June 28, 2016

Meet Downtown Hairstylist: Tiffany Bernard

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Bernard. She is a hairstylist who has seen her share of tough times before she became a full-time independent hairstylist. Through hard work and determination, this award winning stylist has made impressive progress and is working on very ambitious goals. Below you’ll find our interview with Tiffany.

Tiffany, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?

2009 is where it all started, started hair school and graduated in 2013. While still in hair school, I participated in several hair shows, and went when there were guest speakers. A couple of months before graduating I reunited with an old high school friend, Brenton Lee, not knowing he was in the hair industry. He became my hairdresser, and sooner than I knew it, I was assisting behind the chair while I was still in school. I started off as a receptionist, and ended a full time personal assistant. Within the 2 years I was trained, I was involved in a National competition; Wella North American Trend Vision Awards. I was mentored to create out of my comfort zone, I have entered competitions within beauty school, but never national or against other stylists. I feel like this is what opened doors for my career, I went through a roller coaster to compete in this competition. I would stay after hours every night to practice my look until I was confidence in perfection. Months of mentoring and training, 4 days before the competition my model cancelled on me, I was devastated and felt like it would be impossible to find a brand new model. A model that is willing to travel a weekend to Las Vegas, shave the side of her head, create 7 different shades of colors in her hair, and compete live on a runway.

I was determined to never give up, I found one overnight at 3am, and the rest was history.

July 2013, I was the new National Gold Winner for the student category for North America. Ever since then I believe everything happens for a reason, hard work pays off, and you just have to believe in yourself. Training for almost 2 years, June 2014 I became a stylist behind the chair. It was a bitter sweet moment, I worked long hours and that’s when I started to build my platform of marketing myself to build a clientele. 5 months in, a lot of changes started happening within the hair salon, and I decided to move salons. It was very unexpected, I didn’t know I was going to move so soon. I just knew it was the best decision for me at that point in time. I wanted to grow, learn more, and be happy at the same time. December 2014, I started at Union Salon South, in Pasadena, It was seriously the best decision I’ve ever made. I hustled like every other artist, I literally had maybe 20 clients and didn’t know how I was even going to survive as a stylist. I believed in myself, I worked as a bartender after work late hours, and went to school part time. I was dedicated to myself, I believed that focusing on what you really want can get you anywhere you want to be. Summer hit, I became extremely busy and decided I couldn’t handle my schedule anymore. It was time to take another risk in my life, not knowing if I was even going to be able to afford it. I hired an assistant, today it is now been since August 2015 she’s been my assistant, I didn’t think I was be as successful as I am now only being 2 years in the industry as a stylist. Believe in yourself, and anything is possible.

Has it been a smooth road?

No, it hasn’t been a smooth road, not knowing if you can build a clientele and just go with the flow is the scariest thing any stylist can go through. If your hands are not in some type of hair, we are not making money. I had got in a really bad car accident 2 years ago, not having a car for an entire year was definitely a struggle. Uber was my best friend, worked 2 jobs, and at the end of the day hard work paid off. Education is key, when you are new to the industry there is so much out there that you don’t have knowledge on. I strongly believe you cannot grow unless you are educating yourself in any shape or form.

What are your plans for the future?
My plans for the future is to work with a company, being able to represent a brand that I truly believe and stand by. Being a platform artist, is my next Goal.

I also love traveling, aside from work. I like to try to find classes to take in order to give me an excuse to travel to different states countries, and bring it back to my clients and educating them makes their visit that more interesting.

Let’s dig a little deeper into your story. What was the hardest time you’ve had?

The hardest time I can say was going through beauty school, working a full time job, and honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to do it all the way through. My days were literally 13 hour days. I didn’t have time for anything, I literally would go to work change into school uniform and study in my car right before class if there was an exam. It was like that 5 days a week, so it was pretty intense. I think the whole process from hair school, being an assistant, and trying to build a clientele is hard. You have to be really driven, motivated, and want it. I had a career change, I always knew I wanted to do hair, just didn’t get into it right away. When I went to my cousins hair show I instantly knew that’s where I belonged and needed to be. I felt like I was in a position where it was hard because you sit and think how am I going to be different? How am I going to have people convinced that I am any different from any other stylist? This industry is a big competition, and you have to be ready for it. You are your own competition, and you have to master that first. I felt like competing got me that confidence, you chose to do creative things outside of just working in a salon. That makes you different public speaking teaching other students that it doesn’t take years to be successful it just takes patience, and motivation, and the push to believe in yourself and you will get there.

My dad always pushed me so I learned to push myself and prove things to myself. I have a strong belief in faith and the universe, I put goals for myself researched in social media, took a lot of classes, competed against other amazing stylists.

Do you ever just stop and think WOW – I’ve made it?

After assisting and going through the rough path of knowing I needed to move forward with my career and grow in a different salon is when I realized I’m going to get through it, I had faith in anything and everything. I worked long days, long night’s bartending. One year later, that’s when I felt like wow, my career just launched within the blink of an eye. More so, because I started with a handful of clients only 5 months on the floor. It was a lot of hard work, and knowing I did it all without a car, I mean we live in LA it’s kind of hard to live in LA without transportation, it just gets expensive. My life was coming together I hired an assistant, I got a new car, I am my own boss. I wouldn’t say I’ve made it, because I definitely am humble, I love education teaching others how it isn’t impossible to get where you want to be, you just need to work your ass off for it. Educate yourself be humble share your secrets, I promise it all pays off and you will inspire another upcoming hairstylist.

Pricing: