January 8, 2017

Meet Chinatsu Watanabe of Cotton Hair Studio

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chinatsu Watanabe.

Chinatsu, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When I think of the Beauty Industry, The word “Hollywood” comes to my mind. Because the cutting edge make-ups and hair styles always start from Hollywood movies.
Coming to Hollywood and be a part of the beauty leaders has been my lifelong dream.

I grew up in Kumagaya, an outskirt city of Tokyo where it is known to be one of the hottest cities in Japan. Going to a cosmetology school and working in the heart of Tokyo was my first step to break out of my somewhat dull Kumagaya day-to-day life. I was 18. An energetic dreaming girl.

While working hard to steal and mimic the Tokyo’s top hairstylists skills in Aoyama and Harajuku salons for over 10 years, my dream of going to Hollywood kept growing bigger and bigger.

I decided to sell everything I had and jump on an airplane to come to LA. And 7 years later on 2013, I opened up my own hair salon in West Hollywood.

Has it been a smooth road?
After coming to LA, it took me a while to get my acts together.
I realized that I barely spoke English. I needed to find a place to live, I had to shop. I had to get a car and a driver’s license. And I had to find a school where I can learn English.
All that should have been planned while I was back in Japan.
All I had was my dream; “to be one of the beauty leaders in Hollywood.”

I’ve met many friends and mentors who helped me out to get me going.
They’ve introduced me to TV shows, movies and TV commercials hair and makeup jobs while I was learning English. I cannot thank them enough for what they’ve done to me. (and still doing to me)

I was doing hair styling and cutting hair for those who I worked with TV shows and Movies jobs. Pretty soon, I had enough clients to open up my own salon.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Cotton Hair studio story. Tell us more about the business.
Cotton Hair Studio specializes in latest Japanese salon skills.
We specialize in anywhere from Hollywood trends to unique styles to suit just for that customer.

We do Japanese style straight perms where stiff jagged hair can be silky straight. Our men’s haircut is very popular too. Many of our customers text me saying that they get compliments.
We also specialize in Japanese style head spa. It revitalizes your head blood vessels’ circulation and has your hair roots become more lively.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I can see more entrepreneurs deviating from large salons.
Individual salon rooms, such as Salon Republic, will become more popular.

As for technology, electronic shampoo chairs are already becoming smarter. In 5 to 10 years, it should function more catered toward each customer’s individual settings and even doing shampooing.
Also, visualizing the outcome should be more accurate with VR or a later technology.

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