Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Rocha.
Hi Laura, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Let’s take it back to when I was I attended Ventura College. I have to admit there are only two things I really do remember about college. One: I was living a phase where I would ONLY do things that made me happy and Second: I met a boy who I was sure was my soulmate, but that is for another story. I was sitting in my English class and as I sat there, I looked around at everyone sitting with me and realized how miserable they all looked. I made my way around the entire room making observations and suddenly realized that I didn’t want to be there so I closed my book got up and left in the middle of a lecture and never went back. I went home and told my parents I didn’t want to go back to school. Let’s just say that was not a good conversation, yet I stood my ground and refused to go until they gave in and supported my decision to go to beauty school. To this day I can’t recall what made me decide beauty school was going to be my ticket to happiness.
As soon as I got my license, I got lucky that a friend of a friend that lived in Santa Barbara, CA who was also a hairdresser got me my very first interview in a salon that was going to be opening in Montecito, CA, at the time I didn’t even know where Montecito because Ventura was the furthest I knew then, yet my egger self just went for it and to my surprise, I got the job. I remember thinking “Am I really going to make this drive?” and quickly I set a goal of making $20 dollars a day on tips to cover my gas at that point all I wanted was the experience.
I started as a full-time stylist at a salon called Shine Blowdry Bar, yes what you would know as “Dry Bar”. I have to say working at that salon was like my boot camp, I learned how to use a curling iron and a blow dryer and that was huge for me. I figured it was a good place to learn my basics but my goal at the time wasn’t to be a “hairstylist” I wanted to do all the cool cuts and fucky colors and all that fun stuff. After a few months of working at that salon, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to assist a stylist doing cuts and colors and told me how amazing of a hairdresser he was and the amazing career he has had and that was enough to get me excited that I say “I’ll do it!”. I made my way to the salon where I was going to interview for the assistant position, in my head I was thinking I was going to be meeting this super cool edgy stylist and when I ask for a man by named Johan Wolf aka Hans. He was super tall with the perfect tan and dirty blonde hair and wore it like Bon Jovi did in the 90s semi-long and pushed to the side. He approaches me and introduces himself and my first thought was “What am I supposed to learn from him?” but politely said hi. I was in and out in about 15 min and when I walked out, I realized I had agreed to a job that I didn’t think would give me the stills to be this super edgy ninja hairstylist, not to mention I had no idea what more than half he conversation was about because Hands was from Vienna and had a very hard accent. All I knew was the following week I had to show up on a Tuesday at 1o am for work and I was now working 2 jobs.
I have always said and will say it over and over again, assisting Hans for the time that I did was the biggest building block to my career. The awkward eye signals and body signals that I was expected to know on my first day of work made me question what was I doing. His motivational speeches were as basic as “If you want to learn you don’t ask questions, you learn with your eyes”. Yeah, I know what you are thinking. The back-to-back clients, the overlapping in scheduling and having them be upset waiting for us with their glaring eyes… talk about the pressure of not knowing what to do! Also, did I mention all of his clients were ladies over 50, edgy, avant-garde old ladies. The days we were slow was the time he would spend one on one with me practicing on mannequin dolls. He would have me do very dated, old hairstyles no one young and fashionable would ever want. It took me a while to understand Han’s way of teaching me, he would explain to be a good hairdresser I must master the basics. I should understand the fundamentals of balance and shape and most importantly how to separate myself from the crowd. When we weren’t practicing, we would go to the coffee shop next door and get a coffee and pastry. He would ask me what my goals were and then would tell me endless stories of his career how he started and how he became a world champion in hair competitions. All of the wild hair shows he would do and the stages, the creative process of creating. It awoke a new desire and all I knew was I wanted to follow in his exact footsteps. Those were my favorite kind of work days, coffee and story time.
Before I knew it, I found myself thinking of my next step leaving the salon in Montecito and rented a chair close to the salon so I can cater to the clients that decided to follow me on this new journey. That’s when a whole new world of challenges emerged and realized that I had entered the life of entrepreneurship. For anyone reading this I am sure you will relate very closely to the struggles of learning how to sell yourself, make a living and learn all the painful lessons along with many no’s from hotels and planners I consistently reached out, lastly not to mention the endless free work. It was a scary start but at that point, I had no choice but to keep going. At the blowdry bar I was doing several weddings and well I realized why to give half of my money to someone when I can be working for myself. When my skills started to improve and the lessons I learned from Hands were paying off I started to look at hairstyling like a puzzle, I enjoyed the journey of seeing how hair reacts with certain products and saw how people’s face shapes can morph when you know how to create balance and on top of it all I have been a fool for love since I can remember.
Weddings became my personal endless supply of love stories. It made me fall in love with love all over again, my mother use to always tell me life wasn’t like the movies but for now, this would suffice. As weddings slowly trickled in I would fall in love more with the process of how I wanted to work with my brides. The trust I wanted to have and make them feel like I was a necessity and not an option for me only drove me to perfect my skills and like Hans said: “separate yourself from the crowd”.
After leaving the Blowdry bar and a few months into being a semi-self-employed stylist, my curiosity didn’t end. Trying to start my bridal business with no knowledge other than asking questions. I wanted to explore the creative world that Hans would tell me about, and the first place I decided to begin my search was in Los Angeles the city of dreams! With instagram just beginning to boom I was scrolling around on my instagram and suddenly I came across a “we are hiring” post from a salon in Venice, CA. Sure enough, I began my research by stalking their Instagram, the website and the owner. It so happened that everything about this salon owner reminded me a lot about Hands except a little younger and way more edgy. She was from Holand and she was the international educator for Sebastian Professional, a multi-winner of the WNA and NAHA. For those who of aren’t familiar with this they are like the Oscars for hair, only the biggest hair competitions in the hair world. So I was SOLD! I compulsively called and emailed them for an interview. With my service, I got a call back with a date. Nervous is an understatement.
The day of the first interview couldn’t have been more ridiculous for me. I walked into this black and white color scheme salon that gave naughty with goth punk vibes. The staff was a little intimidating and way too cool for me. All black everything with puck goth vibes but the sweetest soul ever. It felt like a place where the misfits gathered to create magic, it felt like home. Yet the exterior of me was “to commercial” as the owner would say. I think it all lasted 15 minutes from start to finish, I am a nervous talker that before I knew it, I realized I was the only one talking, the moment she could sneak a word from my word vomit she looked at me and asked me “So what are you applying for?” and I completely blanked and responded “I don’t know, I just saw that you are hiring and I want to work here.” she looked and me and said, “ok thank you, we will give you a callback.” If that wasn’t clear enough that I wasn’t getting the job, I don’t know what would of been. An hour later by the time I got back home I got a call back saying if I could come addition next week! Hell yeah!
The week of the audition let me remind you I was a new stylist with only basic styling skills and 50+ lady hair with zero skills to show off. So I turn to the holy grail Youtube. The night before I think I watched over 20 haircutting videos and prayed to the hair gods that something would stick and that I would be able to mimic that for my grand audition. That day I realized how good I work under pressure and I couldn’t tell you how I was able to do one haircut on my mannequin with 5 different techniques that Youtube taught me then followed by styling. I think that is what sold me to the owner, my ability to morph different looks and styles very fast. I left with a 2-week probation and if I fit in, I was hired. Let’s just say I overstayed my two weeks and a whole new world opened.
I now was commuting to Santa Barbara 3 times a week and to Los Angeles 3 times a week and eventually I was going to have to make a move and that move was Los Angeles. I traveled to Santa Barbara 2 times a week to maintain my regular clients and traveled from location to location as I also navigated my bridal business. Let’s just say I had no life balancing 3 different career avenues and sadly had to make a difficult decision to part ways with my 65 years old Mentor that became a friend.
Working in Venice with some of the most talented stylists I have ever worked with led me to what felt like I was following Hans foot’s steps. I entered hair competitions every year with the team 2 times making it to the semi-finalist and the last year I won first place in the professional category for the What’s Next Awards. That opened the door for me to then have the opportunity to do New York Fashion Week for the Christian Siriano. It was my first taste of what more can I do. I became interested in agencies that represent hairstylists, makeup artists and to other creatives and a new search began. Let’s just say I had a great run meeting artists that have been my idols and got the opportunity to assist them and work from some big campaigns. Life during this time was crazy! Yet, my bridal business was still slowly floating.
Once more I hit a fork in the road and with decisions to make. I had gotten the chance to explore long enough all of the avenues in the creative world of hairdressing enough to decide what made me happy. I parted ways with my amazing creative goth team, decided to pause my search with agencies and realized that my heart always left happy after every bride I met. So my motivation for my own business sparked all over and round two started.
I started focusing on how on my business. The list of ideas were endless and back to the drawing board with zero clues where to start. Mass emails to planners to get on their preferred vendor list and emails to Hotels and venues to get on their vendor list and the only answers I got were no. Those are some stories in themselves. Before I knew it, I did whatever it took to grow my business and quickly realized that was my golden ticket.
If there is one thing I have learned as an entreprenuer is that you can only count on yourself. Every single bride that I worked with left me with yet another lesson to perfect my process. Over time I perfected my eyes, taking each bride to face shape into consideration and collaborating with them based on what will complement and enhance their face. It’s always easy to show a picture from Pinterest or instagram and show a hairdresser “this is what I want” but the reality is most of the time when we look at a picture we are looking at a pretty face wishing we had her cheekbones and the perfect hair. That is when I realized that building a strong trust with my brides was my separating factor Hans would tell me about. It was all about teaching them and giving them all the information that truly wasn’t available to them. It was a whole new world that I needed to seize and let them know why I was a necessity and not an option for them. It was about teaching them about hair extensions and Hollywood secrets that I had gained during my time working and assisting agencies, or the creative freedom and creating hair that was bridal yet not bridal due to the techniques I learned during hair competitions. The more I perfected my formula with my brides I realized that my business was not dependent on a wedding planner or Hotel vendors list, It was the power of word-of-mouth and referrals. I believe that hair is one of the top four most important investments made on a bride’s most important day.
I have finally reached a place where my formula with brides is solid, where I feel confident in my work and now excited for the next big step in my career. There is still so much room for growth and opportunity within the industry that my wheels are turning!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
NOT AT ALL!
Being in your early 20s entering the world of entrepreneurship with zero knowledge is scary and intimidating. Not knowing where or how to start, having no connections, being ignored by people in the same industry because they don’t want to help was hard. Good thing I am someone who has “no shame” if you want to call it that to just ask a question and not care what people think of me. It’s hard to feel like no one wants to help you or make time to simply give you advice.
One of the hardest struggles thinking that wedding planners were the only way to gain business and being persistent hoping they would add you to their vendor list and hearing “no” from them.
I am glad that I can handle a no but I won’t accept it, I’ll just look for another way around it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a Bridal Hairdresser specializing in “the non-bridal YET bridal hair”. It’s not just about “natural and effortless” it’s about collaboration and being able to create a look where we can pull a little bit of editorial or runway with a touch of bridal. It’s about breaking barriers of what “traditional” should look like, NO, hair should not be stiff so it last all day, it should be organic and soft with movement.
I am most proud of my ability to bring together all of the skills I learned from my time in hair competitions, my time in agencies doing set work or campaigns and of course my time as an assistant to Hans and use all of those tools to create my own style.
What sets me apart is from other bridal stylists is that I make trust and education my main priority. I give them all the information and they get to pick what they want. It’s about them knowing that I will give them my best guidance and all the information they need. It’s shocking how little information there is for brides when it comes to the GLAM part of a wedding.
What matters most to you? Why?
Trust with all of my brides.
It’s easy for everyone to tell a bride “omg that looks so good” but at the end of the day, they need someone they trust to really tell them the truth. That is me, not only do I make it a point to gain their trust but to make them feel like they have a friend in me. One of the many beautiful things about this process is seeing how many of my brides maintain a long relationship with me because at the end of it all we gained a friendship! That is important to me.
Pricing:
- My rates start at $500 and above for just the bride
Contact Info:
- Website: www.laurarochaofficial.com
- Instagram: @_lovelaurarocha
- Facebook: lovelaurarocha
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/love-laura-rocha-los-angeles-4?uid=5RzzjBibIa6tDsMvRoN_6g&utm_campaign=www_busin
- Other: https://g.page/r/CQgZ5nQMGUdIEBM/review
Image Credits
Personal Photographer @mishanw some of the photogrpahers of wedding images @foolishlyrushingin @michaelsegalphoto @vivtoriagoldphotography @teryngreyphotography
