We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kaylie Babajan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kaylie, really appreciate you joining us to talk about a really relevant, albeit unfortunate topic – layoffs and getting fired. Can you talk to us about your experience and how you overcame being let go?
Getting fired was one of the worst days of my life. My job was, and will always be, one of the most important things to me. It’s my identity. Being a hair stylist is near and dear to my heart so when that was ripped away from me, I really panicked. The timing was awful too, I was away helping my brother with some mental health issues. I really, truly thought the owner of my salon, and I, had a beautiful friendship, not just a business relationship, but I learned in that moment that business trumps friendship every time.
I think the way that I overcame being fired was having a fire lit inside of me to do better, and be more successful than the owner of my other salon was ever going to be. I had something to prove and I was going to show her, and everyone who still worked there, what I could do. It seems a little childish now but that’s how I felt at the time and that really was what was driving me to get back up. I watched her over the years. I saw the mistakes she made, and the things she did right. I learned. A lot. And I was going to do it better.
It’s all water under the bridge now but I would say this, I wanted vengeance, I wanted to be a reason that she lost sleep. I wanted to be a regret that she had forever. I wanted her to miss my presence and really truly miss my potential. Maybe that’s all stupid now, but the for the first two years of being out on my own, it was that hunger to make people who’ve wronged me, regret it, that carried my success. And we ain’t doing to shabby over here at SDK.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Hi everyone! My name is Kaylie Babajan and I am the owner of SD Keratin, a luxury open-air keratin salon in Northpark. We specialize in smoothing treatments, which when applied to the hair. provide 3 to 5 months of frizz-free softer, smoother, shinier and most importantly, more manageable hair. Long story short, we give our clients their time back,
I got interested in keratin treatments because I was so tired of ruining hair with color and bleach. I was so tired of the stress and I truly was burnt out. I thought “This can’t be the only thing that I can do the hair.” Then I discovered keratin, which makes hair softer and shinier and actually restores hair from the inside out. Bleach damage? Gone. Over processed? Gone. Over heat styled? Gone. It’s the only product in the market that is proven to rejuvenate damaged hair. Pretty cool right? I just thought it was truly a miracle drug that was too good to be true and then years went by and my clients kept coming back and coming back and coming back with a happier, healthier, longer hair.
At SD Keratin, our goal is to provide a very inclusive environment all hair types and textures. It’s all too common that clients with textured hair don’t have anywhere to go to get their hair done in San Diego, or worse, have even been turned away for having “Too much hair.” We specialize in a treatment that helps textured hair clients have more manageability in their hair, without removing their curl and without permanently altering their natural texture. We love bringing out the best in our clients hair and we want everyone to feel included. And praised. One of our one of our mottos is “You belong here” because you do. we all do.
It’s been my dream for years to become a salon owner and just recently have had an opportunity to take over a space of an already existing Keratin Salon. Quite frankly, it seem too good to be true. There’s already huge garage doors for open-air ventilation, and in a part of town that I was very familiar with. I’m so excited to announce that Sd Keratin will finally have a brick and mortar. We will finally be expanding and teaching a generation of new stylists how to do the best treatments with the best products on every hair type.
My heart is literally over joyed thinking of how many clients we will be able to
Give the gift of time too. Time and good hair of course. At SDK, our motto is “Let us worry about your hair, so you don’t have to,” and that’s exactly what we do. We truly believe that a more manageable life can start with more
Manageable hair.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
A quality that I really had to work on to become a business owner versus an employee was to ask for help when I needed it. I am the person that’s going to do everything myself, so learning how and when to ask for help was pivotal. Asking for help for the things I really didn’t want to do saved me time to be able to do the things I really did want to do. For instance, I hate doing any sort of clinical emailing type work but I love doing reels and social media so I asked for help with things I need and I save the fun stuff for me and that makes my job just so enjoyable.
Another little thing I learned about myself was to not take on projects or things that I just really don’t like doing. I still struggle with this but anytime that I do say no to something that I know I’m not going to want to do,even though I feel bad in the moment, I never regret saying no the day of and thinking “God I’m so glad I’m not doing that.” Learning to say no, if you’re a people pleaser like me, is very very very hard and I’ve had to work at it every single day.
Lasty, I think another quality that has really helped me become successful in my specific line of work is is honing my craft and specializing in a very niche market. You can charge a lot more money when you’re an expert in something and to me that is worth foregoing offering other services in an order to really be an expert in one thing. Will I miss out on clients who were wanting a jack of all trades? Yes, but I feel like it opens my schedule up to the clients who really want a specialist and are willing to pay the price.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
Social media has really changed my business and it has really scaled my business this year so I would love to collaborate with anyone who wants to expand their social media presence. I love collaborating with other hairstylists. I think it’s so much fun to have all that different energy in the room and on screen. I also would love to collaborate, business-wise, with a plant store because I really want my salon to be a happy and healthy environment and there’s no better way to accomplish some happy, healthy plants. It’s giving, growth. Feel me?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sdkeratin.com
- Instagram: Sdkeratin
- Facebook: Sdkeratin
- Linkedin: Kaylie babajan
- Youtube: SD Keratin
- Yelp: SD Keratin
- Other: Tik tok: @sdkeratin
Image Credits
Photographer: Alexis Quintana Brittany Nelson
