Meet Kelsey Shaw

We were lucky to catch up with Kelsey Shaw recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Kelsey with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

Well, I remember one summer in high school, I was sleeping in and my dad came through my door and said, “If you think you’re going to spend all summer laying in bed, you’re wrong. You better get up and go get a job.” So I did… I’ve never WANTED to work but I knew I had to. So I guess work ethic came because I had no choice. Anytime my kids complain about doing chores or going to school, I always say, “life is full of doing things you don’t want to do. You just gotta do them. I’d much rather lay in bed all day, but that’s not an option.”

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’ve been a hairdresser for about 20 years now. I do color and cutting but extensions have always been my main passion and focus.
Years ago I did a short stint in extension education for a large company, traveling all over the US teaching a certain extension technique. When I realized the traveling was a bit too much for me, I came back to work behind the chair and keep my focus on my clients and a slower paced life.
Recently, my education passion has been sparked again. I took a class from my good friend and mentor, Kat Lewis and was taught a new method of extensions that in my opinion blew all the other methods I’d been doing out of the water. She also used me as a model for another one of her classes and wearing that method was really where I truly fell in love with them. When I spoke to my stylist friends about this new excitement I had around this method, they all were interested in learning it as well. So I decided to just put a little workshop together from what I had learned and open it up to anyone who wanted to come learn. I actually had a pretty great turn out for my first class.
Due to my kids schedule and my salon availability I don’t take on new clients. So instead of trying to advertise and getting new people in my chair, I am working on getting education hungry stylists in my classes. We call it Big Weft Energy. People keep hitting me up asking when the next class is, so I just keep putting together these great little extension demos and workshops and it’s going quite well. Eventually I’d like to do something digital so people can purchase the class internationally, so my team is working on that. But I post new class links and dates via my Instagram (@bigweftenergy) along with little tips and tricks for extension stylists. Go give it a follow to support my little education business.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three qualities, skills or areas of knowledge that are most impactful to my journey is my hunger to learn, my hunger to get super good at what I’ve learned and then my hunger to teach what I’ve learned. It’s a beautiful little cycle that is very fulfilling to me.
We all get in ruts, that’s completely normal in life. My advice is to expect that, but just push through and don’t give up because the rut won’t last long, your passion will reemerge once you give yourself a little break. Never give up.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am looking for extension brand companies to partner with for my classes. Whenever I do a workshop, all my students buy their own hair from whichever company I see fit. I then buy a bunch of items for their goodie bags to take home or to use in the class. It would be great to have the classes sponsored with an extension companies products. That would make it easier for me to put these classes together more often.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bigweftenergy @thehairshawp

Image Credits

Rikki Films Things
(Rikki Ramsey)