We recently connected with Nicole Byler and have shared our conversation below.
Nicole, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
The Maidenhair fern is one of our very favorite plants, so naturally we felt it was fitting to name our salon Maidenhair loft since we love plants and doing hair
Nicole, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Niki Byler i have been in the hair industry for 21 years . One of my very best friends Margaret Eck and i opened a hair salon Maidenhair loft on March 2nd 2022 so we will be coming up on our year anniversary soon. We both really wanted to create a space that is calm inviting and fun. I am happy to say i think we have achieved that! We get so many compliments on the vibe and energy that come from our salon and we love to hear it! We love creating gorgeous hair for our amazing clients. We do all types of color jobs from root touch ups on those grey buggers or beautiful balayage for super natural lived in color. We also offer haircuts, blowouts ,and hairstyles for any event.
Maidenhairloft is proud to be eco conscious and pure . We choose to use Keune hair color at the salon offering a pure range of sulfate and ammonia free color and haircare that is 100% vegan and not tested on animals.
Its a dream come true getting to work beside Margaret in our dream salon. Though she is about 15 years younger than me .We are basically the same person its amusing how similar we are people often say we are twins. Its really cool when you find that person that you share a brain with and life is just better with them in it. She is an old soul who keeps me young at heart and i’m so glad she’s on this new adventure with me because their is no one else i would choose.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I have been in the hair industry for over 20 years .The salon that i worked at for 10 of those years closed. .took a job as a stylist at a neighboring salon from 2019 to 2021 . At this new salon i was under appreciated and under paid and i always left work feeling like my creativity was stifled. The owner of the salon hired a man from a company to “make the salon more profitable and set up a level system for stylists and their pay’ This man that was hired by the salon had two meetings with me both of which i felt like i wasn’t doing a good enough job and again under appreciated . In the last meeting this man who knew nothing about me asked me what i wanted to for a living if i didn’t do hair . i told him i would work in a greenhouse and be surrounded by plants all day. he scoffed at me and told me that maybe i should do that instead of hair because i wasn’t passionate about being a stylist, he was downright nasty to me and though i have thick skin i left the room crying . my boss was present for this meeting sat their and said nothing she didn’t stick up for me or anything just sat their blank faced. That was the day i decided i couldn’t remain at that salon. i was passionate about doing hair and i didn’t need some strange man to judge me . so i decided it was time i asked my dear friend that worked at the salon with me if she would like to leave the salon with me and open our own salon together, she said “Yes!im going where you are going” so we left. we put in our notice and opened a beautiful salon together. and guess what its basically like a greenhouse we are surrounded by so many plants in our creative wonderful environment. The Moral of the story don’t ever let ANYONE tell you what your passion is ! Follow YOUR heart
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
i think continuing education as a stylist is huge for clients to see, also being reliable and consistant in your work
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maidenhairloft.com
- Instagram: Maidenhairloft
- Facebook: Maidenhairloft