By Lauren Tingley
Growing up, I loved to do hair. I would brush and braid my dolls hair, and even sneak scissors into the bathroom to cut the hair and flush it down the toilet to hide the evidence that I just hacked off my brand new Barbie’s blonde mane. Fortunately for my clients, I have since improved a bit!
Growing up, I loved to do hair. I would brush and braid my dolls hair, and even sneak scissors into the bathroom to cut the hair and flush it down the toilet to hide the evidence that I just hacked off my brand new Barbie’s blonde mane. Fortunately for my clients, I have since improved a bit!
I grew up in Hopewell Cape, where wearing rubber boots and a ponytail was true Albert County fashion. I found myself doing my teammates' hair before every basketball game, fixing my friends hair before class started, and twisting my arms into painful positions just to learn a new braid. I found my passion in making someone feel beautiful when they look in the mirror. Throughout my life, people encouraged what I loved to do.
Yet when I was graduating high school, all of a sudden a lot of people had an opinion on what I should do and who I could be. I heard things like “Your grades are too high. You don’t want to go to hair school. You won’t make any money as a hairdresser.” Everyone was telling me what I wanted to do was not good enough! It was sublevel.
So what did I do? I did what many of us do. I listened to the crowd. I took time off, I worked, I saved, and I realized there was nothing more I wanted to do than follow my dream.
As a young adult, “there’s no place like home” rang so clearly. I knew I wanted to build my future on the same ground my roots were in, Albert County. That meant my business too. I wanted to benefit the well-being of our community and its future while using my own personal talents. The more amenities we have, big or small, the more we are able to grow and thrive as a community. I’m not going to lie and say it was a piece of cake, but it has taught me so much and continues to do so.
I opened my pride and joy, LT Hair Design on Main Street in Hillsborough in 2017. I have the community to thank for the support of my business and in making it successful. As a now small, local business owner, there is nothing I feel more strongly about than to support the ones around us. I encourage more young people in our area to take pride in “the little piece of heaven” we call home. I, like anyone else, am just a girl who decided to go for it.
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