minimal healthy options for hair care in nearby stores. Good Hair Boutique is designed around the belief that natural hair is “good hair” and access to products, business opportunities and social networks can help hair take lives to the next level.

I founded Good Hair Boutique during Covid when I was trying to shop for wigs, braiding hair and hair care products for my biracial children. Most stores in Pennsylvania were closed, except for the big box stores such as Walmart and Rite Aid. These stores had a small isolated section of products for ethnic hair, and many were not recommended for growth, cleansing, styling or moisturizing. I am a parent in the community who has a vehicle and drives, but many others do not and had to rely on internet stores and deliveries to continue haircare routines in a healthy way and to keep it in protective styles. During this time, many of our neighbors experienced job loss, closed businesses, or missing work to care for sick family. To supplement their income, some began to offer braiding services, but it was inconvenient or not preferred to have people in the home. Culturally, our community is majority white. Black and brown families have limited opportunity to business ownership or expansion, and our schools’ youth have experienced racism and minimal access to cultural studies and traditions. This has caused increased social conflict, lack of understanding and a delay in learning about traditional hair care or techniques. I founded Good Hair Boutique because I believe all ethnic hair is good hair – and it should be cared for and treated as such, with access to products, information and opportunity for those who need it, use it and can teach others about it. As a white mother, I had family to teach me how to care for my children’s hair, and I want to use Good Hair Boutique as a safe and educational space for other families to learn, and for other children to create a love for their natural hair. Many parents in our community do not have that benefit – we have many single white mothers without knowledge, fathers raising children as single parents due to absent mothers or an increasing addiction epidemic in our area, and youth who have an absent parent and no knowledge about how to care for their natural hair. Good Hair Boutique is a local space that offers access and affordability to products and information; a community space for connecting to others, learning and expanding services and businesses, and a safe space for people to receive resources and information for issues around school disclipine, social services and trauma supports. In addition to our physical store, we offer same day local delivery within a 20-mile radius to more rural areas north of our location and towards the city of Pittsburgh.

What got me most excited about opening Good Hair Boutique was the opportunity to create a community space within a retail store that could provide services and products to people who have often been overlooked or underappreciated in our neighborhoods and the surrounding areas.

Misty, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My journey into the hair and beauty supply industry is unusual. I have a background in communications and nonprofit administration. During my career, I had the opportunity to learn about the many biases, challenges and extremely amazing successes of black and brown people, not only in my community, but also nationally. Personally, I learned so much from my husband and his family (who are black), and I learned a lot about the culture raising my children. At the same time, I have complete understanding that I am a white woman, and have so much more to learn and won’t ever have an inkling of an understanding of the black experience. I completed a business administration degree right before the Covid pandemic. During that time, I had the experience of searching for services and products for my family, which inspired the answer to a question in one of my courses: What does your market need, that you can provide? I started the business online, as a delivery and shipping service since much of the country was still not open to the public, and many people in our community don’t have transportation. After the first year, we were able to secure a storefront, and offer space for at-home stylists to expand their offerings in a salon-style space. Additionally, with my education experience, I could support women in the community who wanted to launch their own small businesses but needed more experience, information, support or simply a place to sell their products.

To date, the things I am most proud of are: Providing natural haircare products to the free clothing and toiletries closet in our local high school; supporting five small businesses with space, advertising and support in launching their products and businesses; creating a space for three at-home stylists to take clients; advocating for the Beauty Without Barriers project to make natural braiding a non-licensed hair service in Pennsylvania; financially sponsoring girls sports in the local school districts; advocating for dress code policy change and the Crown Act at the local school to provide more culturally aware policies for students; providing an afterschool space for community kids to get homework support and complete small weekly tasks for an allowance, and providing social service supports and resources to five families in six months, and providing a local space for natural hair care products in our community. Also, I am proud on the business side of expanding from an online shop to a storefront, which has in itself expanded to three times the size since opening (mostly because you can never have enough hair products!).

The main thing I would want people to know about Good Hair Boutique is that EVERYONE IS WELCOMED HERE. If you need information, resources, supports, or community, it is here. We have the experience and connections to professionals and products to help you with haircare, business, styling, social services and more. If we can not help you immediately, we will find a way to get you what you need.

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

I love these options, but the one that I felt most compelled to share is “What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?”. I had a lot of trepidation in opening a storefront for our store, mainly because I am a white woman. While our business is family owned, and I’m the only white person in my family, I am still the main person people see when they walk in or have business questions (as a small business, I handle many tasks and roles). I also have spent a lot of time in my career and personal life advocating for equity for black and brown people in my community, including an increase in opportunity for them to launch businesses, attention to inequities in juvenile justice and school discipline, and the inequity in capital investment and product profitability for black-owned brands. I didn’t want to take someone else’s space that I wasn’t qualified to step into. However, I knew that my community and my family needed access to affordable products, and people like my nieces and other people in my area needed access to spaces to grow their hair styling businesses. I knew white people like me needed a safe space to find out how to take care of their biracial children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren in our community. I built my reputation in my market by asking the experts and my customer base what they needed, what they used, what they recommended. We ask customers to submit requests and recommendations on our website and in our store, and we use local stylist’s recommendations to get the most effective products. We do A LOT of research – best products for hair care, growth and styling. We understand that almost everybody has a different product need or style preference. My daughters and my family share their experience with products and information to others who come in to the store. We have a lot of people (all demographics) who have experienced hair thinning or loss – and we have created a network of licensed and experienced professionals to refer to for support and servics. The biggest recommendation I have for building a reputation falls back on old school business ethics: We learn people’s names, we follow through with their requests, we stock trending and long-standing quality products, we communicate and refer to local stylists, salons and barbers, and we build relationships with everyone who comes in our store.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I funded my business in three ways: I used funds from my side hustle as a marketing agent to save up money to purchase products for my online store; I wrote grant applications and received about $20,000 to put towards creating a salon space and a Good Hair Boutique brand hairline, and I received financial gifts from family members who wanted to support the expansion to a storefront. I always encourage people to get connected to grant databases, grant writers, or small business associations or chambers of commerce in their communities to find out about financial opportunities. At the time, I wouldn’t have qualified for a great business loan, so I had to put in work and get creative to get the capital to launch. Also, consider getting registered as a MWDBE enterprise – a lot of financial support opportunities can come through these channels at the federal and local levels for businesses who have a historically low chance of receiving support (such as minority or women owned).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.goodhairboutiquellc.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodhairboutiquellc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodHairBoutiquellc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mistychybrzynski/
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@good.hair.boutiqu